Celebrating the 20th anniversary of CPH:DOX, a record-breaking number of seventeen immersive projects will be showcased at CPH:DOX’ INTER:ACTIVE exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg from March 15-26 2023, together with three special performances. Under the theme ‘Breaking the Code’, the selected pieces collectively question the dominant forces that colonise our imagination in an algorithm-led world and offer immersive perspectives on creativity, representation and social structures in our society.
Curated by CPH:LAB’s Head of Studies Mark Atkin, this year’s INTER:ACTIVE exhibition for the first time ever probes the intersection of gaming and art, presenting works that define the current era: game engines and AI, which are also the building blocks of the emergent metaverse. The creators behind the works are for the most part neurodiverse, non-binary, queer, marginalised and activists, subverting established visual languages in order to address our existence between the physical and digital realms from a non-heteronormative standpoint.
Mark Atkin, CPH:LAB’ Head of Studies and curator of the INTER:ACTIVE exhibition, says:
“It’s been a privilege to work with such a diverse range of artists to present this year’s INTER:ACTIVE exhibition. Each work is exploring the dominant media platforms that define the present era: games and AI. As a collection, it presents a snapshot of the current human condition with one foot on terra firma and the other in the digital realm, and they hint at the opportunities and complications this entails. These artists are all pioneering the use of the tools that will be used to create the metaverse, but as they are also activists, provocateurs, or representing marginalised viewpoints, we have to ask who is actually building the metaverse, whether these artists would find a place there, and what we need to do now to make sure that they will.”
Beyond data driven video installations
Jake Elwes’s ‘Queering the Dataset’ video installation subverts male and female representations that neural networks are usually trained with, highlighting the bias of our data-driven society. In ‘Jungle People’, Eddie Wong uses AI to fill in the blanks where there is no data, by combining neural networks with language processing models to generate images from text to create a documentary when no archive material exists.
Subversive and diversive realities
Will the emergent metaverse become a purely transactional space or a place for artists and activists where marginalised worldviews can also be accommodated? Amongst other creative responses to this question, Lauren Moffatt uses AR in ‘Local Binaries’ to showcase how people experience neurological states, making slowing down and listening an act of rebellion, whereas Andrew and Eden Kötting’s ‘The Tell-Tale Rooms’ joyfully celebrates the life and unique experience of Eden, a visually impaired, neurodivergent artist, encouraging discussion around neurodiversity and artistic expression.
Using embodiment as a radical tool to see the world differently, the VR experiences will immerse the participants in the lives of a pro-life Christian mother suffering from postpartum psychosis (‘I Took a Lethal Dose of Herbs’); an American civil rights activist fighting against housing discrimination, racial profiling and voter suppression (‘MLK: Now Is the Time’); or a man struggling with longing, loneliness and desire in a gay sauna (‘In the Mist’). Each of these worlds are subversive, challenging the viewer to reflect upon their own reactions when facing others’ experiences.
Twisted games arcade
In contrast with the often violent culture of video games, Danielle-Brathwaite Shirley and Taylor McCue are offering a medium where historically, trans people have been overlooked or have faced outright hostility. Karen Palmer uses interactivity, AI and parkour, to explore how overreaching technologies can whittle away at our freedoms with ‘Consensus Gentium’. Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Matajuegos, Superflex and Libby Heaney use digital technologies to explore how humanity is at once becoming enmeshed in both the physical and digital realms, as well as deeply entangled in the natural universe. Meanwhile, Akihito Taniguchi and Reporters Without Borders are exploring creativity and artistic freedom in the metaverse, culminating with Jake Elwes’s fierce queer paradise in a game engine: ‘The Zizi Show’.
