For best experience, we recommend viewing the virtual venue in landscape orientation on mobile devices.
For best experience, we recommend viewing the virtual venue in landscape orientation on mobile devices.
The years 2021-2022 will be critical as global threats multiply from pandemic to climate change to patching up the new world disorder. With deep-rooted problems and schism through political differences, racism and hate crimes, Americans need to limit the flexing of their military muscle overseas. Withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan marked the end of an era in which USA use of military power to remake other countries. On the other hand, China, which came out of the pandemic crisis relatively unscathed, continue to develop the overhype of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The global shift of power is clearly evident as climate destruction, collapse in economic infrastructure and international insecurity have turned the world into chaos.
Humankind has suffered despair, isolation, fear and death. Chaos in Greek cosmology refers to the void state preceding the creation of universe or cosmos. Chaos precedes Gaea and Eros (earth and desire). In the state of utter confusion and disorder, we live with unpredictability and fear as we are not used to such intense catastrophe with its ripple effects.
The race for vaccines to prevent the spread of pandemic have caused further concerns. Paradoxically, as the supplies became available vaccine diplomacy and vaccine wars resulted in unequal distributions and availability on the market. Many anti-vaxxers and skeptics worried about rushed certification of vaccines. There is no assurance of the aftereffects in the long run. Despite delay and disappointment, to make matters worse, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) has many variants including Alfa (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351), Gamma (P.1), Delta (B.1.617.2), Eta (B.1.525), Iota (B.1.526), Kappa (B.1.617.1), Lambda (C.37) and Mu (B.1.621). The vaccines available cannot fully protect and most likely these viruses will be with us for a long time. What does this mean? More deaths, more vaccination for patients with more profits for vaccine markets. The vicious cycles have depleted some countries into state of crisis as governments have failed to solve calamity and chaos.
The impact of the pandemic on the art ecosystem has caused a deep slump worldwide. Facing unprecedented upheaval and fight for survival, art and creativity often seen as luxury, have been under threat. Cancellation, postponement and delay together with budget cuts and unemployment resulted in unpredictability at all levels. Challengingly, art sectors that manage to recover and reinvent themselves fastest will find innovative ways to survive.
Bangkok Art Biennale 2020 was one of the few international art events that went as planned despite the spread of the pandemic and political unrest. The theme Escape Routes was related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, Agenda 2030. Learning to survive the hard way meant facing obstacles ranging from logistical nightmare, travels and quarantine, social distancing for art viewing, on sight tours and virtual viewing online. Despite no vaccines at the time, but fortunate enough the first wave of COVID-19 was mild with semi-lockdown, over 400,000 viewers experienced the art event on sites in Bangkok with over 2.3 million viewers reached in virtual and online.
Bangkok Art Biennale 2022 under the theme CHAOS : CALM will take place during 22 October 2022 to 23 February 2023. The binary opposite of chaos and calm will reflect the zeitgeist of the confusing world we live in. Artists whose works reflect turbulence, trauma and angst remind us of fragility of life at the time of pandemic, climate change, environment detriment, politics and clashes in ideologies. In the dystopian and delusional world, the artists reveal consequences of destruction of humankind and nature from their own making.
Amidst chaos, there are glimpses of hope and serendipity as human and nature slowly come to terms with survivalism. With the immensity of detriment and destruction, ways of life will never return to what once known as normalcy. Discovery of calmness in turmoil can be unexpectedly enriching through sagacity and chance. Such process covers a wide range of demands including empathy, patience, allure and humor. Calmness and tranquility can still be experienced simultaneously in our new world of post-pandemic and upheaval.
United States
Anthony Samaniego is an American visual artist born and raised in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Cal State University of Northridge with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Economics, he worked in the entertainment industry as an analyst for Warner Brothers.
Hereafter, Anthony’s path in life dramatically changed due to an accident, which required him to relearn how to walk. During his convalescence, he became interested in photography and pursued a self-taught regime to enhance his knowledge and understanding of photographic methods and post- production editing. His early photographic subjects included the Los Angeles skyline and nature captured in the hills near his home. Enamored by film photography and seeking to share his creativity consistently on social media, Anthony became a sought after artist and cinemagraph pioneer. After reaching the acclaim of a professional photographer, Anthony shifted his talents toward 3D art.
Using innovations and techniques learned from photography,Anthony’s current work reinterprets similar subjects within 3D visualizations. These methods aim to encapsulate real world inanimate objects and interpret them into flowing memoirs of the digital space. Inspired by impressionism and surrealism, Anthony reimagines the setting, scale, and explores the perception of ethereal beauty. His work has been exhibited internationally via Bangkok Art Biennale (2022), The Space between Us (Times Square and Samsung Center, New York City, 2022), Neo Shibuya (Tokyo, Japan, 2022), Miami LIGHT exhibition (Miami, 2021), Callo City Arts Festival (Madrid, Spain, 2020). Anthony Samaniego resides and creates in Los Angeles, California.
