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.

The painting of Daniel Bum (Villena, Alicante, 1994) takes shape as a space for subjective elaboration, where the figure emerges not so much as a representational motif but as a vital necessity. The repetition of this frontal, silent character responds to an intimate process: painting becomes a strategy for navigating difficult emotional experiences—an insistent gesture that accompanies and alleviates feelings of loneliness. In this sense, the figure acts as a mediator between the artist and a complex emotional state, linking the practice of painting to a reconnection with childhood and to a vulnerable dimension of the self.

The strong autobiographical dimension of his work coexists with a formal distance that is not the result of conscious planning, but rather functions as a protective mechanism. Visual restraint, an apparent compositional coolness, and an economy of means do not neutralize emotion; instead, they contain it, avoiding the direct exposure of the traumatic. In this way, the tension between affect and restraint becomes a structural feature of his artistic language. Likewise, the naïve and the disturbing coexist in his painting as inseparable poles, reflecting a subjectivity permeated by mystery and unconscious processes. Many images emerge without a clearly defined prior meaning and only reveal themselves over time, when temporal distance allows for the recognition of the emotional states from which they arose.

The Long Night. Oil, acrylic, and charcoal on canvas. 160 × 200 cm. 2024.

The human figure appears frequently in your work: frontal, silent, suspended. What interests you about this presence that seems both affirmative and absent?

I wouldn’t say that anything in particular interests me. I began painting this figure because there were emotions I couldn’t understand and a feeling that was very difficult for me to process. This character emerged during a very complicated moment in my life, and the act of making it—and remaking it, repeating it again and again—meant that, during the process, I didn’t feel quite so alone. At the same time, it kept me fresh and connected me to an inner child who was broken at that moment, helping me get through the experience in a slightly less bitter way.

Santito. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

There is a strong affective dimension in your work, but also a calculated distance, a kind of formal coldness. What role does this tension between emotion and restraint play?

I couldn’t say exactly what role that tension plays. My painting is rooted in the autobiographical, in memory, and in situations I have lived through that were quite traumatic for me. Perhaps, as a protective mechanism—to prevent direct access to that vulnerability, or to keep it from becoming harmful—that distance appears unconsciously. It is not something planned or controlled; it simply emerges and remains there.

Night Painter. Acrylic on canvas. 35 × 27 cm. 2025.

Your visual language oscillates between the naïve and the unsettling, the familiar and the strange. How do these tensions coexist for you, and what function do they serve in your visual exploration?

I think it reflects who I am. One could not exist without the other. The naïve could not exist without the unsettling; for me, they necessarily go hand in hand. I am deeply drawn to mystery and to the act of painting things that even I do not fully understand. Many of the expressions or portraits I create emerge from the unconscious; they are not planned. It is only afterwards that I begin to understand them—and almost never immediately. A considerable amount of time always passes before I can recognize how I was feeling at the moment I made them.

Qi. Acrylic on canvas. 81 × 65 cm. 2025.

The formal simplicity of your images does not seem to be a matter of economy, but of concentration. What kind of aesthetic truth do you believe painting can reach when it strips itself of everything superfluous?

I couldn’t say what aesthetic truth lies behind that simplicity. What I do know is that it is something I need in order to feel calm. I feel overwhelmed when there are too many elements in a painting, and I have always been drawn to the minimal—to moments when there is little, when there is almost nothing. I believe that this stripping away allows me to approach painting from a different state: more focused, more silent. I can’t fully explain it, but it is there that I feel able to work with greater clarity.

Crucifixion. Acrylic on canvas. 41 × 33 cm. 2025.

To what extent do you plan your work, and how much space do you leave for the unexpected—or even for mistakes?

I usually feel more comfortable leaving space for the unexpected. I am interested in uncertainty; having everything under control strikes me as rather boring. I have tried it on some occasions, especially when I set out to work on a highly planned series, with fixed sketches that I then wanted to translate into painting, but it was not something I identified with. I felt that a fundamental part of the process disappeared: play—that space in which painting can surprise even myself. For that reason, I do not tend to plan too much, and when I do, it is in a very simple way: a few lines, a plane of color. I prefer everything to happen within the painting itself.