Two pieces created in November 2021 at the digital residency “The Brain 7 – Playful Media” on the theme of dreams were presented to the public: Nature Dreaming and Dream Dancer. The Brain 7 is a digital and international project by eight artists from five different countries in collaboration with the Instituts français in Germany, Estonia and Sweden, the Goethe-Institut and A MAZE. /Berlin, a festival celebrating digital cultures.

On the second part of the ceiling, visitors can admire the digital artwork generated in real time based on the software activity produced by them as they play. Hypnotic images and ambient electronic sounds reveal the ultra-high-frequency digital processes that make the game work. A way to discover software from a new perspective! 

Admire Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa at the Musée du Louvre, stroll through the gardens of the Château de Versailles or watch a performance of Swan Lake at the Opéra Garnier from the salons of the Résidence – all thanks to Micro-Folie, a digital museum founded in 2016 by La Villette. 

Whether enjoying a free (independent) tour or the themed lectures organised every thirty minutes by the Institut français in Sweden’s cultural team, visitors discovered or rediscovered the greatest French masterpieces, such as Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa or Edouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass – in the closest possible detail! 

As part of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Micro-Folie was rolled out in several EU countries, including Sweden, where it was exhibited for the first time at Kulturnatt. Similarly, this mobile digital art gallery has been expanded and now features thousands of artistic masterpieces from Europe’s most prestigious cultural institutions and museums, in very high resolution. 

At Kulturnatt, one of the artists, Marie Dahlén (SE) was there to guide visitors through this dreamlike universe. Nature Dreaming is an experience on several different levels. Equipped with a virtual reality headset, visitors are invited to walk through imaginary digital landscapes (made up of 3D scans, drawings, recordings and voice). 

Dream Dancer explores the closening connections between human awareness and artificial intelligence through speech, the body and sound. ROOT is a pole dancer who changes appearance according to her environment and the angle from which she is seen.

Cyber/glow is an interactive software art installation, presented as an audiovisual diptych and projected onto the ceiling of the Résidence de France. It was designed and developed by the software art collective re|thread, made up of Erik Natanael Gustafsson, Thomas Durieux, Jonathan Ramirez and Benoit Baudry, in collaboration with the art historian Séverine Feuermann, who lent her knowledge of the history of the Broms palace. 

Visitors enter the room and are directly immersed in a new sound and visual dimension. They lie down on the floor and, through an avatar, answer questions on the history of the Résidence de France. As the visitors play, Cyber/glow reveals all the operations that make the game work, including the messages between the phones and the game’s server, and all the digital activity within the software. 

This is an interactive multiplayer game. Visitors connect on their phones, then lie down in the room. They then move their avatars around to answer different questions on the Résidence de France and its history. A truly unusual and immersive experience!