Art Madrid'25 – MOMENTUM: AN AUGMENTED REALITY EXPERIENCE (AR) AT ART MADRID'25

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MOMENTUM: AN AUGMENTED REALITY EXPERIENCE (AR) AT ART MADRID'25

From March 5 to 9, Montalbán street will transform into an immersive digital environment with Ciudad Sutil, an innovative augmented reality experience led by multimedia artist Susi Vetter. This project is curated in collaboration with CRU and is part of the parallel program of Art Madrid'25. The proposal invites the public to explore an alternative layer of reality through technology, offering a sublimated vision of the urban environment and the city's landscape.


Momentum. Digital scketch. WIP.


Ciudad Sutil: A new way of inhabiting urban space.

Ciudad Sutil is a program that proposes ephemeral artistic interventions in public spaces, exploring new ways of inhabiting and perceiving the city. Through digital art and augmented reality, it seeks to reveal hidden layers of the urban environment, questioning the rigidity of the built landscape and opening spaces for imagination and reflection on our relationship with the city and nature.


Susi Vetter. Momentum. AR Art Installation. Technologies used: Adobe After Effects & Photoshop, Procreate, Blender. Processor: 8th Wall. 2025.


Momentum: Redefining the relationship between City and Nature

In Momentum, the urban landscape with its ordered architecture, paved streets, and precise geometry suddenly opens up to reveal a living canvas that challenges our perception of city spaces. At the end of the street, a forest emerges between the buildings. From this wild growth, a giant mask arises, initially blank and inert, which is pushed upward toward a triangulated glass ceiling, reminiscent of the Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles. The mask remains suspended there, between the artificial world below and the contained sky above.

Its eyes slowly open, as if seeing the world for the first time. From one of them, tender plants begin to sprout, initially shy, then with increasing vigor, transforming the sterile façade into a living, organic entity.

As nature claims the mask, the glass ceiling above it – that meticulous human attempt to frame the sky – begins to crack. Fragments of glass fall like rain, breaking the barrier between the built space and the open air. The mask, now covered in vegetation, slowly descends until it disappears.


Momentum. Digital scketch.


A reflection about the urban future

This augmented reality experience invites us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world in urban environments. The street, with its rigid lines and concrete certainty, becomes a space for exploration to imagine new forms of coexistence between the built and the organic. The mask symbolizes our artificial relationship with nature — how we perceive ourselves as separate from the wild, until nature finds ways to break into our spaces.

In the age of the Anthropocene, where human impact shapes every ecosystem, Urban Rewilding questions whether our future lies in continuous separation or in seeking new ways of coexistence between our built world and natural systems. As the boundaries between the city and the forest blur in this augmented reality experience, we glimpse possibilities for urban spaces where nature is not just a contained or decorative element, but an essential and transformative force.


Technology and creative process

The piece Momentum has been developed using various digital tools, including Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, Procreate, and Blender. Its processing is based on the 8th Wall platform, allowing for a seamless and immersive integration of virtual elements into the urban landscape.


Susi Vetter. Invited artist at Ciudad Sutil.


About the artist: Susi Vetter

Susi Vetter is an illustrator and multimedia artist based in Berlin. Her work focuses on telling immersive stories that blur the boundaries between physical and digital realities. Her tools include the web, augmented reality, and map projections, with the aim of creating experiences that invite reflection on the relationship between humans and their environment.

From March 5th to 9th, at Montalbán street 1, at the entrance of the Galería de cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles, you can enjoy Momentum.



From July 7 to 9, 2025, the Balsera Palace will host the First Course on Collecting and Contemporary Art, an intensive 15-hour program that will explore the complex and fundamental question of taste in contemporary art. Organized by the Nebrija Institute of Arts and Humanities at Nebrija University and the Avilés City Council, in collaboration with 9915 — Association of Private Collectors of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art, the course offers a unique opportunity for analysis and debate on the dynamics that shape aesthetic and symbolic value in today’s art scene.


First Course on Collecting and Contemporary Art. Avilés, Asturias


The notion of taste, intrinsically tied to aesthetic judgments and power relations, has played a decisive role in the historical prominence of artists and artworks. However, contemporary art—marked by its breaking of conventions, diversity of media and techniques, and critical stance toward traditional canons—raises fundamental questions about the continued relevance of this concept.

