viral human. public art and metaverse.

VIRAL HUMAN and the announcement: “Public art and metaverse. First Virtual Exhibition on the island of Venice” From 3 November 2022 to 30 April 2023 it is possible to participate in the Call for submissions: “VIRAL HUMAN – Public Art and Metaverse. First Virtual Exhibition on the island of Venice”, dedicated to Visual Arts and Contemporary Music.

The Call is made and promoted by MiRNArte S.r.l, a company that produces and develops Contemporary Art projects, in collaboration with Creative Motion, a multimedia production studio that produces documentaries and innovative digital projects, both based in Pescara, (Italy). The Call for Participation will allow selected artists from the Visual Arts and Contemporary Music macro-sectors to virtually exhibit their work within the Viral Human artistic project, conceived by the multimedia artist Sara Grilli.

Viral Human is a multimedia installation virtually spread on the island of Venice, that travels in parallel between two historical eras, the Plague and Covid. The visit itinerary unfolds like a treasure hunt through an app that, like a time capsule, guides the visitor in an immersive and interactive experience.

The project is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, the Ugo and Olga Levi Foundation and prestigious collaborations such as the well-known theatre director Matteo Belli, the Department of Ancient Music of the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory, the Venice State Archives, the Venice Civic Museums Foundation, the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and the Pantakin Theatre Company – comedy circus theatre events.

Participants in the Call who pass the pre-selection will be able to virtually exhibit their work in a place in the city of Venice of their choice, becoming part of an international collective exhibition, which will start on 17 July and end on 2 November 2023. The Viral Human project and the works of the artists will be available through the mobile application. At the end of the art exhibition, a jury composed of members of the sector, including the well-known artist Fabrizio Plessi, the Director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, Riccardo Caldura and the composer and conductor Carlo Boccadoro, will award the first three classified artists of the Visual Arts and Contemporary Music sections the final prizes that can be consulted in the Call for Participation. The visual arts category involves: painting, sculpture and installation, photography, video art and short films, performance, digital art, cartoons and graphics, environmental art, street art and design. The contemporary music category entails: emerging contemporary music composers (concrete, electro-acoustic, minimalist, postmodern, experimental, electronic, spectral, high-art music, jazz, ethnic, folk, indie, rock, pop); composers of sound installations, possibly including site-specific installations; composers of radiophonic works (Radio opera, Radio drama); composers in the audiovisual setting (video art, cinema, theatre, installations); performers of contemporary vocal and instrumental music; experimental performers (DJs / turntablists / controllerists / beatmakers, and performers of live electronics) interested in the theatrical aspects of performance; performers (sopranos, clarinettists / harpists/ percussionists).

THEME It was during the night of 25 June 1575 that the first plague infection occurred in Venice. The night, standing in the middle between the finished day and the tomorrow that will come, turns into a moment of transition, a metaphor for long internal journeys. Viral Human is precisely this: the invitation to walk on an area of 7.6 square kilometers full of artists involved in existential, political, social questions, but also dreams, hopes, utopias. Travel, research, discoveries, are the key words of this call for artists.

Imagine the Venice of 1500 on the map of Jacopo de Barbari. Now imagine the same map visible on your smartphone screen and mysteriously marked with pins. Some places are highlighted to show a path, a treasure hunt between the bridges, the lanes, and the fields of a late Renaissance Venice. Imagine that among those secret places is hidden an army deployed in defense of the city as a metaphor for life. Each of them: an artist who fights the spread of an evil with the weapon of music, performance, sculpture… You decide what you want to fight for and how you want to fight: the theme of the call is free.

Remember the first watchword: Viral. Expanding, spreading, disseminating, diffusing, cross-pollinating. Actions conceived for artists and musicians who are the forerunners of our time, explorers of art 4.0, accomplices and advocates of change.

The second watchword, “Human” enshrines the concept that, in the world, what makes human beings unique and at the same time brings them close is the singular and shared way of feeling existence, in the presence of which there is no ethnicity, no continent, no past or present. The human species responds to life cyclically and universally.”