Nadim Samman on curating digital art beyond accessibility and spectacle

Nadim Samman, who serves as the director of the Autotelic Foundation and curates the Vienna Digital Cultures Festival, promotes curatorial approaches that resist reducing art to oversimplified narratives. In a conversation with Artribune, he emphasizes the need for environments that accommodate intricate digital pieces, critiques the myth surrounding digital innovation, and questions the neoliberal illusion of boundless agency in immersive experiences. Samman contrasts human curation with algorithm-driven selection, favoring works that delve into unresolved issues. The festival's first theme, 'Model Collapse,' examines the disintegration of various systems, with AI playing a central role. Artists showcased include Arvida Byström, Caroline Busta, Silvia Dal Dosso, and Kate Crawford, highlighting the significance of recognizing the unseen labor and energy behind digital art.