For BAB 2022 Anthony Samaniego is showing a work in the same theme with one of his recent artworks, Memories-by-the-Sea, which allows the viewers to casually stroll through the space that evokes a sense of whimsy as if one is in a storybook. The effervescent nature of the particles mimic the early morning mists settling within this village-like beach city. Early morning tidal currents of this day establish the particle movements, while a seamless loop enchants the viewer. As our experiences become memories, towns also transform to harmonize with the shifting sands of time.
(2022)
A cognitive reimagining of life paths presenting themselves within the threads of our predestination. Opportunities arrive and depart, as do our perceptions of intelligence and beauty. This reconstruction mimics our reconceptualization of everything we once experienced and imagined as time loops onwards.
Soundscape by Esbe
Technical Information:
Point cloud derived from 1430 photos I shot in Carmel-by-the-Sea (36.55476, -121.92235). Animated in Houdini and rendered with Arnold renderer. Point counts range from 144 million to 200 million throughout the thirty second piece. Final render took 245 hours.
www.anthonysamaniego.com
Instagram: @anthonysamaniego
Twitter: @anthnysamaniego
China
Dorairolg was born in a city on a peninsula in Macau. For a better living, like most people did, her family had to leave their hometown and relocate to a new, underdeveloped place to put down roots. But this was not Dorairold’s situation. She chose to leave, becoming an outlander. Dorairolg chose to start her life and work in Taiwan for almost 6 years from now. In 2019, she graduated from Shih Chien University in Taipei, Faculty of Communication Design.
She has always thought that she is very emotional, but it cannot be denied that this is a condition for her own creation, which is the outlet for her emotional expression.
“I feel like I am pushing the boundaries of what I can perceive as a human being when I rush in and try to express a feeling that goes beyond what any language system can express, and it is also a revolutionary spirit that keeps on surviving, however, it's romantic and full of mystery”
(2022)
For BAB 2022 Dorairolg is creating an immersive world inside a single frame. Ten Ox Herding Pictures is a Taoist story about the process of human enlightenment. It is divided into 10 stages, and the artist chose the third one, which is called “Perceiving the Bull”, as the emblem of her personal experiences on perceiving the world. Dorairolg saw a bull, but did she exactly see that bull? Or convinced herself to perceive some objects and named them “a bull”? We are the problem, and how can we expect to “solve” a problem with another problem? Could we really break the circle?
Music in this film is authorized by the musician 若潭 Ruò Tán
《石》Stone (Chinese tribal drone noise, 2017)
| Stone
“From darkness to light, and light to dark, drones and noise lead to cacophonous elevation and inevitable vertiginous fall. The music of 若潭 Ruò Tán introspectively explores minimalist percussion and experimentation of the sonic textures and effects, drawing the listener through the intense, crawling abyss of consciousness. A ritual of deepening, leaving naught but emptiness in its wake.”
| 若潭 Ruò Tán
Born in Nanjing, China and lives in France now, 若潭 Ruò Tán performs in different music forms such as noise, ambient, drone, black metal, field recording, tribal, ritual, etc. Deeply rooted in traditional Asian shamanic ceremony music, he develops his sound in a proper way by using overtone vocals, drone synthesizer / effect pedals and various acoustic instruments like bells, metal pieces, flute, mouth harp, wood percussions and shamanic drums. His work reflects the ancient spirit of the wild nature, but also a mixture with a post-industrial music form.
Influences include the cult Chinese ritual / dark ambient project Enimite (Enmity), Japanese tribal / industrial / power electronic projects Vasilisk & Grim but also some experimental, traditional electronic and harsh noise artists like Mai Mai Mai, Steve Roach, Mei Zhiyong and Merzbow. 若潭 Ruò Tán had toured in Europe and Asia from 2016 to 2019, performed in Eastern Noise Congregation 2018, Nuits Dark Ritual Festival 2018 (France), Homme Sauvage Festival 2018 (France), 山火集 Festival (China), Sons Of An Older Cosmos Festival 2019 (Germany) etc. Shared stage with artists like Aerial Ruin, Arktau Eos, Common Eider King Eider, Hexvessel, Treha Sektori, 梅志勇 Mei Zhiyong, 李劍鴻 Li Jianhong, Mhönos, Nebelung, Mamer & IZ, 破地獄 Scattered Purgatory, UVB76 and Zaliva-D. He also runs the label WV Sorcerer Productions, a sino-french label focusing on various avant-garde experimental esoteric music from Asia and beyond.
