The group exhibition entitled Media Is in the Air, beneath the Earth, above Water, within Fire represents a curatorial selection of the artistic practices and media tactics of artists from Catalonia/Spain and Vojvodina/ Serbia. The exhibition was organized as a continuation of the cooperation between the two partner institutions Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina and Fundació Antoni Tàpies on Per Muse project supported by the European Commission through the Creative Europe program. The exhibition presents current practices from two geographic regions that ponder the relationship between the world of nature and the world of technology, and deal with issues within the framework of the ongoing discussions on the concept of new and old media, the use of technology and engaged media tactics within the context of contemporary art.
The starting premise of the exhibition is that the natural and technological worlds are not so divided and different, but that those are infrastructures that enable human life to survive and develop. The theorist John Durham Peters maintains that digital media are just a continuation of the early practices connected with the establishment of civilisation such as mastering fire, developing a calendar, reading the stars, creating language and establishing religions. Viewed from this perspective, the media do not represent just mere surroundings, they are elements that make up man’s world. Thus art, among other things, provides space for research and posing questions about what the media are and how they form the basis of our interactions with the world around us. The Media Are in the Air, beneath the Earth, above Water, within Fire.