Future Art and Culture is delighted to announce that UK artist Adam Cole’s project Kiss/Crash has won the XR Experience Special Event Audience Award at this year’s South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
Kiss/Crash by new media artist Adam Cole is an immersive, multi-screen installation exploring the subject of AI-imagery and representation, as well as autobiographical themes of loneliness, desire, and intimacy in the digital age.
The installation consists of three individual works presented in a shared space: Kiss/Crash, Me Kissing Me, and Crash Me, Gently, all of which play with the iconic image of the kiss using AI image translation. Repurposing a classic Hollywood aesthetic through a queer lens, the piece reflects on the nature of images, and places AI models within a history of image-production technologies meant to arouse and homogenize our desires. In the process, it reveals the logic of AI imagery and hints at how our relationship to reality will continue to be stretched and shaped by artificial representations at an accelerating pace.
Kiss/Crash, created by artist Adam Cole, was presented as part of the UK’s 2024 Future Art and Culture programme within the international festival of tech and innovation, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW).
The eighth annual showcase of world-leading British talent focusing on work that explores the boundaries of arts and technology, Future Art and Culture is presented by British Underground and Arts Council England, with ongoing support from the British Council.
Crispin Parry, Founder, British Underground says: “Many congratulations to artist Adam Cole for winning this year’s SXSW XR Audience Award for his playful yet subversive AI based installation Kiss/Crash. It’s incredibly exciting to have showcased two award winning UK works as part of Future Art and Culture 2024 at SXSW in Austin, alongside Hatsumi’s innovative Soul Paint which won the 2024 XR Experience Special Jury Award. Thanks to our ongoing partnership with Arts Council England and continued support from the British Council, we have been able to showcase a significant number of UK artists and producers as part of our Future Art and Culture programme this year and we look forward to building on this as we develop our plans for SXSW 2025 and beyond.”
Adam Cole says: “Seeing people connect with Kiss/Crash in person was one of the true pleasures of being at SXSW. The piece is a meditation on my anxieties around AI, but it is also a deeply personal self-portrait exploring desire and loneliness in the digital age. It was an incredible opportunity to see people resonate with the piece at such a prestigious festival, and winning the Audience Award is a remarkable bookend to this incredible experience. I’m more excited than ever to share this piece with new audiences and to continue making provocative, personal work that explores desire in the shadow of artificial representations’
ABOUT ADAM COLE:
Adam is an American media artist working with film, installation, and AI technology to subvert the norms of traditional cinema. He is based in London, where he graduated with a master’s degree from the Creative Computing Institute, University of the Arts London. His work examines the complexity of intimacy and identity in the digital age, creating immersive and interactive experiences that project desire in the shadow of artificial representations. He probes these themes through various computational techniques including microprocessors, 3D rendering engines, and AI networks to craft works of experimental expanded cinema. Drawing on the history of images, Adam’s work extends a rich queer tradition of twisting popular media conventions to reveal unspoken double meanings. Adam’s work has been exhibited internationally at galleries, film festivals, and academic conferences including the SXSW Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest Alternate Realities, Sonar+D Barcelona, and SIGGRAPH Arts. His most recent installation, Kiss/Crash, has been recognized by the Lumen Prize for Art and Technology, the Aesthetica Art Prize, and the Asia Digital Art Award.
ABOUT FUTURE ART AND CULTURE
Future Art and Culture is a major international showcasing initiative at SXSW. The project focuses on the boundaries of art and technology through exhibitions, panel discussions, partnerships and networking events. Future Art and Culture is produced by British Underground funded by Arts Council England with additional support in 2023 from the British Council.
ABOUT BRITISH UNDERGROUND
British Underground (BU) curates and produces international showcase and streaming projects in music and the arts. BU is an Arts Council England NPO and PRSF Talent Development Partner working across culture from Stormzy to the Royal Shakespeare Company. BU has over 20 years experience producing significant showcases and events at South by Southwest, in Austin, TX (SXSW).
ABOUT ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND
Arts Council England (ACE) is the national development agency for creativity and culture in England. ACE invests public money from Government and the National Lottery to support the arts and culture sector and to enable people across the country to enjoy a range of high quality cultural experiences.
www.artscouncil.org.uk
ABOUT BRITISH COUNCIL
THE BRITISH COUNCIL is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. We do this through our work in arts and culture, education and the English language. We work with people in over 200 countries and territories and are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2021-22 we reached 650 million people. www.britishcouncil.org
