ARTMIX.ro was an archive of Romanian contemporary artists that functioned online from 2006 until 2010. It was a promotion tool for artists, growing as information was added. ARTMIX was an attempt to break the circle of galleries and art communicated mostly among an artistic elite. The idea of the project was to take contemporary art into the street and communicate it to a diverse public, by integrating it into the space of the city. ARTMIX.ro was launched with a database of 82 artists presented on an interactive multimedia set-up in the public space of Bucharest from 5th to 11th of June 2006. The event itself was a multimedia experiment, superposing real and virtual space. We recreated the mouse and computer screen scenario at a city scale, installing a led-screen that displayed the contemporary art archive and a mouse that allowed the visitors to navigate through the website.

Back in 2006, the green space in front of Bucharest National Theatre was an unkept place that people didn’t dare step on as that could mean not only getting dirty but also getting a fine. The area was also full of street children, sadly an unsolved social problem of the city at that time. We cleaned the place, cut, watered the grass and placed several modules of urban furniture, cubes and prisms covered with natural grass, trying to communicate to the public that it was ok to step on the grass and even take a seat 🙂

events organised to activate the contemporary art archive: contemporary dance show (Way 04), animation shorts (Matei Branea, Vali Chincișan), video art films (Geta Brătescu, Maria Drăghici, 2META, Cosmin Moldovan), short film screenings (Zapping, Cristi Mungiu | Dincolo, Hanno Hoefer | Apartamentul, Constantin Popescu | Cartușul de Kent, Cristi Puiu) and on the last day we organised a milonga with Alexandru Nuca (bandoneon) and Hora Preda (guitar). We also created a free access internet hotspot for the duration of the project.

Event organised by ARTMIX Association with the support of: Romanian Cultural Institute, ARCUB, Paradigma Production.

Team: Marilena Oprescu, Dragoș Tudor, Anca Cojocaru, Matei Branea, Vali Chincișan, Sorin Olexiuc, Ștefan Tuchilă, Sebastian Lupea, Andrei Nădejde, Cristian Cionoiu.