As artist Rihards Vītols told LTV’s cultural news program Kultūras Ziņas Tuesday, he is interested in “things that create themselves.”
“The artist creates some process, then this process starts to create things, taking away the artist’s own responsibility,” he explained.
The process is called 3D printing, and Riga residents and visitors can familiarize themselves with it for the remainder of the month at the ‘Café Europe’ container-café.
Right now there are three artists working in the space – Rihards Vītols, Pēteris Riekstiņš and Mārtiņš Eņģelis – each working to transform the new technology into artworks. But the new hi-tech device doesn’t just attract young people.
“We get grey-haired ladies sitting down next to our new artists and listening to how 3D printing works. Of course we’re mainly oriented towards young people, especially from September, when we expect to welcome many groups of schoolchildren,” curator Rasa Šmite told Kultūras ziņas.
The container for arts and sciences traveled to Riga from Belgium, from next year’s Culture Capital of Europe the city of Mons. Soon similar ones will be launched in Linz, Karlsruhe, Sarajevo, Plzen, Rome and elsewhere in Europe.
“In our days people’s meeting places are most often related to new technologies. And we wish to unite that idea with the idea of café’s, so popular in Belgium, to create a new meeting place for creative ideas,” explains Café Europa – Mons 2015 project leader Wolf Kühr.
