RTVE
BETEVÉ
WOMAN AND DIGITAL ART
Houda Bakkali presents her series “Women and Digital Art” in six civic centers of Barcelona City Council: Fort Pienc, Can Castelló, La Guatlla, Can Verdaguer, Trias i Peix, and Can Clariana. The exhibitions open on January 11 and will close on March 30, coinciding with International Women’s Month. Each exhibition is complemented by a theoretical–practical workshop, open to audiences of all ages, on augmented reality applied to artistic creation, its uses, challenges, and opportunities.
“Through this cycle of exhibitions in Barcelona, I want to pay tribute to the female figure, to the mothers and grandmothers who left us an invaluable legacy: the fight for equality and freedom. Likewise, I seek to break stereotypes about Arab and Muslim women by featuring my mother as the protagonist, and to do so through digital art, which allows me to present the motivations behind this work in a very versatile way, using different tools such as immersive, interactive, and audiovisual spaces, as well as augmented reality and the metaverse. At the same time, it enables me to showcase the innovative techniques I work with, which are changing the paradigms of art by creating new ecosystems whose combinations are as infinite as the artist’s own imagination. These are spaces designed to inform, educate, and entertain, where marketing and communication strategies take on a particularly prominent role.
The audience, in this type of art that combines the physical and the digital, becomes more of a protagonist than ever: they observe the work, immerse themselves in it, reinvent it and complement its narratives, interact with its messages, and so on.
The application of digital tools and processes represents a dynamic and fun way of conveying the final concept, motivations, and creative process to the viewer. It generates greater usefulness and curiosity and enables very agile and enriching experiences that continue to grow,” concludes the artist.
IN THE MEDIA
Betevé Barcelona | RTVE | Cultura Digital Generalitat de Cataluña | Generalitat de Catalunya | Departament de Cultura | Revista Rambla | Experimenta Magazine | Barna Diario | RTVE Radio | Línea Eixample | El Jadí de Sarria | Barcelona Metropolis | Núvol | Experimenta | El Nuevo Herald Miami | El Diario de Centroamérica | Festes Major de Catalunya | Guía BCN | ICUB Institut de Cultura | Revista Q México | James Magazine
New technologies placed at the service of art democratize it. They bring the motivations behind the artwork, the artist’s story, and its historical context closer to the public, doing so through multiple narratives, through educational and informative resources, and through platforms capable of interweaving the visual, the sonic, the material, and the virtual. New technologies in the service of art help to communicate, inform, and entertain by using creative, versatile, and dynamic resources. The static canvas takes on a value beyond art itself, acquiring new uses and a new utility capable of growing and adapting to new spaces, stories, and participants.
BARCELONA 2023 | ART, UTILITY AND INTERSECTIONS
One of the main pillars of the series “Women and Digital Art” is to showcase the dynamic, versatile, and useful vision that digital art can offer. This can be experienced over the course of three months (from January 11 to March 30, 2023) through 30 large-format mixed-media canvases, as well as various animations, augmented realities, video creations, and a virtual space, distributed across six civic centers in Barcelona: Fort Pienc, Can Castelló, La Guatlla, Can Verdaguer, Trias i Peix, and Can Clariana.
The use of technology in the service of art makes it possible to interweave the different perspectives, figures, and settings of the 30 artworks, breaking down spatial barriers between the civic centers through augmented reality, animation, as well as multimedia and interactive elements and virtual components that also allow part of the exhibition to be experienced through the metaverse. It is a perfect intersection between traditional art and technology, in which the works come to life and gain utility, creating a creative network among these public centers in the city of Barcelona, amplifying the message through digital tools, telling the story of its protagonist through colorful and dynamic perspectives, breaking spatial limitations, demystifying digital art, and bringing its tools closer to the public.
Digital art and new technologies create a dynamic and creative ecosystem focused on strengthening communication and marketing strategies. An ecosystem that seeks impact and is based on planning, traceability, and measurable objectives.
Exhibition | Can Clariana
OUTREACH: DIGITAL TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY
The series “Women and Digital Art” is made up of 30 canvases created using mixed media techniques: acrylic on canvas, digital collage, animation, video creations, and vector illustration. In addition, each canvas has an animated version and an augmented reality piece with multimedia and interactive elements. All the artworks are original and unique.
Digital art presents both challenges and opportunities for artists. It is also a powerful communicative, marketing, and playful tool that allows for greater audience engagement with artistic creations.
The exhibition series “Women and Digital Art” aims to break stereotypes surrounding digital art by showcasing some of its tools and by promoting debate and reflection on its challenges and opportunities. Augmented reality, NFTs, artificial intelligence, and metaverses are among the challenges facing both artists and audiences.
For this reason, the cycle of exhibitions in Barcelona’s civic centers includes a theoretical practical workshop that explains how to create augmented reality, how to apply it to artistic creation, and what uses it can have beyond the realm of art.
Workshops on Digital Art, Augmented Reality, and New Technologies Applied to Art in Barcelona’s Civic Centers, 2023
CANVASES THAT COME TO LIFE AND MUCH MORE
“Digital tools, such as augmented reality, allow artworks to come to life. In this sense, the viewer is faced with the duality of the traditional and the avant-garde. The canvases invite reflection on the versatility of digital art; they allow viewers to enter the artwork in multiple ways, to enjoy it from ever changing scenarios that recreate countless stories, shift characters, and grow over time. These are works that exist in a specific physical context but, through technology, can also make the leap and be discovered in virtual environments.
This multiplicity enriches the artwork, diversifies its formats and containers, and creates different environments in which the public can choose which version or versions they find most convincing, most entertaining, or most useful. This is the magic of digital technology which, when well used, adds value, enriches, and surprises the viewer. It provides artists with tools to create more dynamic, fluid works, capable of breaking spatial and temporal barriers, weaving together stories and places, allowing the artwork to exist in any space and at any time always evolving, adapting, and engaging with the new challenges of digital art. They can also be a powerful tool for marketing, communication, and outreach: art that educates, informs, and entertains,” comments Bakkali.
Augmented Reality and Canvases | Fort Pienc Civic Center
USEFUL, ACCESSIBLE, AND UNIVERSAL ART
“Art should be a universal asset. Reaching the public is the ultimate goal of my work: allowing people to understand the motivations behind it, the tools I use, my creative process but above all, to see it, touch it, hear it, and immerse themselves in it. Public spaces are the perfect settings to share my creations, as they allow me to bring my work and creative process closer to people in an open and accessible way. The best way to democratize art is by sharing it. Working with digital tools enables me to create more sensory projects. Technology humanizes my work. I create with the audience in mind, thinking about how to connect with the viewer. Whatever the subject of my work may be, I always seek to convey an optimistic, festive, and hopeful vision sometimes even ironic, with a touch of frivolity so that imagination can soar and there is room for carpe diem.
I like to create works that are easy to understand; I seek the power of beauty, intense colors, and rhythm. Art, ultimately, is everything we can imagine and more it is also spectacle. I like my work to have that element of spectacle and spectacularity, to surprise people and to ensure they have a good time while approaching my work, to spark curiosity not only about the artwork and its motivations but also about the creative process. I create festive compositions, aiming to convey messages through a kind, playful, and dynamic vision that invites the audience to experience them from within, to play with them, and to follow their evolution over time. I like to offer the viewer not only all the versions of my works, but also the best version of each one. I believe in the usefulness of art, and nothing is more useful than entertaining, sharing knowledge, telling stories through a hopeful and colorful perspective, and making those who visit my exhibitions happy,” comments Bakkali.
