The Current Team came together during a speculative urbanism research program - The New Normal (TNN) at the Strelka Institute, directed by Prof. Benjamin Bratton. The team includes 3 core members and many visiting experts from around the world - Eli Joteva, Provides Ng and Ya Nzi.
Provides Ng is an architect and a researcher from Hong Kong. Her work concerns the emergence of the digital tool and their impacts on architecture and urbanism. Her research discusses how multimedia narrative and trans-application workflows can be employed to expand the spectrum of architectural vocabulary. Provides is now with the Bartlett School of Architecture in UCL, United Kingdom.
Eli Joteva is a visual artist and researcher from Sofia, Bulgaria who works at the intersection of fine arts and science through the use of new imaging tools. The core of her current research explores biological and technological memory systems in relationship to imaging processes of the past and future. She earned a B.A. in Fine Arts from USC Roski in 2013 and an M.F.A. from UCLA Design | Media Arts in 2018. She has exhibited solo shows in North America, Europe and Australia and has curated numerous art shows in Los Angeles. She lives and works between Los Angeles and Sofia.
Ya Nzi is a multi-component artistic-engineering substance from Moscow, Russia. Yanzisubstance graduated from the Moscow State Technical University in 2010 (Robotic and Complex Automation department) and Moscow Contemporary Art Institute in 2017. He has worked in VFX and animation industries.
Current, 11' 25", 2019
The Current Team takes great interests in the zeitgeist of media, architecture and design. With the emergence of global computation, data analytics and algorithmic governance, this video work seek to bridge the abyss between digital technology, its folk ontology and the cities. The team employs visual-driven analytic methodologies to investigate contemporaneity, as they consider visual aesthetics not as supplementary to happenings, but possess intrinsic cultural values that are esoteric and unmeasurable within existing institutional value metrics.
Some of the key ideas investigated in this short film are artificial intelligence application in media and urbanism; collaborative visions between human and machine intelligence; branded virtual signaling on social interactions; potentials of a participatory authorship with live-streaming technologies; and volumetric cinema.
