Fotomuseum Winterthur | Online Events | Wednesday, 26.01.2022, 19:00–20:00

Screen Walk with Juan Covelli

Juan Covelli will present Modern Ruin, a project using publicly available media and a mapping platform to document and locate failed constructions across Colombia. These engineering mega-projects have unexpectedly collapsed before reaching completion or sometimes only days after their inauguration. Symptomatic of an emergent national crisis, these pre-emptive ruins are the result of ingrained corruption and have even caused loss of life.

Modern Ruin was developed for the Google Maps Residency Program by Off Site Project.

In Screen Walks, a series of live-streamed explorations of digital spaces, selected artists and researchers investigate artistic strategies taking place online. The project gives an insight into practices using the screen as a medium. From re-contextualising pictures found on online marketplaces and uncovering data brokers’ invisible circulation of images to analysing in-game photography and the social, political and economic implications of games – Screen Walks examines various approaches, offers a behind-the-scenes look at artists’ work and uncovers new, current and forgotten digital spaces. Screen Walks is a collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery in London and Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Kindly supported by: Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council

Biography:
Juan Covelli is a Colombian artist and independent curator currently living and working in Bogotá, where he teaches at Universidad El Bosque/Universidad Javeriana. He also runs the online art platform Nmenos1. A graduate of MA Contemporary Photography, Practice and Philosophies at Central Saint Martins, Covelli’s practise revolves around the technological potentials of 3D scanning, modelling and printing to readdress entrenched arguments of repatriation and colonial histories. Using video, modelling, data sets and coding, he creates IRL and URL installation-based works which collapse historical practices with current models of display and digital aesthetics.