This week, we’re taking a closer look at EURO-VISION, which was one of our November recommendations of art to see. This particular EURO-VISION is not the popular inter-European televised music competition but rather an online artist-led inquiry and contemporary art project that can be experienced entirely online. Funded in part by the Canada Council for the Arts and led by artist duo FRAUD which includes Canadian artist and researcher Audrey Samson, the project is a transnational exploration of raw materials that is informed by both a Canadian and a global perspective.

The last year and a half saw an explosion of web-based art whilst galleries and museums were closed across the world, in line with governmental COVID-19 guidelines. During this time, some art took to web formats in a truly innovative manner, whilst others clearly weren't meant for digital platforms, forced to awkwardly adopt bytes and pixels as their medium and the internet as their route for dissemination. As someone with specific research interests in both the arts and in digital spaces, I’ve seen my fair share of web-based art. A lot of it leaves me dissatisfied, so when I come across online art that doesn’t make me yearn for the white walls of a gallery, it’s usually something pretty special.

EURO-VISION centres on the Critical Raw Materials Initiative, an initiative by the European Commission, which sets out a strategy for acquiring materials considered integral to the EU economy and operations. EURO-VISION is one of those rare cases of art that is so perfectly situated in cyberspace that giving it physicality might actually be to its detriment. It mimics the experience of serendipitous discovery within art spaces, but with an architecture that ensures that you come across its many objects in the order appropriate to the exhibition. The minimal, no-fuss aesthetic which feels flatter than two dimensions reinforces its occupation in digital non-space, and the ease of movement throughout this platform makes it an engaging experience overall.

Beyond its functionality and aesthetics, the project is a timely exploration of contentious issues that bring together voices across multiple disciplines. One of the wonderful things about contemporary art is its undefinable, ineffable quality which allows it to function as a space of inquiry and exploration for topics that other spaces wouldn’t allow. This particular project uses such a space fittingly, where academic research, professional expertise and artistic freedom come together to create a project that is at once a resource, an archive, and a living and growing work of art. It also serves as an archive of real-life presentations of this project, including at the Istanbul Design Biennale, and it includes podcasts and partner projects that fit under its project umbrella.

EURO-VISION does not have an explicitly normative stance, but rather presents the known aspects of these materials in a framework that allows critical engagement and new knowledge relations to form. Much like a real-life exhibition, one wades through the space and might discover the name of something that had previously been unfamiliar. You might come across the definition of EURion, for example, which is a portmanteau of Euro and Orion's belt, and refers to a pattern that blocks software from reproducing it. This pattern is found on currency such as British Pound notes and the Euro and is also the shape which the cursor takes on when it hovers on the website. You might then also discover a series of dynamic, interactive images which further speak to the mysteriousness of this artificial material and pattern, and its tangential connections with other unfamiliar terms or related art projects.

Jointly commissioned by Art Catalyst and Radar of Loughborough University, this project was conceived and organised by FRAUD, which is made up of Canadian artist and academic Audrey Samson and artist Francisco Gallardo from Spain. It is supported by both Arts Council England and Canada Council for the Arts and is exemplary of how the arts’ ability to breed interdisciplinary and international collaboration produces new frameworks through which contemporary issues can be better understood.

Visit EURO-VISION.NET here.

Material without material: EURO–VISION by FRAUD