Transcultures and the European Pepinieres of Creation are happy to participate in Smart City of Casablanca via artists and intermedia projects supported by the centre and its partner network promoting international collaborations for the contemporary artists. After Marc Veyrat/La Société i Materiel and Gaëtan Le Coarer, it is Fred Chemama and Alain Wergifosse who are this time invited to present contextual installations (+presentations).
The eighth edition of “Casablanca Smart City” organized by Casablanca Events and Animation is placed under the theme: “From the Smart Citizen to the Smart Metropolis”. This theme asserts itself in the face of the idyllic vision of “smart” cities based solely on technology, highlighting the insufficiency of this approach in the face of current urban challenges.
Casablanca Smart City 2024 proposes to rethink and reposition the concept of “smartness” at the heart of the smart city, in the context of human development and integrated territorial planning. Faced with the limits observed by the “technologization” of urban spaces without any real impact on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), emphasis will be placed on the need to understand the forms of intelligence present at all urban scales, in order to place the citizen at the center as a strategic actor in a smart metropolitan transformation.
EROSION & RESONANCE
Immersive sound and generative video installation
EROSION & RESONANCE is an immersive installation, a resonant space composed of self-generative videos and interactive feedback sound, in which the visitor is submerged in a strange and hypnotic world of moving textures which form imaginary and hypnotic geologies, made of pure vibration.
With the support of Transcultures and European Pepinieres of Creation.
Alain Wergifosse (Be)
Belgian video artist and experimental musician having resided in Barcelona for 30 years, Alain Wergifosse has participated in countless sound projects solo and with groups such as Obmuz, Macromassa and Specop (in Spain).
For 10 years, he created interactive sounds and music for Marcel.lí Antúnez (founder of La Fura dels Baus). He co-organized the LEM and NoNoLogic festivals in Barcelona and published 3 albums: “Deep Gray Organics” in 1999 on the Geometrik label (Es), “Flux & Densités” in 2020 and the CD (+ booklet) “Spectres & Neons ” in 2022, both published by the Transonic (Be) label. In 2010, he composed the music for the film “Petite anatomy of the image” by Olivier Smolders.
He has produced numerous videos and immersive and sound installations regularly supported by Transcultures (and the City Sonic and Transnumériques festivals), the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and also, among others, by/for KIKK, Recyclart (Be), Zone Libre, European Pepinieres of Creation, and Vidéoformes (Fr), as well as concerts and sound and visual experimentation workshops.
Camera Obscura Gigantis - Fred Chemama (Fr/Be)
Interactive and immersive video installation
Entering the Camera Obscura Gigantis is above all venturing into an obscure place, where a sound atmosphere reigns that evokes phantasmagoria and the 19th century.
The visitor becomes the creator of the visual universe in which he will bathe since he has the ability to produce a bright image on the walls of the room, alone or with several people, using simple light sources.
Camera Obscura Gigantis is an immersion in a giant photographic darkroom that has become photosensitive on its internal walls.
Using flashlights provided, the user creates a visual composition between photography, painting and writing, in black and white or monochromatic colors.
successively, on all surrounding surfaces and in a fun way.With the support of Transcultures and European Pepinieres of Creation.
Fred Chemama (Fr/Be)
Photographer, videographer, and multimedia artist, Fred Chemama, also known as 眯腊 (mira), is a multidisciplinary artist who studied audiovisual production at ESRA Maroc and photography in France. He currently lives and works between Belgium, France, and his travels that lead him to encounter other artists and cultural institutions across Europe and beyond.
In the final year of his academic journey, he traveled to Mexico to create a series of underwater portraits of fishermen from the state of Oaxaca, using a reportage camera and an original waterproof casing. These portraits are now immersed in luminous casings where they decompose underwater, a process ongoing for several years. Over time, he has undertaken several long-exposure self-portrait projects.
Action, encounters, and a self-reflective approach towards capturing imagery from reality lie at the core of his artistic pursuit. This has led him to occasionally adopt an iconoclastic stance and create transient on-site installations using discarded ink ribbons sourced from souvenir photo booths.
Preconceived actions carried out collectively and the exploration of diverse processes in producing images "drawn from reality" stand as focal points of his initial approach, already casting doubt on the authority of photographic imagery as an informational conduit and instead, transforming it into what he truly feels: a pretext for the poetic gathering of individuals.
Today, 眯腊 continues to engage in experiments at the intersection of photography, video, and digital arts; exploring the realms of the body, light, movement, situation, and place within an approach connected to bodily action.
His recent projects of interactive installations ("cyclo-kino," the "Gestographer," the "Fōz machine"...) blend disciplines, mediums, and transcend them into playful and intriguing devices.
Morocco Numerica
New production and distribution structure that acts as a transdisciplinary crossroads where various artistic practices intersect: digital arts, virtual and augmented realities, sound art, robotic art, cinema and theater, plastic and visual arts, dance and choreography, video and performance, circus, street art, music and songs, literature and poetry, architecture and urban planning, design and communication, ...
Morocco Numerica actively participates in the democratization of digital technology while developing new audiences, in order to promote access to digital art and culture for various audiences. The center works to particularly support young creators in the fields of image and electronic digital arts, those working in the intersecting territories of art, technology and science, and this through the establishment of Fab-Labs, advanced training and artist residencies.
Morocco Numerica is one of the privileged partners of Transcultures and European Pepinieres of Creation in Morocco.
Infos
- 05 > 10.06.2024
- Hyatt Regency Casablanca
- Place des Nations Unies, Casablanca 20000, Maroc
- Morocco Numerica – casablancasmartcity.com
Production
- Alain Wergifosse & Fred Chemama are supported by Transcultures and the European Pepinieres of Creation
- Smart City is a “Casablanca Events et Animation” production with numerous partners, under the high patronage of King Mahamed VI
- casaevents.ma
