We invite you to the presentation of the latest 15th issue of SPHAIROS journal

We invite you to the presentation of the latest 15th issue of SPHAIROS journal, The Present’s Virtuality in Media Heterotopia, which will take place on December 23 at 5:30 p.m. in the hall on the second floor of the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute (Saltoniškių g. 58, Vilnius).

At the event, you will be able to hear about the creation of this issue of Sphairos from the journal's creative team, and the authors of the texts in the magazine will also be present: cultural researchers Rita Repšienė (editor-in-chief), Naglis Kardelis, Vytautas Rubavičius, Margarita Matulytė, and others.

Sphairos 15: The Present’s Virtuality in Media Heterotopia

In an increasingly virtual present, we are living through a time of challenges shaped by media heterotopia. The digital world is altering our choices, questioning our hierarchy of priorities and values, and offering us the possibility of becoming integral participants in our own existential reality. In this issue, Lithuanian art historians, philosophers, and cultural researchers discuss the opportunities opened by innovation and possible collaboration with artificial intelligence. They are joined by self-taught artists such as Iranian artist Samaneh Atef, who previously studied computer engineering, as well as a Peruvian shaman and a Canadian Inuk hunter-turned-artist. 

In “Weeds (For the Natufians)” Lisa Robertson documents the archaeological excavation of the Natufian culture in the Levant (in what is now Gaza) by the British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod in the 1930s. Employing a critical feminist approach to the appropriation of images of the Virgin Mary’s body as a form of self-empowerment, Eglė Elena Murauskaitė, in her article seeks recognition of conscious choice in relation to both her own body and the bodies of others. This edition also features a conversation between Uruguayan artist, educator Luis Camnitzer and the Lithuanian born Colombian mathematician, politician Antanas Mockus. We find ourselves at a crossroads of values: How can we preserve our originality, creative orientations, and capacity for critical reflection in the non-virtual reality?

Contributing cultural researchers and artists: Samaneh Atef, Naglis Kardelis, Lisa Robertson, Rita Repšienė, Luis Camnitzer, Antanas Mockus, Eglė Elena Murauskaitė, Pablo Amaringo, Vytautas Rubavičius, Margarita Matulytė and Pudlo Pudlat