INTER:ACTIVE Live Specials
Alongside the seventeen pieces at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, three Inter:Active Specials will be presented throughout the festival. In ‘As Mine Exactly’ a mother and son revisit the medical emergency that reshaped their lives, and the remarkable fragments that remain of that time, in an intimate one-on-one experience that blends virtual reality and performance film. Commissioned by Serpentine’s R&D Platform, ‘Hivemind’ is a knowledge game for artists to navigate the inner workings of their practice where the participants can follow along a labyrinth with Artist Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, whereas Me The Drag Queen and Jake Elwes present a unique show about queerness, cabaret, deep-fakes and AI technology, in ‘Zizi and Me’.
INTER:ACTIVE off-site
An off-site VR experience will be exhibited during the festival at Khora for a preview of Paul McCarthy’s newest virtual reality artwork: A&E. This challenging and disturbing work by this groundbreaking and influential artist invites a questioning of our way of life and is included when purchasing a ticket to the main exhibition.
Practical information
The INTER:ACTIVE exhibition runs during the entire duration of the festival March 15-26 from 12:00 to 19:30 and is open to both the public and accredited guests with a valid ticket. A single ticket gives 90 min access to the exhibition.
Read more about the exhibition, ticket reservations and purchasing here.
CPH:DOX’ INTER:ACTIVE line-up in alphabetical order:
AQUAPHOBIA by Jakob Kudsk Steensen, USA, 2023, Game, World Premiere ATUEL by Matajuegos, Argentina, 2022, Game
BLACKTRANSARCHIVE.COM/WE ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THOSE THAT ARE NOT by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, UK/Germany, 2020, Game
CONSENSUS GENTIUM by Karen Palmer, UK, 2023, Interactive film, European Premiere
ENT- (MANY PATHS VERSION) by Libby Heaney, UK, 2022, Game HE FUCKED THE GIRL OUT OF ME by Taylor McCue, USA, 2022, Game IN THE MIST by Chou Tung-Yen, Taiwan, 2020, VR
I TOOK A LETHAL DOSE OF HERBS, Yvette Granata, USA, 2023, VR, World Premiere
LOCAL BINARIES by Lauren Moffatt, Germany, Spain, Denmark, 2022, AR, International Premiere
MLK: NOW IS THE TIME by Limbert Fabian, USA, 2023, VR, European Premiere PARALLAX by Akihiko Taniguchi, Japan, 2021, Game
PSYCHOPLANKTON by Superflex, Denmark, 2022, VR
THE JUNGLE PEOPLE by Eddie Wong, Malaysia, 2022, Digital video
THE TELL TALE ROOMS by Andrew & Eden Kötting, UK, 2022, VR, European Premiere
THE UNCENSORED LIBRARY by Reporters Without Borders, Germany, 2020, Game THE ZIZI SHOW by Jake Elwes, UK, 2020, Interactive performance ZIZI: QUEERING THE DATASET by Jake Elwes, UK, 2019, Digital video
INTER:ACTIVE Live Specials line-up:
AS MINE EXACTLY by Charlie Shackleton, UK, March 18 – 26, 30 min individual slots – Kunsthal Charlottenborg
HIVEMIND with Danielle Bathwaite-Shirley in association with Trust and Serpentine’s R&D Platform. UK/Germany, March 19, 16:00 – Mezzaninen, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
ZIZI & ME by Jake Elwes and Me the Drag Queen, March 19, 17:30 – Mezzaninen, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
About CPH:DOX 2023
Marking the 20th anniversary of the International Documentary Film Festival CPH:DOX, the 2023 edition will offer an outstanding programme of 200 films by both established and emerging filmmakers as well as talks, debates, performances, exhibitions, parties and much more from 15-26 March 2023. In addition, a selection of the official 2023 programme will be available from March 24 – April 2 at the festival’s streaming platform PARA:DOX (geo-blocked to Denmark).
CPH:DOX’ industry events will include the financing and co-production event CPH:FORUM, CPH:CONFERENCE and INTER:ACTIVE Symposium. The industry programme runs under the banner “Business as Unusual” between March 19-24. Read more about the key dates and events in the industry programme here.
Further information:
Sune Blicher, Head of Communications CPH:DOX, +45 3122 2661, *****@cphdox.dk