WUF Basel 2024: Solo Press Showcases Curated by Fakewhale

On June 11-12 WUF will be hosting an invite-only event for the press at Bar Rouge, Messepl. 10 Basel — an event that acts as a premier resource for leading media outlets to access a carefully curated selection of projects spotlighting top artists, curators, creators, and trends from around the globe.

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As curatorial partners, Fakewhale has selected artists who stand out for their innovative contributions to contemporary creative culture to be presented within a series of press showcases ranging from the digital to contemporary art scenes, each designed to communicate each of their unique conceptual frameworks.

Integrated seamlessly into the event’s flow, these showcases will form a dynamic environment for the networking and promotional activities, inviting media members to engage with the art and projects in a context that enhances both understanding and documentation.

Among the press showcases curated by Fakewhale, there will be a series of solo formats spotlighting some of the leading voices in the digital art scene: Joe Pease, Ana Maria Caballero, Leander Herzog and P1xelfool who will unveil a special collection soon to be released in collaboration with Fakewhale and objkt.com.

Following is an overview of the creators and concepts that will be featured during the 2-day event.

Joe Pease: Peripheral

“Peripheral” illustrates Joe Pease‘s unique ability to blend the familiar with the surreal, offering a distinctive perspective on everyday realities. Curated by Fakewhale for WUF Basel 2024, this solo press showcase serves as a retrospective of Pease’s works from recent years, emphasizing his talent for drawing viewers into the margins of the ordinary, where the overlooked becomes central.

Out of Time by Joe Pease,
2024 – filmed / composited footage

Originally from Australia and now based in Southern California, Pease, a self-taught artist — who has garnered notable success in the art market, with his works being highly sought after by collectors and galleries alike —creates video artworks that present everyday scenes as a medium for exploring the human experience. His works, including notable pieces like “Out of Time” and “Broken Sidewalk” feature a blend of nature, urban landscapes, and architectural elements, each guiding the viewer’s focus toward the periphery, challenging them to see beyond the immediate.

The title “Peripheral” aptly encapsulates Pease’s artistic approach—highlighting the less observed aspects of environments that surround us. Through his art, Pease invites the audience to reconsider what lies at the edge of their visual field, transforming these peripheral glimpses into focal points.

Ultimately, this press showcase explores the dualities that define human perception—the seen and unseen, the real and surreal. Each selected work serving as a portal into the subconscious, with Pease using his medium to evoke both discomfort and awe.

At WUF Basel 2024, “Peripheral” invites attendees to engage with a collection of works that amplify the overlooked, encouraging a reevaluation of the familiar and a deeper appreciation for the layers of meaning that frame our everyday experiences.

Other featured works include:

Everything is Temporary |.
by Joe Pease, 2023 – Filmed / Composited footage 1:1

Ana Maria Caballero: Beyond the Page

The press showcase “Beyond the Page” by Ana Maria Caballero curated by Fakewhale, presents a survey of Caballero’s key poetic oeuvres, created over the last three years, since she entered Web3.

Ana María Caballero is a Colombian-American literary artist whose work explores how biology delimits societal and cultural rites, ripping the veil off romanticized motherhood and questioning notions that package sacrifice as a virtue.

She’s the recipient of the Beverly International Prize, an Academy of American Poets Prize, Colombia’s José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize, the Steel Toe Books Poetry Prize, a Future Arts Writer Award, a Sevens Foundation Grant and has been a finalist for numerous other literary and arts prizes, including the prestigious Kurt Brown Prize, INDIES Book of the Year Award, Vassar Miller Poetry Prize and MAXXI Bvlgari Prize in the Digital Sector.

Widely recognized as an innovative force within the nascent genre of digital poetry, Caballero seeks to expand the ways poetry is experienced and exhibited in a rapidly evolving technological age, incorporating performance, artificial intelligence, code, collage, and choreography.

A focal point of the press showcase is “Waiting Room x Mammal” displayed prominently on the main screen. This piece marks Caballero’s first foray into fully performative art, where the dynamics of poetry and body language intersect. Collaborating with Luis Gaspar, one of Spain’s top photographers, Caballero has created an emotionally resonant piece that uses her body to communicate the intricate emotions embedded within her poems. The result is a rich archive of footage where no two performances are identical, emphasizing the spontaneity and uniqueness of each expression.

During the showcase, visitors will encounter ten distinct interpretations of this choreographic composition, each exploring different facets of the poem’s emotional landscape —allowing the audience to appreciate how nuanced gestures can elevate the spoken word, enhancing the overall impact of the poetry.

