Projects Where People Kiss (Matienschön, 2018) A Ferris Wheel is installed for a gallery's 10th Anniversary. The cabins are scale models of 36 exhibitions that happened in that same room, each made by the original artist. Next to it, a video based on footage from vernissages, a scale model and a series of texts. See: Website. · Water my plant(with Denise Lara Margules, Mestizo Arts Festival, Belgium, 2016/17) An artistic research into cultural ecologies towards the creation of alternative institutional relations between Belgium and Argentina. Ten cultural organizations were linked through exchanging scale models of their buildings, that helped trigger experimental collaborations between its managers. Moderating the exchanges and documenting the process in different media, from video to embroidery, the duo of artist-managers reflect on how do we do things in the world of institutionalized culture, how we could do them, and who cares about it. The result of this 16-months project was presented in October 2017 in Brussels and Antwerp as a performative installation and a series of context-based events: exhibitions, a participatory walk and a lecture performance. See: Dossier. · Presents to where it's at (Hamiffal, Jerusalem, 2017) To encourage an artist collective to pursue the management of a cultural center, stories from managers of artist-run spaces around the world are collected, illustrated, and given as presents to the host collective — plus an open talk about collective initiatives in art and activism in South America. See: Flickr. · The Pink Tent(Se Alquila/Estado, Paraguay, and Matienschön, 2015/6) Citizenship in a tent: a research in national history derives in a context-specific, phantom institution hosting a program of experimental activities. First, a political & poetical camp is installed during the month of presidential elections. Based on a research over a failed bill of law, citizenship is reimagined around a tent that stands for the Presidential Office, alongside idiosincratic documents, hacked symbols and a tight program of activities. A year later, the tent is installed as a fake regional embassy in a market in Asunción, on the bicentennial of Argentina’s Declaration of Independence. This time, the performative installation sought to bring history to the present through a post-colonial lens, by means of artisanal operations over archive documents and a full diplomatic agenda. See: Website, Dossier. · Works Horn (2020) Poetry book.
· The Gray Suite (2020) A drawing and a poem, based on the Argentine's President visit to the World Holocaust Summit in January 2020. · Double Cinema (2020) Scale video installation based on Tony Scott's True Romance.· Foul (2019) IEDs drawn in TrazoSyphon, an extremely limited software designed for live collaboration, while watching Israeli TV series. See: Zine. · Tea Syphon (2019) Drawings in TrazoSyphon, an extremely limited software designed for live collaboration. · Hannah (2019) Drawing in TrazoSyphon, an extremely limited software designed for live collaboration. · The way out is collective (Casa Xitla, Mexico DF, 2017) A map of significant slogans from current demonstrations in Latin America, created as a result of interviews with the participants & staff workers of a residency for Jewish Latin American artists in Mexico City. The signs where fixed to pencils and installed in the ground. Viewers had to lift them up to see the inscriptions. See: Flickr. · Log (2013-2017) Drawings in cellphones, tablets and notebooks, made during project meetings. See: Web samples. · Little models of democracy (2015) Video recording of a live performance using 2 downloaded PNGs. Installed at the closing event of the exhibition Carpa Rosada. · Assembly (2015) Digital drawing, MS Paint, 60x80cm. Made during a political assembly held in the campsite of the installation "Carpa Rosada", in which it was decided to openly support a presidential candidate. I installed the drawing after he lost the election, when artists were invited to occupy the exhibition. See: Carpa Rosada PDF. · Season (2012-2014) Yearly photo series. See: Season 2014, Season 2012, Season 2007. · 2014 Diaries (2014) Sequence of short videos, precarious animations and smartphone music. · The hug (CC Parque España, 2013) Interactive installation.
