This one-day conference will include contributions by curator and producer Vardit Gross, artists Agnieszka Kurant and Miri Segal, editor Nicola Trezzi, and curator and philosopher Avi Lubin.

Trying to avoid a specific position, the conference will gather conflictive positions as well as disparate points of view, trying to understand and decode our current reality in which digital technology and capitalism seem to have created a flirtatious and interestingly dangerous marriage.

Using the field of visual art as a study case, each participant will contribute with a lecture that will highlight several possible interpretations of the aforementioned reality: from the power of social networks in contemporary art to how artists are investigating the notion of immaterial capital; from artworks that function as “big data miners,” to how the art system is reacting to the digitalization and dematerialization of its own fabric.

Taking its title – “Phantom Capital” – from a term coined by artist Agnieszka Kurant, this conference is the culmination of several conversations and common interests within the leadership of Artport Tel Aviv, Bezalel Master of Fine Arts (MFA) and The Postgraduate Fine Art Program at Hamidrasha. Furthermore, it premieres a unique collaboration between these three institutions, which exist to support art-making and to empower artists in order to give them tools to achieve their goals, realize their dreams and fulfill their desires.

Agenda

9:30–10:00am Gathering and coffee

10:00–10:30am Introduction by Nicola Trezzi

10:30–11:15am “Never Mind Big Data,” by Miri Segal

11:15am–12:00pm “Phantom Capital,” by Agnieszka Kurant

12:00–12:45pm Lunch break

12:45–1:30pm “Social Power” by Vardit Gross

1:30–2:15pm “On the tip of my finger,” by Nicola Trezzi

2:15–2:30pm Coffee break

2:30–3:30pm Roundtable with Vardit Gross, Agnieszka Kurant, Miri Segal

and Nicola Trezzi, moderated by Avi Lubin

The Conference is free and open to the public

All sessions will be held in English