This course will explore how the decisions made by key players in the art system—institutions, private collections, galleries, curators, and artists—continually redefine a field of taste shaped by aesthetic, symbolic, cultural, social, and political logics.


"¿But does it exist, and what is the prevailing taste of our time—so seemingly confused, fragmented, indecipherable?" - Omar Calabrese, The Neo-Baroque Era.


The academic program, directed by José Luis Guijarro Alonso, Director of the Master’s in Art Market and Related Business Management at Nebrija University, and Pablo Álvarez de Toledo, Head of the Department of Arts at Nebrija University and the Nebrija Institute of Arts and Humanities, will bring together a distinguished group of national experts—including collectors, critics, curators, gallery owners, and artists—whose contributions will address key issues in shaping aesthetic, symbolic, and market value in today’s art world.


PROGRAM

MONDAY, JULY 7

9:30 AM Registration.

10:00 AM Course Opening Nebrija University Avilés City Council Presented by Rosario López Meras – President of the Association of Contemporary Art Collectors, 9915, and Adrián Piera – President of the ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art.

10:30 AM Course Presentation By José Luis Guijarro Alonso – Art Historian and Anthropologist, Researcher, and Director of the Master’s in Art Market and Related Business Management at Nebrija University.

11:00 AM Coffee Break.

11:30 AM Panel Discussion The Taste of Private Collecting as a Prelude to History. Speakers: Candela Álvarez Soldevilla – Entrepreneur and Collector; Javier Quilis – INELCOM Collection; José Miguel Vegas Valle – Collector. Moderator: Luis Feás – Critic and Curator.

1:00 PM Lunch Break.

3:30 PM Individual Lecture On Good Taste in Contemporary Art. Speaker: Marisol Salanova – Curator and Art Critic, Director of Arteinformado.

4:45 PM Panel Discussion The Influence of Galleries in Shaping Contemporary Taste. Speakers: Elba Benítez – Gallerist; Ricardo Pernas – Gallerist (Arniches 26); Aurora Vigil-Escalera – Gallerist. Moderator: Rafael Martín – Coleccion@casamer.

6:00 PM End of Day.

6:30 PM Activity and Cocktail Visit to the Exhibition Asturian Artists in the Pérez Simón Collection – Avilés.

TUESDAY, JULY 8

10:00 AM Individual Lecture Contemporary (Bad) Taste: Kitsch, Camp, and Tacky. Speaker: Julio Pérez Manzanares – Autonomous University of Madrid.

11:00 AM Coffee Break.

11:30 AM Panel Discussion Institutions and the Formation of Contemporary Taste. Speakers: Virginia López – Artist, Founder of PACA_Proyectos Artísticos Casa Antonino; Julieta de Haro – Artistic Director of CentroCentro; Carlos Urroz – Director of Institutional Relations, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Moderator: Laura Gutiérrez – Director, School of Art of Oviedo.

1:00 PM Lunch Break.

3:30 PM Panel Discussion Beyond the Eye: The Taste for Ethical, Ecological, Social, or Political Concerns in Contemporary Art. Speakers: Semíramis González – Independent Curator; Eugenio Ampudia – Artist; Claudia Rodríguez-Ponga – Independent Curator. Moderator: Bárbara Mur Borrás – PhD in Fine Arts.

5:00 PM End of Day.

5:30 PM Activity Visit to the Studiolo Exhibition – Candela Álvarez Soldevilla Collection.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9

9:30 AM Meeting with Asturian Artists Speakers: María Castellanos – Artist; Avelino Sala – Artist; Consuelo Vallina – Artist. Moderator: Pablo Álvarez de Toledo – Nebrija University.

11:00 AM Activity Visit to the Niemeyer Center – Avilés.

Course Closing Ceremony.





This course is designed for art professionals, collectors, researchers, and students seeking an in-depth analysis of the dynamics that shape taste and collecting practices in contemporary art. Adopting a critical and multidisciplinary perspective, it provides a unique opportunity to rigorously examine the aesthetic, symbolic, and structural factors that underpin the legitimization of contemporary art.