· My house is your house(2013) Flipbook and stickers.· Reposi(2015) Website. · Casas(2012) Photos and drawings. · Photography 2005-2020Exhibitions and performances Territorio LODO (Festival LODO, Buenos Aires 2018) The project "Water My Plant" is presented in Buenos Aires, algonside context-specific works by Belén Charpentier and Baró-Cutró. Water My Plant is displayed as a series of videos and scale models, plus a performative storytelling. See: Project dossier, Exhibition views, Exhibition website, Performance script. · Water My Plant: Premiere (Mestizo Arts Festival, wpZimmer, Antwerp, 2017) Performative installation. See: Project dossier, Installation views, Video excerpts, Performance script. · Water My Plant: Detectives (Mestizo Arts Festival, Brussels 2017) The dissapearance of one of the models gives birth to a series of works and a walk through Brussels (across three institutions responsable for itsloss) borrowing from genres such as film noir, procession, touristic tour, personal journal, recycled games and collaborative videomaking. See: Project dossier, Installation views, Video excerpts, Performance script. · Soulseek/2016 (with Denise Lara Margules, Matienschön, 2015) One night-only relational installation based on a jewish, Benjamin-ish reading of the P2P network "Soulseek" to conjure energies for next year. A ritual table with bread, embroideries, texts and objects. See: Website, PDF. · Day one (PANORAMICA Festival, Buenos Aires, 2013). Live audiovisual performance. The idea: a collective creation based on the shared learning of accesible technologies. The story: a fire on communal houses gives birth to a new dawn. The setup: The result of live-editing nine simultaneous layers of animations and found footage was projected on four screens. Analogic visuals were juxtaposed to them, by means of a joystick-controlled, rotating overhead projector, like a lighthouse adding analogic light to the projected pixels. A four-piece band added live music to the mix. See: Website. · Ruptura y reconciliación a dos aguas (2012) A performative reading of a poem among three audiovisual channels and an performative act of reconciliation. See: Text, Trailer. · Biblioteca Pública (2011) I invited all members of a cultural organization to each choose a page from any book to be displayed for a month, next to his/her name. · Ensayön (Matienschön, 2016) Group show by the curatorial collective Matienschön around its history and identity as a project. My contribution is three A4 "task boxes". See: Website. · CollaborationsLos Persas, una campaña desmesurada (Tan Cerca, 2017) Live image manipulation for Baró-Cutró's online performance. A re-reading of Esquilo's tragedy in the form of a VJ-ed newsroom. See: Platform. · Love will tear us apart (MARTE/Club Cultural Matienzo, 2016) Live visuals for Maia Minovich's performance. An online survey about love is transformed into a three-piece band of poetry, music and live visuals. See: Trailer.
· Emergencia del deseo (dir. Belén Charpentier, El Porvenir Festival, 2015) Live data visualizations for Belén Charpentier's relational performance. A play as an assembly as a platform for collective agency. The audience, sitting in the stage, decide what they should work on after the play is over; the decision-making process is followed on the screens. See: Website. · Emperatriz IV (CETC-Teatro Colón, 2013) Stage design and realization for Lolo y Lauti's performative installation. A walk in the shape of a fertility ritual: the audience in groups of 12, each accompanied by an usherette, was guided in the dark through 4 installations, from laying down on hot wooden structures to gping inside an inflatable sculpture. See: Website.
· Platforms Club Cultural Matienzo (2008-2018) Collaborative endeavor for transformation through cultural action. A group of 100 club members run a venue for arts and community life in Buenos Aires, which hosts a daily program of activities. Matienzo is a company for the creation and production of cultural contents, both on and off the club’s premises; an umbrella organization for artistic and social projects; and an open, interdisciplinary community of artists, technicians, educators, professionals and students who work to develop local and regional networks of activism and collaboration. See: Website, Instagram, English PDF, Issuu. · Matienschön (2011-2018) CC Matienzo’s contemporary arts team & exhibition space. For 8 years, a group of curators, artists, producers & designers developed hundreds of contemporary art projects: commissioning, curating and producing site-specific exhibitions, interdisciplinary festivals and residency programs, as well as publishing dossiers. Matienschön acted as an uncompromising platform for emerging artists, fostering collaboration and interdisciplinarity, expanding the possibilities of exhibitions and experimenting on the links between contemporary art and civil participation. See: Website, Issuu. · LET IT VJ (2012-2017) Festival for new media, music & realtime art. In its 16 editions, spanning 120 hours, it presented the work of 250 national and international artists. LET IT VJ helped tighten the community of new media practitioners while offering them a platform for experimentation and collaboration, and for visibility to general audiences. See: Facebook, Website. Curatorial Seder e-Tarbut (Virtual project, 2020) A Zoom passover dinner, reimagined by 7 artists from the Río de la Plata. See: Instagram.· Imágenes guardadas (YoNoFui, CC Matienzo & CELS, 2018) The creative resistance strategy of a photography workshop for imprisoned women, facing prohibitions from the penitentiary system. See: Website.
