23/05 2025
Media Mediterranea 27
The 27th Media Mediterranea Festival, organized by the Metamedij Association, takes place from May 26 to 30, 2025. The theme of this year’s festival is “H₂O Interface.” The program includes a video screening section, a group exhibition, artist talks, lectures, a speculative design practice workshop, an accompanying pop-up exhibition, and a DJ party. This year, the festival will be held at the Small Roman Theatre (video wall of the Archaeological Museum of Istria building), Novo Gallery, the Pula Technical Culture Community, the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula (Faculty of Economics and Tourism), and the Kotač Club in the Rojc Community Center.
Festival Topic:
DARKO FRITZ
H2O Interface
“Dip your finger into the sea, and you are connected to the whole world”
(a saying of unknown origin, also used in Croatia)
The Media Mediterranea 27 festival, titled H2O Interface, presents artistic works that question the role of water on planet Earth, its interfaces, and the interaction of all entities. The project examines the relationships between water and diverse groups of living organisms—including humans, animals, fungi, plants, viruses, and others—aiming to expand the vocabulary of networks of living organisms and objects in complex relationships within the post-digital paradigm. In this paradigm, technology is interwoven with nearly every aspect of the contemporary world while still maintaining its connection to nature. The project explores the intertwined fields of natural processes, technology, and social interactions across a broad spectrum of interests, including biology, zoology, physics, chemistry, growth processes, network cultures, sonification and data visualization, real-time data transfer, and more.
Humans, composed of approximately 70% water, live on a planet where 71% of the surface is covered by water. Freshwater accounts for only 2.75% of all water on Earth, with the majority—2.14%—stored in polar ice caps, while 0.61% exists as groundwater. The remaining freshwater is found in lakes, soil, the atmosphere, and rivers.
How do living beings—plants, animals, and humans—as well as the inorganic world interact with water in all its forms and aggregate states?
What are the interfaces through which the ever-changing forms of water communicate with other material entities?
What relationships and interfaces emerge through human economies—such as fishing, piracy, smuggling of goods and people, tourism—and, furthermore, for the energy needs of all other actors of the Anthropocene?
How do human-made products, water supply infrastructures, underwater data transmission cables, fishing nets and traps, hydroelectric plants, beaches, lighthouses, and other artifacts impact the broader Anthropocene?
Unlike many contemporary artworks in which metaphorical reflection on a chosen theme is the sole content of the work, the selected artistic pieces in this project aesthetically reflect the processes occurring in our environment by incorporating the processes themselves or their precise representations through the use of scientific data as artistic material. These works employ innovative technological methods of data processing, sometimes in real time, forming new aesthetic and cognitive wholes. All participants of the Anthropocene are connected through sound—one of the rare manifestations of the material world that exists perpetually in a physical sense. Thus, particular attention is given to sound in visual works, sound art, and acoustic ecologies.
Commenting on the distorted dichotomy between culture and nature, Bruno Latour in 1989 urges that we—as humans—must rethink our perspectives to conceive a “Parliament of Things,” where natural and social phenomena, along with the discourses surrounding them, are not seen as separate objects studied by specialists but as hybrids made and examined through public interaction between things and concepts. Following Latour’s ideas, we can imagine the possibility of conceptualizing larger networks where non-human actors transcend predefined proportions, appearing as rendered entities through the act of observation, within the very processes of which they are a part.
Festival Program
MONDAY – May 26, 2025
9:00
Community of Technical Culture Pula
Uspon Franje Glavinića 1
Pipedreams & Lushlakes
Workshop on Speculative Design Practice
20:00
Small Roman Theatre
Herculov prolaz 1
Video Program
- Nigel Helyer: Biologging and Under the Icecap (excerpt) – 16′
- Toni Meštrović: Plavi ton – 1’30’’
- Robertina Šebjanič: CO_SONIC 1884km² – 15′
- Karla Brunet: Antarctic Convergence – 3’20’’
TUESDAY – May 27, 2025
10:00
Juraj Dobrila University, Faculty of Economics and Tourism (FET)
Preradovićeva 1
Discursive Program
- Dr. Cecelia Cmielewski: Institutional Collaborations in Art and Science (Western Sydney University)
- Dr. Nigel Helyer: Presentation of Artistic Practice “Water Works”
(Intended for students, open to the public, working language: English)
WEDNESDAY – May 28, 2025
20:30
Novo Gallery
Laginjina Street 7
H₂O Interface
Group Exhibition (28.05. – 06.07.2025)
- Artists: Leah Barclay, Karla Brunet, Nigel Helyer, Toni Meštrović, Dijana Protić, Robertina Šebjanič, Entangled Others (Sofia Crespo & Feileacan McCormick)
- Curator-led tour by Darko Fritz and discussion with participating artists
THURSDAY – May 29, 2025
10:00 – 13:00
Novo Gallery
Laginjina Street 7
H₂O Interface
Guided tour of the exhibition by curator Darko Fritz with the presence of artists: Toni Meštrović, Dijana Protić, Robertina Šebjanič, Nigel Helyer
FRIDAY – May 30, 2025
22:00
Kotač Club
Ljudevita Gaja Street 3 (Rojc Community Center)
Pipedreams & Lushlakes
Pop-up presentation of works from the speculative design workshop
22:00 – 04:00
Kotač Club
Ljudevita Gaja Street 3 (Rojc Community Center)
Plava struja
Ilija Rudman and DJ Evan
Closing Party
Entry: €15
Donors and Sponsors:
Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia
Kultura nova Foundation
Istria County
City of Pula
Archaeological Museum of Istria
Novo Gallery
UMAS
Kotač Club
Community of Technical Culture Pula
Collaborators:
Juraj Dobrila University of Pula
Technical Support:
Sonitus
Audiolab
Ara Electronics
Media Sponsors:
Kulturistra
Glas Istre
TV Nova
Medulin FM
Special Thanks:
HRT Radio Pula
Print:
Tiskara Nova
More info: www.metamedia.hr
FB/Instagram: @udruga.metamedij
ORGANIZING TEAM
Marino Jurcan – Festival Director and Executive Producer
Darko Fritz – Curator
Marijeta Bradić – Educational Program Coordinator
Nikol Ćaćić, Antonela Lukša – Producers
Boris Vincek – Media Relations, Technical Support
Oleg Šuran – Graphic Design
Studio 11, Nastasja Miletić – Photography
Visualia – Technical Support
Media Mediterranea 27 – katalog
Media Mediterranea 27 – programski letak
Udruga Metamedij je korisnik institucionalne podrške Nacionalne zaklade za razvoj civilnoga društva za stabilizaciju i/ili razvoj udruge.
