There is an approach to digital art through computer arts marked by a historical continuity of creative computer use since 1995 and related presentational forms (radio, theater, television, computer games, computer graphics, fractals, digital music etc.). The situation at that time was characterized by an »off-line« condition – broadband networks were sparse and accessible only to a small number of users. The avant-garde future of computer reality was conceived mainly in the direction of humanoid robots (the basic idea dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, and some of the mechanicist projections to the 19th or even 18th century), fractal arts and other “off-line” trends.
Theoretical and practical historical directions of computer arts have changed with the growth of the information society, the almost universal access to the internet, mobile telephony and consequently social networks. One of the most important effects of the fast flow of information is access to obscure scientific research spheres dealing with genetics, synthetic biology, medicine, nuclear physics, astrophysics, chemistry, mathematics, bioengineering, as well as building interdisciplinary connections that have begun to actualize in all fields.
The uneven social development has become obvious; among other things, the richest inhabitants of this planet have amassed obscene amounts of capital from the development and sales of computer and mobile hardware and software. Parallel to this, efforts trying to create and disseminate non-commercial, open source software have been springing up. KIBLA’s festival KIBLIX has been a meeting point of open code activists and enthusiasts from 2002 until 2008, when it transformed into an open-code festival for art, technology and DIY practices, thus expanding the scope of understanding open-code.
The Zeitgeist dictated a systematic analysis and evaluation of new technologies in relation to the established economy, law and copyright dictates; a search for alternative ways out of their grip. In connection to present-day social networks, science, sociology, technologies, culture and arts, open access to information and knowledge is created for everyone. This enables the cooperation between artists, creators and scientists, while offering the general public, i.e. visitors, a number of different educational modules and an incentive to (co)produce the event.
KIBLIX2014 is taking place for the third time at Maribor’s KIBLA PORTAL, an old textile factory hall measuring over 2000m2, thus joining the dispersed festival units on a single location. KIBLIX2014 is a get-together of people working in the field of art and culture, of researchers, of everyone looking foradditional knowledge about theoretical and research work, as well as those willing to share and experience creative forms of artistic experimentation and interpretation; willing to discover, work, discuss, listen and share their ideas and findings. Culture and science intertwine as disciplines, constructively exchanging cultural models of critical thinking, activism and experimentation with scientific methods, research and knowledge.
Contemporary interdisciplinary forms of artistic conception are intertwined inside complex junctions of different worlds and approaches, in the tension between the principles of natural and the bio-technological, the virtual and the »real«, the fake and the genuine, which – in an abundance of dialogs, contradictions and junctions – become visible in the form of artistic installations, digital records of process works, performances, lectures, presentations, workshops and audio-visual events. This creative, multi-layered form of collaborations within the festival as such, has been named in the words of Dragan Klajić as “the art of partnership”.
