Re-connect Art: Virtual Body of Society

Taking place from 13 to 30 July 2023, the Re-connect Art international festival will offer both Prague citizens and visitors to the city’s public spaces an encounter with contemporary Czech and international art – installations, live performances, and multimedia works. Subtitled “Virtual Body of Society”, the third edition of the festival will explore how the digital layer of life affects the functioning of communities on both a local and a global scale.

Re-connect Art will present works by both established and internationally recognised artists and the younger generation while offering opinions from multiple different environments of the world’s art scenes. Facilitating a comparison of diverse artistic approaches that grow from different cultural contexts, it has a great potential to appeal even to people who might otherwise not venture into a gallery to experience contemporary art. Participating artists include VestAndPage, Armando Rotondi and Guy Bar-Amotz, Sharona Florsheim, Marie Tučková, Tereza Kerle, Markéta Kinterová, Jakub Krejčí, Anneliek Nieuwland, Mothers Artlovers, Martina Chudá, Yoryos Styl, Ageliki Tsoupra a Katerina Kasidiari, Yasmin Goldshani, Shadi Harouni, Mandana Moghaddam, Kianoush Farid, Soroush Sanaei, Shimay, Karíma Al-Mukhtarová, Farma v jeskyni, Aliaksandra Yakubovskaya. In addition, more than 420 artists from 59 countries applied under this year’s open call.

Visitors will have an opportunity to see works of art within walking distance along three main routes, including locations such as the National Theatre Piazzetta; the Stone Bell House (Prague City Gallery), Hořejší Embankment and Cell 17; (A)VOID Gallery at Rašín Embankment; Trade Fair Palace, National Gallery Prague; Prague Creative Centre Gallery; Kampus Hybernská; X10 Theatre; Quadrio Shopping Centre; and other sites.

The festival’s accompanying programme includes workshops, performative lectures, and open-air screenings of selected video art with commentaries from authors and curators. Public debates will open a discourse on artificial intelligence and latest technologies in art and life from various viewpoints including scientific, artistic, journalistic, etc.

The Virtual Body of Society theme explores the aspects of the functioning of communities in a post-digital world, or the way that virtual communities in turn transform social structures and functions of communities in the physical world.

“We are interested in questions regarding the future of society whose shared neural tissue, collective memory, and sensory experience are evolving dynamically. How much do digital communities differ from physical ones? How do they permeate each other, and what does this interaction do to the world? What are the consequences of increasing exchange, replication, and modification of information as part of the digital transformation of society? We are interested in the influence of the evolution of virtual communities on the political, social, and cultural dynamics of both global and local communities and on their psyches,” say festival curators Jitka Hlaváčková and Elis Unique. The curatorial board also involves Helena Kontová, the director and founder of the Prague Biennale, art theoretician, curator, and publisher of the globally renowned Flash Art contemporary art magazine.

The festival’s theme is also reflected in its hybrid format – events will take place live in the streets of Prague and, in parallel, will be streamed on the festival website and to institutions abroad: Jelsa Art Biennial, Croatia; Festival des Arts Mutants, France; Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art, Poland; and several Czech Centres.

The festival represents the continuation of the 20-year history of the Prague Biennale project. As a standalone format, it was founded in 2021 in response to the pandemic restrictions that put a stranglehold on cultural operations. Accordingly, Re-connect Art aimed to contribute towards reconnecting artists, institutions, and audiences and bring life to the public space that was made empty and anonymous by the anti-pandemic measures. The live stream format has proven highly relevant, broadcasting artists’ performances to screens and LED panels installed in numerous physical locations in Prague’s public space and on the festival’s website and Facebook page. This hybrid form allows for works of art to be presented directly in the public space as well as remotely. Even though the specific pandemic restrictions, for which the festival was envisioned, have happily passed, this format has been embraced by participants, partner entities, and the general public alike, as it made an authentic experience and connection possible regardless of the physical distance between those involved. This is why developing and adapting contemporary technologies for the purposes of art has been the goal of the festival’s organisers, and will remain so for the future.