Dialogue and an exploration of media art languages is, once again, the main focus at EXPANDED BOX, sponsored by BEEP/Data Logic. From a renewed perspective, this programme, specialised in art and new technologies, takes a step further in its mission to reflect a process of unstoppable expansion of art practices towards new formats and contexts. This year, the programme has been divided into two: STANDS, a space set aside for large format installations, curated by the art critic and independent curator Domenico Quaranta; and CINEMA, a monographic section dedicated to video art, selected by the independent curator Carolina Grau. Besides, for the first time at ARCOmadrid, this section includes a series of conversations grouped together under the title of STUDIO; a place at the service of artists which can take the form of a forum, a debate, a dialogue, a monologue, an improvisation or a conference.

STANDS, multi-format installations
Gallery: ARC PROJECTS
Country: Bulgaria
Artist: Thomson & Craighead
Description of project: In Unprepared Piano, a Yamaha disklavier grand piano is connected to a database of music MIDI files appropriated and compiled from all over the web. This library of electronic scores is then “performed” automatically according to a simple set of rules. The musical scores found online contain a wide variety of instrumentations and are not generally intended simply for piano, so our Unprepared Piano is told to perform each piece from beginning to end by randomly picking and choosing from its different parts.

Gallery: ERNST HILGER - hilger contemporary
Country: Austria
Artist: John Gerrard
Description of project: Grow/Finish Unit (Eva, Oklahoma), 2008 is a detailed representation by the Irish artist of an unmanned pig production site near to Boise City (Oklahoma, USA), bringing to a conclusion a sequence of works that includes Dust Storm (Dalhart, Texas) 2007 and Animated Scene (Oil Field) 2007.

Gallery: FABIO PARIS ART GALLERY
Country: Italy
Artist: Ubermorgen.com
Description of project: The EKMRZ Trilogy is a complex proposal developed over the last two years, integrating three projects based on a subversion of the interfaces of three giant digital corporations: Google, Amazon and Ebay.

Gallery: FORTLAAN 17
Country: Belgian
Artist: Lawrence Malstaf
Description of project: Compass explores the interactive interface and the human-machine in which the public can experience specific or abstract situations. Instead of an indirect experience like contemplating an action (somebody else’s experience) or a photograph (an external object), the visitor has a chance to become a key part of the event.

Gallery: MS
Country: Spain
Artist: Esther Mañas & Arash Moori
Description of project: a recent work by this collective who investigate the use of sound within the expanded field of sculpture, as well as methodologies based on processes, using architectural emplacements and found materials as a means of response and reaction.

Gallery: ONE AND J. GALLERY
Country: Korea
Artist: Kim Jongku
Description of project: a recent work by the Korean artist who works with steel powder to create horizontal calligraphic works. The result are landscapes registered by photography or video cameras. The powder is then used to create paintings by fixing it using poly-glue and water, opening up the future process of rusting.

Gallery: PROJECT GENTILI
Country: Italy
Artist: Joan Leandre
Description of project: In At My Limit: In the Name of Kernel, 2006, this pioneer of software art filters our relationship with reality through hyper-real interfaces. The installation includes high definition video, digital printing and texts.

Gallery: VADEHRA ART GALLERY
Country: India
Artist: Pors & Rao
Description of project: Arrow Wal l is a project responds to the position and movements of the spectators moving throu
ghout the space. It creates a strange and perhaps inaccessible reality, populated with devices that could belong to our everyday life, parodying Pop culture’s attraction to electronic gadgets and their aesthetic.

CINEMA, a look at video creation
+++Programme Cinema 1
Gallery: MIRTA DEMARE
Country: Holland
Artist: Katarina Zdjelar
Description of project: Everything is Gonna Be, 2008 (3’ 35’’), is based on a new song performed by an amateur choir from the Lofoten islands in the north of Norway. Zdjelar is interested in the process, in the making, improving the performance, and in the production of the collective based around individual voices.

Gallery: MOISÉS PÉREZ DE ALBÉNIZ
Country: Spain
Artist: Iñaki Garmendia
Description of project: Kolpez Kolpe, 2003 (24’ 00’’), narrates how, in November 2002, the artist recruited five young Taiwanese for a series of intense rehearsals to prepare them to perform Radical Basque Rock songs, a movement including groups like Zarama and Kortatu, among others, in an experience somewhere between video art and performance.

+++Programme Cinema 2
Gallery: GEORG KARGL
Country: Austria
Artist: Andreas Fogarasi
Description of project: In the video Public Brands – La France, 2008 (3’ 00’’), the images of 26 regions of France parade before the viewer, representing various landscapes and local identities, underscoring the fact that public sector industries and tourism follow the guidelines laid down by private corporations by trying to sell places as brands.

Gallery: MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY
Country: USA
Artist: Amar Kanwar
Description of project: Henningsvaer, 2006 (15’ 08’’) is about being in exile and the thin line that can exist between paradise and prison. Filmed entirely through glass, this film is located on the famous cod fishing island of Henningsvaer in Norway in the Arctic Circle.

Gallery: PEDRO CERA
Country: Portugal
Artist: Nuno Cera
Description of project: Sans Souci, 2008 (12’ 48’’) plays with labyrinthine memories, with human relations, love, loneliness, trauma… The video is grounded in an intricate structure and an artificial narrative using parts of the dialogues between X and A.

Gallery: PROMETEO GALLERY
Country: Italy
Artist: Stefanos Tsivopoulos
Description of project: Untitled (The Remake), 2007 (13’ 00’’) uses footage from he end of the 1960s in Greece, during the dictatorship of the coronels, and the early years of state television in the country. It shows us the technology of the period and fictitious sets to document the TV studios of the time.

Gallery: RUTH BENZACAR GALERIA DE ARTE
Country: Argentina
Artist: Judi Werthein
Description of project: Immer Wieder (Secure Paradise), 2008 (15’ 00’’) portrays the life of Colonia Renacer, a high security German colony in the region of Araucania in Chile where European customs are geographically and historically out of place with the actual emplacement.

STUDIO, a space for reflection
Thursday, February 12th, 6:00 pm.
Cinema 1: The Belgian artist Pierre Bismuth, winner of an Oscar for the original script for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 2005, will present Link, a work in progress since 1998. The public will have a chance to get an insight into the development of this work whose basic theme is the concern for continuity and discontinuity.

Friday, February 13th, 7:00 pm.
Cinema 1: Eija-Liisa Ahtila, a media artist, will show her work to the public though not her single channels films, which are only screened at film festivals. The films and multiscreen installations by this Finnish artist, subvert the lineal discourse in search of narratives on multiple levels. Ahtila’s working methods take the video closer to film, especially in the use of filming techniques and vocabulary borrowed from cinematography.

Saturday, February 14th, 7:00 pm.
Cinema 1: Talk with the Spanish filmmaker Ja
ime Rosales, director of among others, the films La soledad and Las horas del día. He will speak on the various alternatives for distribution for audiovisual works, based on his own experience with Tiro en la cabeza which was premiered simultaneously in cinemas, at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and in a virtual cinema on Internet.