7x7 Stavanger

What happens when you pair seven artists & seven technologists and ask them to make something new? Rhizome, affiliate in residence at the New Museum in New York, and Kunsthall Stavanger in Norway are delighted to announce 7x7 Stavanger, a newly-imagined, socially-distanced edition of the celebrated platform pairing visionaries from the fields of art and technology.

For 7x7 the visionary pairs are commissioned to create new projects through one-on-one collaborations over a short period of time. Their projects engage urgent subjects such as synthetic biology, pathogens, quantum computing, virtuality and mixed reality, and rethinking social media dynamics.

On Monday October 5, 2020 at 2pm EST, the institutions will kick off seven days of art-tech premieres, each taking the form of a 45-minute live-event, broadcast through 7x7.no. Episodes will debut live at 2pm EST each day through Sunday, October 11. The online-only conference program will later take physical form as a first-ever 7x7 exhibition, featuring selected works from the program past and present, scheduled to open at Kunsthall Stavanger in the Spring of 2021.

Broadcasting during this special edition are:

Thu Oct 5
Shu Lea Cheang, Artist
Kate Adamala, Synthetic Biologist, University of Minnesota

Fri Oct 6
Yngve Holen, Artist
Audrey Tang, Digital Minister, Taiwan

Sat Oct 7
Joan Heemskerk (JODI), Artist
Quantum Tinkerer Group (André Melo), Delft University

Sun Oct 8
Ane Graff, Artist
Tal Danino, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University

Mon Oct 9
Mendi and Keith Obadike, Artists
Kelly Benoit-Bird, Senior Scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Tue Oct 10
Neïl Beloufa, Artist
Damian Bradfield, CCO and Cofounder, WeTransfer

Wed Oct 11
Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Artist
Jesse Walden, Founder, Variant

Founded by Rhizome in 2010, 7x7 forefronts the leading issues at the intersection of culture and technology, and animates them through its novel format. Seven leading artists are paired with seven visionary technologists and asked to “make something”: an artwork, a prototype, a provocation—whatever they imagine. Typically, what they create in their short time together premieres at an annual conference, but at this time of isolation the partners have supported remote collaboration and presentation. Our aim is to experiment with the opportunity to open 7x7 to new audiences who otherwise could never attend the in-person conference.

“This year’s 7x7 brings together practitioners who are asking fundamental questions about how we relate to nature and to other people,” observes Artistic Director Michael Connor. “At a moment of profound upheaval around the world, there is a more expansive understanding of what technology is, and of its potential uses, than anything we’ve seen in the past.”

Of this new edition in partnership with Kunsthall Stavanger, Rhizome Executive Director Zachary Kaplan added, "We are thrilled to have found a thoughtful and visionary partner in Kunsthall Stavanger — we've long appreciated their commitment to born-digital culture within the context of an innovative contemporary art program. Because of that, we were able to both initiate this partnership and then entirely rethink it for our socially distanced moment."