The WRO Media Art Biennale is the leading forum for new media art in Poland and Central Europe. Since its inception in December 1989, WRO has been devoted to art forms using contemporary means of creation and communication, presenting the work of highly renowned artists as well as debuts by young newcomers.
WRO started out as the Sound Basis Visual Art Festival, and was originally devoted mainly to audiovisual works in formats including video and computer art, installations, performances and multimedia presentations. Since 1993, the festival – now a biennial event – has also explored the new strategies and territories of digital artistic expression. It highlights individualistic approaches to the technology of art, global trends affecting artists and vice versa, the merging of high culture with pop and the changing role of artistic experimentation in the contemporary cultural landscape.
The WRO Biennale is held in Wrocław in early May in odd-numbered years. It is organized by the WRO Media Art Center Foundation as part of the WRO Art Center’s activities.
The WRO Program
The WRO Biennale features a wide range of events and activities in a variety of formats and venues, presenting an overview of current media art, along with educational and archival programs.
Every WRO Biennale attracts approximately 1500 submissions from artists from over 60 countries, and close to 100 works are selected for presentation at each edition of the festival. WRO Biennale screenings are the world premiere for a significant number of the selected works, and the Polish premiere for the vast majority.
Alongside the selected submissions from artists around the world, every Biennale features projects initiated and developed by the WRO organizers, such as collaborations among musicians and visual artists, curatorial exhibitions and special presentations. WRO Biennale attendees can see
- competition screenings, curatorial selections, retrospectives of celebrated artists’ works;
- video installations, sound installations, interactive installations, web projects and intermedial works;
- media art and curatorial projects created on WRO’s artistic residency program;
- performances and concerts in various venues and in urban space, interactive performances, multimedia audiovisual projects.
Symposia / Conferences
Every WRO Biennale is accompanied by a symposium or conference where leading names in art, philosophy, sociology and technology give presentations and discuss topics related to the main theme of that year’s festival.
The AudioVisual Sphere
A regular feature of the WRO Biennale, the AudioVisual Sphere is a series of late-night events in club settings. It encompasses a broad range of musical experimentation: real-time signal processing, improvisation, generative music, prepared instruments and innovative original software.
The WRO Biennale Venues
The WRO Biennale is the largest art event in Wrocław in early May, simultaneously occupying several of the city’s major cultural institutions and other spaces. These usually include:
- The WRO Art Center
- The National Museum in Wrocław
- The BWA Gallery of Contemporary Art
- The Entropia Gallery
- The Wrocław Puppet Theater
- The Wrocław Contemporary Theater
- The WRO Atelier
- Central urban space and selected city sites
- A festival club, which varies from year to year
The Public
The rich program of screenings, exhibitions, conferences, concerts and performances attract approximately 20,000 people to each WRO Biennale. The main constituents of the WRO-going public are:
- Wrocław residents with an interest in contemporary art and culture;
- students, primarily from art schools, liberal arts fields and technical schools;
- professional artists, musicians, filmmakers, curators and critics;
- film aficionados and music lovers with an interest in experimental forms, multimedia, new technologies and approaches
Promotion
Every WRO Biennale is accompanied by an extensive promotional campaign in the Polish and international media and through WRO’s partner institutions – galleries, museums, festivals, educational and cultural centers – within Poland and abroad. The promotional strategies include:
- multilingual press releases and informational materials;
- the WRO Biennale and WRO on Tour catalogs;
- posters, invitations, announcements, leaflets and other print materials distributed at major art events around the world;
- the wrocenter.pl website, featuring full photographic and video coverage of WRO events;
- the WRO Facebook and MySpace pages;
- the WRO Newsletter, sent to close to 5000 subscribers worldwide;
- promotional spots in the media and on cultural and professional websites.
The WRO Website
The wrocenter.pl site is a compendium of information about WRO’s various projects and activities over the years. With links to archival WRO Biennale webpages from 1997 onwards, the site comprises an extensive database about contemporary media art.
Festival Follow-Up Activities
Between WRO Biennales, close to 50 festival-related events take place in two series in art institutions and educational centers both in Poland and abroad:
WRO on Tour
This program of screenings and lectures presents the prizewinning works from the most recent WRO Biennale, along with other outstanding entries. The focus is on current trends, styles and strategies in new media art, highlighting the individual works, their inter-relations and their place in the landscape of contemporary culture. The program is accompanied by WRO Flash – a dynamic documentary of the main events at the WRO Biennale.
WRO LAB on Tour
This series of workshops building on the WRO team’s experience with central issues in new media art, such as constructing nonlinear works, directing interactivity, using motion-sensor systems and network environments.
The WRO Media Library:
an open database and video archives
WRO’s unique collection of media art is the largest in this part of Europe, and is steadily growing. It currently holds approximately 6000 works, which have been systematically digitalized, documented and archived. The collection features a wide range of materials, including Polish video and new-media art from the 1970s through the present, artists’ and theoreticians’ interviews and lectures, curatorial compliations and footage from art festivals, conferences and events.
WRO has developed its own system for cataloging and accessing the collection, which is used regularly by students, educators, historians, researchers and the general public.
Partners / Sponsors / Funding
Since the first WRO festival in 1989, WRO events have enjoyed the support of major international cultural institutions, foundations and grant organizations, as well as the national and municipal government.
WRO’s long-term collaborators include:
- the Wrocław Municipal Authorities
- the Lower Silesian Provincial Governor’s Office
- the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
- the Polish Institute in London, Madrid, Berlin, Kiev, Budapest and elsewhere
- the embassies and consulates of numerous countries
The WRO Art Center / Centrum Sztuki WRO
The WRO Art Center, which opened in 2008, arose from the experience and activity of the WRO Center for Media Art Foundation, the only independent organization in Poland specializing in contemporary art, media and technology.
The Center, in addition to its steady program of national and international exhibitions, educational activities and publishing endeavors (including the Polish/English multimedia periodical WIDOK: New Media Art Reader), is currently developing international multidisciplinary projects both in contemporary art and in other cultural contexts. WRO is also actively involved in organizing international residencies and exhibitions for artists working with new technologies and innovative approaches to image, sound and perception.
