While technoutopians embrace technology as a means to achieve an ideal society and solve fundamental problems, neo-luddites criticise its negative aspects and adverse effects, rejecting it altogether. The two positions represent opposite ends of the spectrum of views on the complex relationship between technology and society.
Thus, this little button embodies the dichotomy between agency and surrender. It offers both a sense of adventure and the renunciation of deliberation. It challenges our instinctive desire to shuffle options and weigh alternatives, and instead encourages us to trust the invisible hand that guides us towards an unknown destination.
It stands as a digital doorway, a microcosm of our human yearning for immediacy, serendipity and a leap into the unknown. Its simple invitation carries a great implication: the willingness to relinquish control, to trust the algorithms and mechanisms that govern our digital existence and to accept the possibility of discovering the unexpected with a single click.
In this fifth edition of MMMAD Festival we will explore the contradictions that the digital world poses to us on a daily basis, with every click, tap or scroll. We will delve into the dilemmas that our artificial symbionts provoke in us, we will approach algorithms without prejudice and we will think collectively about the role of technology in society.
First artists and participants
Adrian Notz, Ana Drucker, Brooklyn J. Pakathi, Carolina Fernández-Castrillo + Diego Mantoan, Clara Escalera + Marie Caye + Andrés Agulla, Dominique Moulon, Guayaba, Janira Planes, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Lola Zoido, Luis Lecea, Mae Lubetkin, Maria Buey, Mario Santamaría, Mayte Gómez, Molly Soda, Natalia Stuyk, Nina Muro, Petra Linhartova, Rayane Jemaa, Sara Bezovsek, Sarah Sadik, Tabita Rezaire, Turian Boy, Vanessa Murrell, Vica Pacheco, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
Adrian Notz, Ana Drucker, Brooklyn J. Pakathi, Carolina Fernández-Castrillo + Diego Mantoan, Clara Escalera + Marie Caye + Andrés Agulla, Dominique Moulon, Guayaba, Janira Planes, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Lola Zoido, Luis Lecea, Mae Lubetkin, Maria Buey, Mario Santamaría, Mayte Gómez, Molly Soda, Natalia Stuyk, Nina Muro, Petra Linhartova, Rayane Jemaa, Sara Bezovsek, Sarah Sadik, Tabita Rezaire, Turian Boy, Vanessa Murrell, Vica Pacheco, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
MMMAD is a non-profit project whose aim is to exhibit, disseminate and think about digital creation. Focused on the intersection between digital culture and public space, it transforms Madrid into the inter-national capital of digital art during the month of May since 2020, with a programme consisting of exhibitions, installations, calls, workshops and meetings throughout the city every year.
This is what previous editions were like:
This is what previous editions were like: