Fellows

Artistic Mediation: Bridging the utopian gap - Valentine Bossert

Valentine Bossert ( Switzerland )

Valentine Bossert's three-month research project has been dedicated to the development of two parallel pieces, which attempt to mediate the understanding of our times' socio-political issues by questioning the critical role of art and its accessibility:

Graspomaton is a public installation in the form of a familiar piece of urban furniture. It aims at bringing art out of the institutional walls by addressing an audience of passers-by and is designed to involve local artists of any discipline. A functional prototype was built on-site from recycled materials with the help of Nora Jongen and was presented during November OpenHaus and Xmas Gütermarkt. Taking this into consideration, she is now ready to build a final mobile version and to install it in various other locations.

In parallel, Valentine Bossert developed her first collective mind maps, an attempt at making visible the complexities of our society's thought system. Two series of drawings were produced, attempting to grasp relations between concepts that constitute the mind. Further, she met practitioners in various fields of computing who were interested in helping her develop the project digitally.