Cristian Bettini (a.k.a. P.ankh): Donkijote.org — Once upon this time there was a clever donkey with its digital armour and its errant knights… :: September 24 - November 1, 2009 :: LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Los Prados, 121, 33394 Gijón (Asturias) Spain.

Donkijote.org, the winning entry of the open competition Digital_LAB 2009, is an analogue/digital project that will gather data using altogether innovative techniques during four journeys taken by the artist Cristian Bettini (a.k.a. P.ankh) and the donkey Minuto through different areas of Asturias. The donkey will operate as a living interface equipped with digital hardware such as a GPS, a mobile Internet connection, a computer, a camera and a video camera with which it will create a memory of Asturias, producing and collecting information, re-mapping the territory and geo-categorising knowledge. The rules of the journey are determined by the natural rhythm of the donkey’s pace, giving everything that enters into our perception a measure of human attention.

The people that cross their paths, as well as Internet users, will participate in the project by providing advice and suggestions, contributing to the evolution of the project and the enrichment of the audiovisual and anthropological patrimony of Asturias.

The travellers will return to LABoral after each journey where they will carry out activities using the material they have collected. In this way, the exhibition, located in the gallery Platform 1 of LABoral, will evolve and grow throughout the length of the journey and the advancement of its digital representation, connecting virtuality to reality in an indissoluble way.

CURATORS: Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana
ARTE.RED: http://www.arte-red.net

LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial is a space for artistic exchange. It is set up with the purpose of establishing an effective alliance between art, design, culture, industry and economic progress and the goal of becoming a space for interaction and dialogue between art, new technologies and industrial creation. It throws a special spotlight on production, creation and research into art concepts still being defined.