Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás discusses the “virtual condition” in curating. A subject that became unexpectedly topical due to the lockdown in early 2020 in various countries. Museums and exhibition spaces had to close their physical premises but could still reach their audience online. Presence seemed to strike a bargain with absence even if spatial affairs are still the very essence and means of curating. She will introduce the international, collaborative, practice-based research project BEYOND MATTER that reflects on this ongoing shift towards the virtual condition, which was just accelerated in 2020.
Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás is a curator and researcher. She has curated exhibitions at institutions of contemporary and media art worldwide since 2006, including at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Chronus Art Center Shanghai, Tallinna Kunstihoone, Műcsarnok Budapest, focusing on the constantly changing media of contemporary art and intersections with various disciplines. She has initiated and developed thematic exhibitions raising questions such as the genealogy and social impact of planetary computation and computer code, electronic surveillance and democracy, and synesthetic perception. As of 2019 she has started a research in curatorial studies on the “virtual condition” and its implications in the exhibition space at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, and as acting head of the project entitled BEYOND MATTER at ZKM | Karlsruhe, which she initiated and in which institutions such as Centre Pompidou Paris, Aalto University, and others participate.