SMTH TECNOLOGÍA CREATIVA S.L., a company specializing in new technologies and digital experiences (www.smth.es), in collaboration with the non-profit association MMMAD Madrid’s Urban Digital Art Festival (www.mmmad.art) and with the sponsorship of Nhood (www.nhood.com), announces the first international digital art competition for the screens of the Vialia Vigo shopping centre and station, located in the city of Vigo, Galicia, Spain.

Landscape is, by etymological definition, a part of a territory that can be observed from a certain place. This implicitly names the existence of two antagonists: someone who looks and something that is looked at. Landscape is also one of the most important pictorial genres in the History of Art, with infinite works, techniques and authors who have attempted to encapsulate the territory, the eco-political relations that construct it and its inhabitants over time. These landscapes require an observer, but also a ‘creative someone’.

In contrast to the pictorial landscape, the digital landscape is ubiquitous. It can be in one or thousands of places at once. Its territory is ‘the cloud’. Its creation can be individual or collective. These landscapes do not depend on gravity or physical forces that manipulate it, but on the code that constructs it. Digital art opens up infinite possibilities to create new landscapes in perpetual transformation, either present or future, either real or imagined. It opens windows to other worlds to explore not only aesthetically, but also politically and socially, all the spaces we inhabit.

In our post-digital society we need to address the relations between digital, biological and cultural systems, between virtual and physical spaces, between the virtual and physical space, between technological and tactile experiences, between virtual and augmented reality, between roots and globalisation, between autoethnography and community narrative. In this context, we are looking for works that explore the creation of new post-digital landscapes.

The landscape of the city of Vigo has been transformed by the construction of Vialia Vigo, a new 122,000 m2 macro-building designed by American architect Thom Mayne, which acts as a new ‘gateway’ to the city. A train and bus station, a shopping centre, a park and, now, a digital art exhibition space.

It is in this new location where five innovative large-format screens, new communication devices created by SMTH, will host a new digital art exhibition programme from today.

From all the works received, a jury of experts will select the five best, which will receive a 1.500,00€ prize each and will be exhibited at Vialia Vigo from December 20th 2021 to February 20th 2022. Faced with the delocalisation of the digital world, in this first edition they are looking for artists and creators who have a special link with this place. Of the five selected artists, at least two must have been born or currently reside in Galicia.

Further information: post-digital-landscapes.art