The Mira Son digital art festival will open its 9th edition on November 5th with a larger, broader and more diverse program than in previous years. We enter an unknown and surprising field where disciplines coexist in a space designed for experimentation and innovation of the latest generation.

Robert Lippok & Lucas Gutierrez, “Non-face” (frame) (image via berlinerfestspiele.de)

For this festival, the concepts of 360º video art, immersive full-dome project, accelerated electronic music or light installation take on a holistic meaning that mixes and merges all the techniques to generate a new result, alien to the daily understanding of art and not suitable for classicists. The agenda is full of performances, conferences, screenings and lots of music.

Among the most outstanding contents, it is mandatory to talk about the cycle of screening in the MIRA Dome, a structure installed in the patio of the Fàbrica de Creació designed for 360º videos in which five selected pieces will on show. The staging is designed to offer an immersive experience that collapses the senses. For this reason, image and sound go hand in hand in these projects, many of them created thanks to the collaboration of visual artists with sound artists.

"Elektra" is a work that reflects on the passage of time and the relationship between past and present, with a piece produced by the Metahaven design studio and music by Kara-Lis Coverdale. On the other hand, the visual creator Lucas Gutiérrez has allied himself with the sound artist Robert Lippok for his work “Non-face”, where a sensory game between the credible and the hypothetical in our tangible reality is considered. A similar collaboration is that of "Realness", an artwork that invites to experiment with new ways of life other than human life, the result of the work of the digital artist Sandrine Deumier and the composer Myriam Bleau. Jordi Massó dares with a futuristic proposal, "Smartzombies", where our daily life is almost supplanted by technological gadgets. Finally, “Xpansion” stands out, a piece inspired by the constant expansion of the universe and some of the lastest astronomical concepts such as dark energy, created by the V.P.M. study, one of the winners of the Open Call of MIRA x Hangar.

Gabriela Prochazka, “Galaxy of Stars (Kiss Me)” (image via gabrielaprochazka.com)

We must also highlight the space dedicated to audiovisual installations, where digital art becomes the protagonist. Among the foreign guests is Audint (collective founded in 2008, with European artists) with his multisensory work "Obsidisorium" and Rick Farin (USA) with "Breach Act". In the national production are the students of Elisava with “Alice”, and the installation “Dualismo” of the artist Carlos Sáez, one of the greatest representatives of Spanish digital art who has already exhibited at the MoMA and the Whitney Museum in New York.

The festival promises innovation, lasers, DJs, electronic music, technological art, criticism of the social state, audiovisual symbiosis, and endless experiences where there is also space for reflection and exploration on the future of contemporary creation.

ABIERTO INFINITO. LO QUE EL CUERPO RECUERDA. CICLO DE PERFORMANCE X ART MADRID'26

Art Madrid, committed to creating a discursive platform for artists working within the field of performance and action art, presents Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda, a proposal inspired by Erving Goffman’s ideas in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Amorrortu Editores, Buenos Aires, 1997).

The project unfolds within a theoretical framework that directly engages with these premises, conceiving social interaction as a stage of carefully modulated performances designed to influence others’ perceptions. Goffman argues that individuals deploy both verbal and involuntary expressions to guide the interpretation of their behavior, sustaining roles and façades that define the situation for those who observe.

The body — the first territory of all representation — precedes both word and learned gesture. Human experience, conscious and unconscious alike, is inscribed within it. Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda departs from this premise: representation inhabits existence itself, and life, understood as a succession of representations, transforms the body into a space of constant negotiation over who we are. In this passage, boundaries blur; the individual opens toward the collective, and the ephemeral acquires symbolic dimension. By inhabiting this interstice, performance simultaneously reveals the fragility of identity and the strength that emerges from encounter with others.

PERFORMANCE: OFF LINE. JIMENA TERCERO

March 7 | 7:00 p.m. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

OFF LINE is a performance piece that reflects on the fragility of the body in the digital age. Our relationship with the outside world is mediated by a screen, which distances us further and further from physical contact and interpersonal relationships. Focusing on creating a digital identity causes the body to distance itself from the physical world and lose its memory.

Hyperconnectivity and fragmented attention lead to a more passive physical existence, characterised by reduced spontaneous movement and less direct sensory interaction. This raises fundamental questions: how is the concept of presence redefined when our relationship with the world relies on technological mediation? What will the experience of the body be like in a future where virtuality predominates over the physical? There is a risk of progressive bodily passivity: bodies that remain still, whose activity is determined by devices and whose memory is stored digitally. The fragmentation of physical experience and the primacy of technological representation create a scenario in which, although the body is visible, it is displaced from its original function as an agent of perception and action.

This conceptual framework invites reflection on the impact of digitisation on corporeality, memory and social relationships, and on the vulnerability and inertia experienced by bodies in environments that are increasingly mediated by technology.

ABOUT JIMENA TERCERO

Jimena Tercero (Madrid, 1998) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the boundaries of the female body, identity, and the subconscious. She uses performance, video, and painting to address concepts such as memory, tangibility, and play. Tercero trained in painting with Lola Albín and in analog photography at Cambridge in 2014. She studied audiovisual direction from 2018 to 2020 with renowned figures such as Víctor Erice and the production company El Deseo. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Creative Direction at ELISAVA. She completed her performance training at La Juan Gallery. In 2011, she was part of the children's jury at the Isfahan Film Festival in Iran.

Her directed works include Private (2016) and Paranoid (2021), which were exhibited at the Aspa Contemporary Gallery. She has also worked on projects such as Yo, mi, me, conmigo (2023, Teatros del Canal), Inside Voices (2021, Conde Duque with Itziar Okariz), and La última regla (La Juan Gallery). She has directed fashion films for publishers and brands such as Puma, Dior, and Dockers. She has also provided art direction for artists such as Sen Senra and Jorge Drexler. Additionally, she directed the documentary Also Here for ArtforChange–La Caixa. She presented Out of View (Nebula Gallery), EDEN (White Lab Gallery), and Navel Bite (Sinespacio). She participates in residencies such as Medialab with Niño de Elche and Miguel Álvarez Fernández. In 2025, she will be part of the Special Jury of the Asian Film Fest in Barcelona and the International Cultural Museum of Assilah Art Residency in Morocco).