athens digital arts festival 'singularity now': the 2018 design campaign

3d artists kakia konstantinaki and tina touli direct the design campaign to create visuals, posters, and motion graphics representing the 2018 athens digital arts festival. the athens digital arts festival celebrated it’s 14th edition under the theme of ‘singularity now.’ between 24 and 27 of may, the 2018 edition of the festival explored the upcoming ‘technological apocalypse’ through art, science, and technology, and welcomed over 20,000 people at megaron – the athens concert hall.

the group conceptualized the notion of an ambiguous ‘singularity’ to develop abstract visuals for a comprehensive campaign of the 14th edition of the athens digital arts festival. to illustrate the concept the group writes: ‘singularity can be – as we are all aware – interpreted in a multitude of ways. the term is used in physics, mathematics and futurology to describe a range of scenarios from “the merger of human and machine”, “artificial intelligence becoming so real, that we will not be able to distinguish it from humans”, “the end of the world” to “eternal life”. and this is just scratching the surface.’

the group introduces an ambiguous ‘object’ as the key element of the campaign to clearly illustrate the concept of singularity. the object’s surface shows a distorted reflection of the athenian cityscape in which it is placed, a setting which is familiar to the audience. this introduces a dichotomy of familiarity with a philosophical invention. the group explains, ‘this relationship will be varying from person to person. while one might be completely new to the idea, and the other might have already studied the subject, ‘the object’ leaves room for each individual to shape their own interpretation of what singularity can be, either something good or bad.‘

project info:

client: athens digital arts festival
creative direction: tina touli
3D artists & motion designers: kakia konstantinaki, tina touli
graphic designers: jakob ritt, tina touli, yunxin stella wang
sound design: nalyssa green
case study photography: denis c. merten, kakia konstantinaki, lea abaz, samaras constantinos, tina touli
retouching: tina touli