Mapping Festival ends its 10th edition with an affluence of 11’500 visitors

On Sunday evening, the Mapping Festival proposed at Cinéma Spoutnik a screening of works by digital arts pioneers John & James Whitney, Peter Kubelka, Steina & Woody Vasulka – or how to give a wink to the ancestors of mapping, as it is today declined in many forms within the Geneva festival, one of the most important devoted to digital culture.

Over the course of ten days, 11’500 visitors and spectators were invited to discover installations, performances, movies, conferences and parties, scattered over a dozen venues of Geneva. For example, the ‘Onion Skin’ installation by Olivier Ratsi was unveiled at Pont-Rouge, the core of a future real estate complex in Acacias. The Bâtiment d’art contemporain hosted six installations on the theme of light, created by Benjamin Muzzin, Gabey Tjon Tham, A Normal Working Day, Christian Delécluse, Tundra and Matthijs Munnik. The Galpon des Péniches was the stage of successful performances, including those of Nonotak and Ryoichi Kurokawa. Finally, the Zoo of l’Usine offered three evenings for wise night-birds, which mingled DJs (Andy Stott, Gerd, Pearson Sound, 2562…) and visual artists (Pfadfinderei, Heleen Blanken, CHiKA, Mika Ventura…).

Regarding the traditional Mapping Festival rendezvous, the VJ Contest organized at the Spoutnik theatre was as usual full of supporters, coming to cheer candidates who competed live using personal or imposed visuals. The six workshops exploring artistic, practical and playful applications of mapping, for the second consecutive year focused on the first days of the festival, were sold out.

With an audience coming from Latin America, the United States, Japan, China, India, Europe, the Mapping Festival proves once again its international influence in the digital arts field.

The 11th edition will be held from 7 to 17 may 2015.

The worskops blog: mapping2014.tumblr.com