Brazil
Gabriel Massan is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary digital artist. Combining storytelling and world-building techniques, Massan creates worlds and digital sculptures that alternatively simulate and narrate situations of inequality within the Black-Indigenous Latin American experience. Across 3D animation, digital sculpting and painting, single-player games, NFT’s, virtual and augmented reality experiences, the former video artist investigates notions of strangeness and ignorance regarding the imaginary of the ‘Third World’. Gabriel was a 2019 resident at the ETOPIA - Center for Art & Technology, invited artist of the 2020 "IMS Convida" at the Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS), Circa x Dazed ‘Class of 2021’ Selected Artist, contributor of the "Rotten TV" online research platform supported by “The British Council Digital Collaboration Fund”, 2022 The Photographers' Gallery "Open Space" Commission artist, 2022 X Museum's "X Art District (XAD)" Selected Artist and is the 2022-23 Serpentine Arts Technologies Digital Commission artist. Recent exhibitions include: "WORLDBUILDING: Gaming and Art in the Digital Age" (Julia Stoschek Collection, 2022); Canon! (Frieze No.9 Cork Street, 2022) and “Possible Agreements” (Mendes Wood DM, 2022).
(2022)
Inequality and violence are structured in all ambits of the passage between dissident and peripheral bodies in the "Third World". Death, as the physical end of the existence of a living being, is also consecrated as a period in life. Inequality and violence are perpetuated in the moment of death and its ceremony.
A new chance for longing to detach itself from the trauma is needful.
Homage exercises are presented through simulations of funeral reconstructions, now detached from the limits of inferior death. Essay about the carnal farewell of a grandmother, a cousin and a friend.
Thailand
Kawita Vatanajyankur’s practice examines the slippage between the human manual labor and the machines. In her performative work, she transforms herself into hybrid machine and organism, like a cyborg, and puts her body into arduous positions with repetitive actions. Her work signifies the exploitations, oppression, physical endurance and violence within the hidden background of the modern labor in the world of fast consumption.
Vatanajyankur has achieved significant recognition since graduating with a BA Fine Art from RMIT University in 2011. Her selected exhibitions include Thailand Eye (Saatchi Gallery, London, 2015); Asia Triennale of Performing Arts (Melbourne Arts Centre, 2017); Negotiating the Future The Asian Art Biennial (Taiwan, 2017); Bangkok Art Biennale 2018; Foul Play (Albright Knox Art Gallery, NY); Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories (MAIIAM Museum of Contemporary Art, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin), among others. She is the Finalist of Jaguar Asia Pacific Tech Art Prize (2015).
(2022)
Vatanjyankur’s work titled VOIDSCAPE (2022) presented in the virtual reality, seeks to discover ways in which laborers compete to survive during rapid stages of change. To question if humans are being dehumanized and becoming more like machines, the body of the artist, in this series, perform various tasks, from dyeing the yarns to ploughing the soil. Created in collaboration with Cyrus James Khan and Central Department Store, the medium brings the audience to interactively experience the new unknown worlds that questions the future of labor and environment affected by capitalism and mass production.
Credits:
Kawita x Cyrus James Khan
Presented by Central at the Bangkok Art Biennale 2022
Team:
Sound: Note Panayanggool
Curator: Sirima Chaipreechawit
Video/Motion capturing Producer: Mad Mood Production
AI Technologist: Pat Pataranutaporn
Thailand
Nakrob Moonmanas is commonly recognised as a collage artist and illustrator in Thailand. The uniqueness in his work leads to endless interpretation. The Artist selects and seamlessly blends existing artworks with local and outlandish fragments of history and culture together yielding a magnificent composition with the touch of contemporary aesthetic. Having grown up amongst the life of old city Bangkok surrounded by bloody chaotic streets, hundreds year old golden temples, distasteful constructions and western style royal palaces, Moonmanas’s passion, personal interests, experiences embedded with floods of tales and myths and have been molded into his love-hate relationship with his own root.
After university, the Thai Literature graduate started his career as an illustrator. Moonmanas has done editorial and commercial works for noted clients including Thai airways, Mercedes Benz, One Bangkok and Vogue Thailand. A move into the art world came after his intention to prove collage art is more than just 2D cut-and-paste stuff. He turned into a full time artist by sharpening his messages focusing on visual culture and the resistance of memory while trying several techniques from gilding to lenticular printing. The artist exhibited his solo and group exhibitions in art institutions and galleries in Thailand such as Bangkok Art & Culture Centre (BACC).
In 2009 Moonmanas with Naraphat Sakarthornsap exhibited their duo exhibition “The Art of Human Rights” organised by the European Union in Thailand in collaboration with the Rights and Liberties Protection Department (RLPD) of the Ministry of Justice. In 2020, Moonmanas is a laureate of Cité internationale des arts Paris. His artist residency in Paris is supported by Institut français and The embassy of France in Bangkok, Thailand.
