St. Petersburg
November, 11–23
Artists: Galina Alferova, Semyon Koltsov (Russia), Karin Andersen (Germany), Anestis Anestis (Greece), Grigory Kirgizov (Russia), Alina Kugush (Russia), Jeremy Couillard (USA), Alexandra Lerman (USA–Russia), Nataliya Lyakh (France–Russia), Alexander Pogrebnyak, Anton Shchegolev (Russia), Danita Pushkareva (Russia), Miriam Simun (USA)
CYFEST, one of the biggest international media art festivals in Eastern Europe, was founded by a group of independent artists and curators in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 2007. Since its inception, CYFEST’s main concerns have been to examine the dialogue between new and traditional visual languages and to show technological achievements via artistic transformation. CYFEST unites art professionals, artists, curators, educators and thinkers, programmers, engineers, and media activists all over the world, and expands contemporary art, intertwining it with various disciplines of science and technology.
The festival program includes several exhibition projects, sound art, video and educational programs.
Over 70 participants from 17 countries will take part in CYFEST-13. They include Anton Vidokle, artist, curator, participants of Document 13 and the 56th Venice Biennale, founder and chief editor of the e-flux journal; the art group and pioneers of Russian science art Where Dogs Run; sound artist, media archaeologist, designer of musical instruments Boris Shershenkov; Austrian artist, participant of the Ars Electronica festival Rebecca Merlic; Italian researcher and interdisciplinary artist Emilio Vavarella; experimental musician from New York and former curator of Harvestworks Hans Tammen and more.
Jeremy Couillard’s projects:
Jeremy Couillard (USA)
Alien Afterlife: Let’s Play 2056, 2017
video
In the video a woman from the year 2056 has discovered the video game “Alien Afterlife” by Jeremy Couillard at a flea market. In this dystopian future, smart cars began speculating on real estate and bought all the property in the city, forcing humans to live in exile. The character in the video decides to record a playthrough of the mysterious video game in order to monetize it on YouTube to get a little extra money to survive. In the video she tells us what her life is like while commenting on her journey through the strange digital world.
Jeremy Couillard (USA)
JEF_Stream, 2020
video
This is a live recording of a video game stream and chat by well known streamer, Vinesauce, playing artist Jeremy Couillard’s game “JEF”. In the game, the character escapes to an alien colonized Earth where formerly wealthy citizens are forced into labor camps in Ikea stores where they have to put together furniture for regular people. The video captures a live moment of the “Art World” and “Video Game World” interacting. As things in the game get more overtly leftist and strange, the chat in the stream grows increasingly hostile toward Couillard and his game while the streamer tries to awkwardly navigate his playthrough.