· E-III-3 (Plinio Villagrán Galindo, CC Matienzo, 2018) A reconstruction of the Mayan city Kaminaljuyú, posing questions on human and cultural rights and urban development. See: Website. · El Penúltimo Humano (K.A.K., CC Matienzo, 2018) The Belgian performative collective worked together with local artists to create a new project. See: Website. · Restitución (Sebastián Hacher and Mariana Corral, Club Cultural Matienzo, 2017) Through embroidered photographs, texts, audiovisual pieces and a series of activities, the exhibitions attempts at restituting the soul of the Mapuches, in the context of the genocide perpetrated by the state and its current continuities. See: Website, Anfibia, Facebook. · Cemento: del under al indie, 1985-2016 (Club Cultural Matienzo, 2016) A documentary exhibition, a zine, 4 shows, 5 talks, a minifestival and a podcast concerning the legacy of the nightclub “Cemento”, a major yet conflicting landmark of Buenos Aires cultural history. See: Website, Zine (1st edition), Youtube. · The Repair Club (Matienschön/public space, 2015) Three urban platforms/actions resulting of a residency leaded by a77. A club for repairing objects to foster sustainability, architectural workshops for kids, a treehouse platform. See: TXT, Exhibition view. · Fachadas en crisis + 15/20 (Club Cultural Matienzo, 2011) 10 years after, a videoinstallation by VolumenExpress (Germany/Norway), a performative season of 15 commissioned pieces and a day-long event reflect on 2001 Argentina’s crisis. See: Ñ, Youtube.· Murga Belga(Mestizo Arts Platform, Matienschön, 2012) ARG-BEL coproduction. A documentary exhibition about the recent spring of murga bands in Belgium and Europe and the community-based cultural collective that iniciated it. Alongside, a mini version of the Antwerp-based urban arts festival Mestizo Arts Festival presents a curated program of short videos from Argentina and Belgium. See: Website+more Santiago Ortí: TodoöööööööLa primavera que no conocemosLucas DM: XnFederico Lamas: Banderas de convenienciaCOZA: Un piano fantasmaLos últimos dioses
· Jejo Herrero: Se deja ver
· Andy Fasoli: Lo que piensan mis amigas que hago todo el día
· El otro castillo: experimental videogames
· Pablo Boffelli: Esa idea no se sostiene!
· Peschek/Bollati: Fictions
· Ángeles Ascúa: Elegía
· Séverine Hubard: Et que ca mousse!
· Sonia Basch: Amigos y personas que no conozco
· Lofilulu· Design commissions· Texts Critical Absorption ·
La dimensión política del formato ·
Tallar, elevar, reparar ·
Cemento ·
+more Music non stop ·
Esa idea no se sostiene ·
Bestia ·
Notas sobre bombones ·
· Media Clarin · Si! · Leedor · Ñ · Télam · SOY · La Razón · La Curandera · Los Inrocks · Publicable · Cultra · 2ème lieu· Bio
Agustín Jais is an artist, curator and cultural producer born in Buenos Aires in 1985. He studied photography and arts, industrial design, creative technologies and cultural management.
