Digital Artists Panel Discussion | VDC26

What happens when digital worlds become a way of thinking about the natural one? Artists Joaquina Salgado and Kolbeinn Hugi, joined remotely by Yarema Malashchuk, sit down with moderator Nadim Samman to discuss their digital commissions for Vienna Digital Cultures 2026. Three works exploring how games and virtual environments can offer new ways of understanding ecology, memory, and connection.

Joaquina Salgado‘s 'One More Sim' is an interactive work that explores how memories and simulations shape the way we experience the world. Kolbeinn Hugi’s 'SPLORB' is an absurdist game in which players help a frog navigate a bureaucratic multispecies internet, building connections between ecosystems in a race against ecological collapse. Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk’s 'UNREPRODUCIBLE' reflects on scenes of separation and reunion in the age of global video communication, where experiences of distance and farewell are increasingly transformed into familiar and reproducible images. Filmed at Kyiv’s central train station, the work captures moments that resist standardization, exploring emotional realities that cannot simply be mediated, interpreted, or reproduced.

Explore the commissions yourself:
SPLORB
One More Sim
UNREPRODUCIBLE

Recorded at FOTO ARSENAL WIEN as part of Vienna Digital Cultures 2026. Autotelic Foundation is Key Partner of Vienna Digital Cultures 2026, curated by Nadim Samman.