On June 21, KIKK hosted a Catalan delegation consisting of 15 arts structures (businesses, artists, organisations). On the menu: pitches, encounters, the opening of an exhibition, tech culture… and beers. OF COURSE.

It is quite laughable to admit that when we learned that this delegation was coming to Namur, we didn’t necessarily have an image in our minds of a Catalonia active in the cultural and creative industries sector. Stereotypes about the south are hard to shift, and rather than imagining a profuse cultural hotbed in the tech and digital domains, we instead saw in it a somewhat antiquated tradition. Let us tell you that quite the surprise was in store for us!

To establish the context, it was the Ministry of Culture which, through the Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies (CICC) and its internationalisation brand Catalan Arts, organised a 72 hour mission on the theme of digital cultures for 15 Catalan enterprises. This delegation travelled through Rotterdam, Leuven, Brussels and finished its business trip here with us, at KIKK. This pilot mission had a triple objective: on the one hand, to discover and gain in-depth knowledge of the basic infrastructure in the two countries’ CCIs; on the other, to promote the Catalan sector abroad to establish links and opportunities for future joint projects, and finally, to bring together a digital and creative community in an exciting, professional, people-centred pilot mission, factoring in beers, chips and karaoke!

The delegation

In fact, we welcomed very interesting people. First of all, let’s talk about the organising bodies: Catalan Arts, represented by Maria Basora, Nùria Bultà, Paula Cáceres and Eva Colom, badass women who act on behalf of the CICC’s internationalisation brand in B2B contexts. In other words, they provide assistance to artists in their marketing, in establishing contacts and networking, making available an address book of counterparts and/or potential buyers, the accessing of resources and in the creation of events to boost their commercial activities. 

We also had the opportunity to meet the Ministry’s Department of Innovation and Digital Culture (represented by Marisol López and Dani Gimeno), whose main goal is to support and promote projects and initiatives which connect art and culture with the digital industries. Through doing so, we got to discover a colossal plan: Catalunya Media City with Marc López Ribes and Ribera Garcia Rojo. In brief, Catalunya Media City is the transformation of the Tres Xemenneis zone (between the Sant Adrià del Besos and Badalona municipalities) into a new urban district dedicated to creativity, digital innovation and the audiovisual sector. A kind of creative, technological and economic epicentre which will have the use of installations, experimentation and laboratory spaces, an audiovisual park, training sites and services to support and galvanise the Catalan CCI ecosystem. A Silicon Valley, Catalan-style, if you like. 

Next, the floor was given to the delegation itself, consisting of the 15 Catalan cultural and digital studios, associations and organisations selected: Blit.studio, Desilence, Eyesberg, Gabriel Casanova, Grup Lavinia, Hamill Industries, Insectotròpics, Mouawad Laurier, Mutacions, New Art Foundation, Sínoca, Tigrelab / Tiler Gab, XR Wellness and Zertifier.

There is absolutely no doubt that we are right in the thick of the digital realm: immersive technologies, mapping on a New York scale, mauve neon lights, hypnotic light shows so incredible our head is left spinning. Each organisation evidently has its specific DNA, its technical preferences, its specialisation, its audience. They are all unique. Yet, during their brief ten-minute presentations, a common denominator jumps out very obviously: the meaning behind the practice. A lightbulb moment strikes when Anna Diaz Ortuño from Hamill Industries takes the floor: ‘yes, we explore new formats; yes, we do performance, but above all, we “craft”.’ And once she had insisted on crafting, artisan practices, we listened to the following pitches with a very different mindset: before being, in some cases, international studios, they are all artists who wish to create, explore, test out. So yes, there is inevitably always some mention of basic needs, of the sinews of war (a.k.a. the dough), but every time, during each discussion, we go back to the meaning and to what really makes them tick. It is perhaps that which the artistic process and the artists embody, when all is said and done.

Gigantic paintings created live

Our epiphany of the day is confirmed during our interview with Tatiana Halbach from Desilence. Her eyes sparkling, her tone unapologetic, she tells us that what she loves doing is painting with video. And that she has done since she was a teen. OK-AY. We don’t get it straightaway, but the passionate way she chats to us is enthralling. She tells us how her discovery of VDMX software was a crucial step in her career: it was her gateway to live video performance. But painting was not yet a part of it. She ended up fulfilling her dream after having met Søren Christensen (her partner in love and in work). The duo combined two software programmes: VDMX and Notch, a real-time 3D software. Its WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface allows them to apply digital paint strokes to full-scale stage-set panels. And in a flash, listening to her, it all makes total sense.

Tiler Gab, the arts spin-off

We also met Mathieu Félix, like the cat (he brought it up, not us). Born in Marseille, and based in Barcelona for 17 years, together with Javier Pinto and Federico Gonzales he co-founded TigreLab, a digital content creation studio which tells stories (2D and 3D animation, light shows, motion design, VR, VFX, interactive and immersive installations, etc.). Having started from scratch, it was primarily with private clients that they got things going. Then the scheme developed and grew from a team of three to one of fifteen, the aims evolved and the projects had to be more focused on moneymaking. And even if they fully intend to privilege creativity above all else – Mathieu insists on the fact that they are not a ‘productora’ – the fact remains that certain projects have a more commercial than an artistic approach. And to offset this financial reality, they had a brilliant brainwave: an artistic spin-off, called Tiler Gab (an anagram of TigreLab). And here, it’s certainly no goldmine, but it’s the laboratory, you scale everything back to the basics, you are doing what you love and what you want to do. Mathieu, energised by talking about it, leads his artistry back to what is human-centred, to emotion, to the theatricality of technology, because what he in particular loves is live performance. And he therefore quite naturally tells us the story of Alice.

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