His work takes form as context-based multimedia projects that engage with relational dynamics, institutional processes and collective agency.
He presented individual and collective projects in Belgium, Paraguay and Argentina, and was selected for residencies in Jerusalem, New York, Brussels, Antwerp and Ciudad de Mexico.
He founded and was director of a cultural center, an art gallery and a new media festival, and acted as curator for dozens of exhibitions.
He was Associate Professor of Media and Digital Culture, and lectured internationally about collaborative iniciatives and the intersection between Art and Human Rights.
Since 2020, Agustín lives in Jerusalem. See: CV, Portfolio, Professional CV.· Statement
The foundations of Agustín’s cultural practise lay in building collaborative platforms for the creation and circulation of cultural “things”: organizations, technologies, ideas and stories.
His work blurres boundaries between art practice, curating and managing. It takes form as context-based, participatory multimedia projects that intervene on institutional dynamics, community building and the relations between culture and civil society.
Primarily, his projects are processual, engaging specific audiences. Each project’s formulation derives from the context and needs of mission- driven organizations and communities. These are channelled by learning processes, research and archival work, the use of accesible technologies and the activation of collaboration networks.
Artworks —combinations of photography and video, scale models and mechanical objects, designs and illustrations, text, video mapping, games or instructions— become nodes of energy, producing interactions around them while documenting them. These different media are usually condensed into installations, events and publications, all with a sense of performativity.
Meanwhile, a second line of work uses photography, video, drawing, digital media and text for a personal observation on human interactions.
In the end, he aims to put forward positive interventions on the beliefs, desires and ways of collective agency.· Contact & Links
Email: agustinjais (at) gmail.com · Instagram · Behance · Youtube · Vimeo · Linkedin
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Presents to where it's at
(Hamiffal, Jerusalem, 2017) To encourage an artist collective to pursue the management of a cultural center, stories from managers of artist-run spaces around the world are collected, illustrated, and given as presents to the host collective — plus an open talk about collective initiatives in art and activism in South America. See: Flickr. 
·
The Pink Tent(Se Alquila/Estado, Paraguay, and Matienschön, 2015/6) Citizenship in a tent: a research in national history derives in a context-specific, phantom institution hosting a program of experimental activities. First, a political & poetical camp is installed during the month of presidential elections. Based on a research over a failed bill of law, citizenship is reimagined around a tent that stands for the Presidential Office, alongside idiosincratic documents, hacked symbols and a tight program of activities. A year later, the tent is installed as a fake regional embassy in a market in Asunción, on the bicentennial of Argentina’s Declaration of Independence. This time, the performative installation sought to bring history to the present through a post-colonial lens, by means of artisanal operations over archive documents and a full diplomatic agenda. See: Website, Dossier. 
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Works
Horn
(2020) Poetry book. 
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Tea Syphon
(2019) Drawings in TrazoSyphon, an extremely limited software designed for live collaboration. 
·
The way out is collective
(Casa Xitla, Mexico DF, 2017) A map of significant slogans from current demonstrations in Latin America, created as a result of interviews with the participants & staff workers of a residency for Jewish Latin American artists in Mexico City. The signs where fixed to pencils and installed in the ground. Viewers had to lift them up to see the inscriptions. See: Flickr. 
·
2014 Diaries
(2014) Sequence of short videos, precarious animations and smartphone music.
·
Casas
(2012) Photos and drawings. 
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Photography 2005-2020
Exhibitions and performances
Territorio LODO (Festival LODO, Buenos Aires 2018) The project "Water My Plant" is presented in Buenos Aires, algonside context-specific works by Belén Charpentier and Baró-Cutró. Water My Plant is displayed as a series of videos and scale models, plus a performative storytelling. See: Project dossier, Exhibition views, Exhibition website, Performance script. 
·
Ruptura y reconciliación a dos aguas (2012) A performative reading of a poem among three audiovisual channels and an performative act of reconciliation. See: Text, Trailer. 