Works like “Mammal” and “Vasectomy” investigate themes of bodily autonomy and societal roles. On one hand, the poetry collection “Mammal” visualizes the intense and often conflicting emotions of pregnancy through coded art, reflecting on themes of vulnerability and inevitability. Meanwhile, “Vasectomy” presents a compelling video poem that challenges the societal expectations placed on the female body, highlighting the disparity in responsibilities and societal pressures concerning birth control and reproductive rights.

With references to Caballero’s personal life, her works are infused with a sense of connection and context, prompting viewers to reflect on how our individual experiences are influenced by broader collective narratives.

The press showcase also includes “Things I Am Saving to Write,” a piece that uses AI to transform poetic prompts into visual narratives. Inspired by Hemingway’s contemplations on mortality in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” this work connects the generative power of language with visual art, creating a dialogue between the viewer’s unconscious responses and the textual prompts.

Ana Maria Caballero’s “Beyond the Page” WUF Basel 2024 press showcase yet again blurs the line between poetry and digital art, inviting viewers to engage with words not just as text but as immersive, multi-sensory experiences. Through her signature use of digital platforms, performance, and interactive visuals, Caballero inspires to reconsider the poet’s role in the digital age, engaging deeply with core human themes across both new and traditional media.

Other featured works include:

Leander Herzog: Heatsink

Swiss visual artist Leander Herzog, born in 1984, creates generative digital abstractions that seamlessly blend with contemporary minimalism. Since embracing web-based generative art in 2006, Herzog has explored themes of digital ownership against the backdrop of technological omnipresence. Herzog’s notable exhibitions span prestigious institutions like Transmediale Berlin, DAM Gallery, and Kunsthaus Pasquart, among others, with his works being part of collections at ZKM Karlsruhe and HEK Basel.

“Heatsink” showcased at WUF Basel 2024, is a testament to Herzog’s innovative edge in digital minimalism.

The exhibit’s centerpiece, “Heatsink,” is a vivid real-time animation that evolves from Herzog’s earlier work, “DOM1.” This transition from monochrome to a full-color 3D spectacle employs JavaScript and WebGL to manipulate ratios, rhythms, and repetitions—transforming digital canvas into a captivating visual composition. Herzog skillfully integrates minimalist principles with digital technology, recalling the aesthetics of Donald Judd and Mies van der Rohe while injecting contemporary vitality into the minimalist tradition.

Initially unveiled at AGH1 in Berlin in December 2023, and subsequently featured in Dubai at Foundry (presented by Fakewhale and curated by Giuseppe Moscatello) in early 2024, “Heatsink” highlights Herzog’s capacity to bridge cultural and technological divides, with each exhibition emphasizing Herzog’s works’ ability to adapt and evolve within different cultural contexts.

The Dubai installation, in particular, underscored the transformative nature of Herzog’s art. It revealed how generative art, through sophisticated coding and dynamic aesthetic frameworks, can challenge our perceptions of space and time. This evolving installation acted as a live demonstration of art in flux, where each viewing could offer a new experience—reflecting the inherent unpredictability and depth of digital art.

Recently, Herzog’s work, “Heatsink #2,” was acknowledged as a finalist for the ABS Digital Art Prize. In parallel, the original work has generated significant sales, with active engagement on the secondary market.

At WUF Basel 2024, Herzog’s “Heatsink” press showcase encapsulates the evolving dialogue between technology and human expression, transcending mere display of technique, to invite an exploration into how digital mediums redefine our visual and conceptual landscapes — where technology is not merely a tool but a fundamental component of the creative process, in a continuously adaptive and generative framework.

uncertain index by P1xelfool

p1xelfool is a pseudonym for brazilian artist who currently researches about aesthetic experiences, exploring computer art.

For his WUF press showcase, p1xelfool presents “uncertain index”, a generative work soon to be presented in collaboration with objkt.com for a special release.

“Uncertain index” features a layered, pixelated composition that visually stimulates the ceaseless flow of data and its mutable nature — realized through a series of frames that dynamically evolve, reflecting the algorithmic manipulations at its core. Each segment of the animation, in a way, reinterprets traditional pixel art, making use of a vibrant color palette and structured patterns to explore the tension between order and chaos.

Beyond the surface aesthetics, it reveals the underlying data structures; repetitive, yet ever-changing patterns serve as a metaphor for a constant state of flux, where data is continuously processed and redefined.

Aligned with WUF’s mission, next week Fakewhale is set to bring these thought-provoking solo press showcases into direct contact with the media. If you are a journalist or media representative and interested in attending, RSVP at https://rsvp.wuf.art/wuf-basel-2024. Limited invites are available.

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