When art meets technology

When the Cambridge Analytica scandal erupted, it didn’t take Kristoffer Gansing by surprise. His reaction matters because after all, he is the artistic director of the transmediale festival in Berlin. The 30 year-old festival probes connections between art and digital culture and had its 2015 edition titled ‘Capture all’ dedicated to data. “For me it isn’t just the issue of rights. It is also about technology. Today, companies are driven by data. One thing is to say that we don’t want to contribute data and other is to ask what kind of society we want to create? Do we outsource everything? I think artists, cultural thinkers can contribute to this discussion,” says Gansing, sipping a cup of masala chai at Cafe Max in Max Mueller Bhavan, a couple of hours before delivering“transmediale – art and digital culture at face value’.

Gansing feels that more people are getting aware of the challenges of technology today like surveillance, data leaks but these threats have been lurking for almost a decade.

The cultural producer is a regular to India and is familiar with the work of art collectives working with media such as CAMP, Raqs Media Collective and Sarai. In his latest trip to the country with family, Gansing is mixing work with pleasure and looking around for artists and interesting projects for the next edition of transmediale, scheduled to be held in January 2019. Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Jaaga and Experimenta film festival of experimental films figure on Gansing’s list. Gansing has been speaking about post-digital culture for sometime now. “Post digitality has always been around in India. The West thought that with digital, analogue will cease to exist which didn’t happen. Here, the analogue co-exists with the digital. I feel, the term ‘Post digital’ could have been inspired by India.”

He also points out that media art doesn’t exist as a different category in India. “There is no special media arts scene because there are no divisions here. Media art emerged as avant garde, rise of experimental media but today so many artists work with media. In the west, they gained institutional framework but it is more hybrid here.” Talking about transmediale, Gansing says, it was made by people who wanted to break the monotony of the screening-based film festival. Over the years, the festival has evolved to include conferences, programmes and exhibitions. The 2019 edition of the festival, according to Gansing, will be educational. The idea is to be be less representational and more inclusive. “We also don’t want to be seen as working from one edition to other. We want people to be aware of how transmediale is not just about a festival. We are continuously and critically engaged with technology.”