This week, an opening of a major international exhibition of new media artists will take place at the  MEET Digital Culture Centre in Milan as the culmination of several years of collaboration between leading European digital arts organisations such as RIXC from Riga, MEET Digital Culture Center from Milan, Public Art Lab from Berlin and others, founding partners of AUGE - Augmented Europe, which is an ambitious and growing European collaborative project specifically targeted at a broad youth audience. AUGE aims to address challenges such as diversity and social inclusion, climate change, future employment and nature and data narratives.

The project aimed to create a platform for young Europeans, young artists and activists to shape the future of Europe through digital media, generating new ideas to inspire and create ways to live in Europe in a sustainable, inclusive and beautiful way.

The AUGE project organised international artathons (art hackathons) and residencies for young artists in 2023 and 2024 in European digital art centres in Milan, Riga, Berlin, Athens, Barcelona and Gdansk.

AUGE's final exhibition at the MEET Digital Art Centre in Milan will showcase new digital artworks, including the virtual reality (VR) artwork "Decentraland. Unraveling Invasions: A Tri-Stage Odyssey)" " by RIXC residency artists from Ukraine, Oleksandr Sirous, Dmytro Tentiuk, Danil Siabro, produced by the RIXC Center for New Media Culture. The VR artwork "Decentraland", created by Ukrainian artists, reveals the cultural, ecological and economic invasion of regions such as Ukraine, Latvia and the rest of Europe, highlighting the invasive nature of human interactions facilitated by technology.

The international exhibition of new media artists AUGE will be on view from May 23 to 26 at the MEET Digital Art Centre in Milan, concluding the multi-year collaboration of the European project "AUGE - Augmented Europe". The AUGE Exhibition will open on Thursday May 23 at 18:00 (CET), while the final AUGE2 artathon for young people will take place during the day programme from 11:00-14:00 (LV time), which can be joined online In person at the MEET Digital Arts Centre, the 1st prize winner of the RIXC Artathon Ideas Competition "Challenges for a Green and Digital Future" Lauris Šmits (Latvia), 2nd prize winner Oleksandr Sirus (Ukraine), as well as MEET Artathon winner Haralds Dravnieks (Latvia), and winners of other partner-organised Ideas Competitions will present their creative project ideas.

Until May 23, 11:00, young people are invited to apply to participate online in the final AUGE Artathon, which will take place on the Metaverse platform "Spatial"! Participation is free. Please register to receive information about joining the Metaverse platform:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScXf5aCmfgw_gF_Jo4brPswoVXW6BKRF3BaMX0yxVUmBiLedg/viewform

The partners of the AUGE2nd project, co-funded by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme of European Union are MEET Digital Culture Center (Italy), RIXC Center for New Media Culture (Latvia), Public Art Lab / PAL (Germany), Espronceda Institute for Art and Culture (Spain) and Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art (Poland).

The partners of the AUGE NEXT project, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, are MEET Digital Culture Center (Italy), RIXC Center for New Media Culture (Latvia), Public Art Lab / PAL (Germany), Athens Digital Arts Festival (ADAF, Greece).

More information:
https://augenext.eu/