Dark matter is a mysterious substance that, along with dark energy, forms the vast majority of the universe. It does not interact with electromagnetic forces and therefore it does not absorb, reflect or emit light. Physics estimates that 70 percent of the universe is dark energy and 26 percent dark matter. But that is almost everything that is known. The fact is that dark matter is invisible to our eyes and even our current advanced technology cannot capture it. The fundamental essence underlying our universe is hidden to our senses. Despite the gargantuan progress made to construct new instruments that go beyond human scale, it remains a mystery of what makes up the invisible around us. As one of the great scientific questions of the present day, dark matter can be taken as a metaphor for what the hidden valleys of knowledge are. In an era defined by the power of modelling and simulations, dark matter can be seen as a symbol of the limits of our cognition and experience.
Touch Me Festival 2017: The Invisible Around Us refers to these hidden events and phenomena that cannot reach us at any degree of perceptual significance. What are the invisibles and the unknowns that construct our universe? How can the traces of hidden realities be guessed? What does science provide and how can non-systematic languages contribute to this search? How can we imagine something that is there but exists beyond our comprehension? And how can they be imagined and thought of as multiple identities and non-scientific forms?
Touch Me Festival 2017: The Invisible Around Us intends to explore these ideas and uncertainties through the work of the artists in the exhibition. The exhibition places the proposal of these artists within the wider cultural context in which science and technologies play a crucial role in defining the limits of our senses and experience. We are particularly interested in observing how artists define, design and build up creative models, tools and scenarios for exploration of the astounding events that underlie within the core of nature.
Artists in the exhibition are Alfonso Borragán (ES), Ale de la Puente (MX), Kerstin Ergenzinger (DE), Martin Howse (UK), Semiconductor (UK), Vanessa Lorenzo (ES/CH), Yunchul Kim (KR), Filip Borelli (HR), Iva Ćurić (HR), Ana Sladetić&NikaJurlin (HR) and MOON (aka) Martina Zelenika. The visitorswill be invited by them to engage in fieldwork exploration, to probing our environment through elusive sound and media, to visualizing theoretical models through digital means, to imagine and sense fluids dynamics exposed to our sight, or to track and perform chemistry processed in order to reveal the image of the self from within.
Touch Me Festival 2017: The Invisible Around Us iscurated by Mónica Bello in collaboration with KONTEJNER. It is part of the on-going collaboration of KONTEJNER and Arts at CERN in partnership with the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb – Zagreb Municipal Office for Education, Culture and Sport, “Kultura nova” Foundation, Goethe-InstitutKroatien, Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation and Arts Council Korea.