(2022)
For BAB 2022, Moonmanas presents Dreams of Ayutthaya (2022) in BAB Virtual Venue. His inspiration is Prophetic Lament for Si Ayutthaya written by an anonymous poet in about 17th to 18th century. This poem with a mysterious origin prophesised the fall of Krung Si Ayutthaya, the glorious center of Siam, saying that it would face 16 major disasters by referencing Lord Buddha’s prophecy. Moonmanas is interested in the imagery of chaos which might be related to both political unrest at the time and contemporary Thai political context. He then creates an image of the fall of Krung Si Ayutthaya from historical evidences and memory of this city. He also uses imagery from his previous work in which he used a computational linguistics approach in resynthesising and reediting the literature Traibhumikatha (the story of the three planes of existence), the foundation of traditional Thai cosmology. The outcome is like contemplation and redrafting of dream-like blurring memories from remnants of both past and future imageries, realistic narratives and fiction-like ones.
Thailand
Nawin Nuthong is a Thai contemporary artist and curator exploring the connections between history and cultural media through a wide range of mediums. Melding myths and legends with pop-cultural references from video games, comics, and film, he examines the role technology has to play in reconfiguring the learning and understanding of history. He is a graduate from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang with a major in film studies and digital media. In addition to his art practice, exhibitions he has curated include PLATOEXPECTONUM (2017), This nor Mundane, The Mystery Shack 999 (2018), as well as MAPPA (2019). Nuthong is also presently one of the managing members of Bangkok’s iconic independent art space, Speedy Grandma.
(2021)
One day, the Old Temple, the only temple in the village, needed to be moved due to a mountain landslide. The Villagers eagerly awaited the arrival of the Engineer. Upon his arrival, he extended his tape measure. And in that very moment, all the magic the main Buddha possessed dissipated – everything… except for what was now seen within the eye of measurement.
Thailand
Uninspired by Current Events is a CG artist that posts daily surreal renders that are inspired by current events. Combining art and politics in a widely accessible style and posting the renders on their page, which quickly gained popularity in 2021 during the height of the pandemic and political unrest in Thailand. Aiming to make statements about the events of the day, their work is mostly renderings of 3D models hastily assembled together in a surreal manner, similar to those of political comics, but without the political figures and written descriptions, and instead relies on the comment section to interpret their work for them. The artist currently lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand.
(2022)
Whether due to the nature of social media, or the nature of human behavior, it seems like we have all but lost hope in modern society. We are constantly searching for means to cope with this unfortunate experience of reality, while avoiding total escapism. Visit this virtual park and try out a peaceful version of hopelessness, in hope that we can find some comfort while fighting through these trying times.
Germany
Vincent Schwenk is a 3D-Artist who has expanded his visual skills into multidisciplinary fields, from designing album sleeves, to creating corporate branding projects, as well as conference identities and digital art. After graduating with his BFA in Graphic Design from FH Augsburg he started his freelance career in art and design and acts as a director, motion designer, corporate partner and a teacher.
His work plays with physical irregularities: futuristic, candy-colored constructions, which in their artificiality possess a strong organic energy, expand their bodies through abstract spaces and fuse into fluid sculptures and installations. He is influenced by associative references to the characteristics of his close surroundings. Many of them are imbued with a narrative humour that brings a new perspective to these ordinary objects and situations of everyday life. An example of this is seen in his current series Non fungible trash. Together with Vitaly Grossmann they acted as the directing duo called VVAND where they tried to explore new visual styles. Schwenk’s work deforms pervasive spaces and transforms them into new contexts. This is done by using transformative and performative installations and converting digital sculptures into moving images. He expresses his artistic drive mostly through self initiated projects.
(2021)
I started the “When K Hits” digital fashion series in 2021.
Dancing has always been an expression of my inner self. Moving through space and time, has it always been a break-free-moment: Releasing energy, giving and sharing moments, feeling the joy of life until we‘re cocooning inwards again.
Within a digital space, ‘garments’ are no longer restricted by the demands of the human body. Instead they are liberated, limitless in the forms that they might take. Schwenk’s digital fashion transcends the body, and in doing so, broadens our limited definition of fashion by abstracting its essential components. Without the human being, fashion becomes an elevated interaction between cloth and motion, form and ideology.
Audio collaboration with Jürgen Branz & Vincent Semlinger.
Brazil
(2022)
The concept idea behind this video/experience is to observe content online while being observed through algorithms that collect our data - play with the idea of watching something that has a lot of eyes and ears to observe and listen to our movements, thoughts and online connections. Is a way to embody the big anonymous entity that surrounds and observes us on the internet.
About “_vigilante” series :
“Vigilant avatars observe the movement of others in cyberspace, remain static and distant, watching who observes and admires them. They take on different shapes by listening to and seeing those who glimpse them through the screens. Tip: don't look for answers in their eyes.”