Fragmentin is an artist collective based in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded in 2014 and composed by three ECAL (Lausanne University of Art and Design) alumni: Laura Nieder (*1991, Lausanne), David Colombini (*1989, Lausanne) and Marc Dubois (*1985, Basel).
At the crossroads of art and engineering, Fragmentin’s work questions the impact of the digital on everyday life by investigating these technologies' disposition towards control and opacity. Fragmentin's works are often conceived as spaces for discussion on crucial contemporary themes and issues such as climate change.
Through installation, video, interaction and performance, the studio’s artworks demystify complex systems and reveal the tension between emergent technologies and society: participants are driven to act-out a dystopic choreography in an experience which questions virtual reality as medium (2199, 2016). A web-app connected to a meteorological sculpture bursts serendipity into your digital life by using pollution levels to glitch selfies; sunlight intensity to destroy data and the rhythm of the rain to broadcast matching music (The Weather Followers, 2017). An atrium where visitors can witness rain creating disturbing patterns and illustrating notorious geoengineered weather events recounted on separate screens (Displuvium, 2019). A smartphone exposed to extreme temperatures reflects on its own inadequacies, in an environment marked by catastrophic climate change (Your phone needs to cool down, 2019). An online broadcast of chimerical and non-decipherable images in constant evolution aggregates, with the help of filters, the five most viewed videos of youtube on a semantic field defined by the artists. (burningcollection.tv, 2020). A pyramidal sculpture and Virtual Reality experience - occuring at the top of mount Schlüchtli (2283m) - questions the integration of digital and infrastructural technologies in the natural alpine landscape (N1-Observatory, 2020) and finally: a series of still images and generative videos on the topic of Post-digital archaeology (Obsology, 2021).
Fragmentin’s work has been exhibited in Switzerland at the Haus der elektronischen Künste HeK (Basel, CH), Kunsthalle Zurich (Zurich, CH), The Mapping Festival (Geneva, CH), The Landart Biennale Art Safiental (Tenna, CH), NOV gallery (Geneva, CH) and la Becque (La Tour-de-Peilz, CH). The trio’s installations have also traveled to: the Arsenal (Venice, IT), The ZKM (Karlsruhe, DE), Jeu de Paume (Paris, FR), The Kunstraum (Vienna, AU), the Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris, France), the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Art and Space (Prague, CZ), The Mirage Festival (Lyon, FR), the Getxophoto festival in Bilbao (Spain), Cairotronica (Egypt), The Shenzhen media art festival (China), The Cello Factory Gallery (London, UK), The National Theatre (Londres, UK) and to the York Art Gallery (York, UK).
Several institutions have acquired Fragmentin's works for their permanent collection. These include: HeK Basel (Displuvium, 2019) and the Art Foundation PAX (The Weather Followers, 2018).
While continuing to exhibit their work in museums and to develop collaborations with galleries, Fragmentin aims to make art and its debates more accessible to the audience and more rooted in the public space, notably by proposing interventions in natural landscapes, urban spaces (Art for Architecture), inside a church or by creating online experiences.
The three artists have been awarded several prizes: the App Art Award at the ZKM in Karlsruhe in 2017, the Pax Art Award in 2018 at the HeK during Art Basel, and the Prix du Rayonnement de la Fondation Vaudoise pour la Culture 2019 at the new MCBA in Lausanne. In addition, since 2017, the trio has been nominated for several art awards: the Lumen Prize (2017 - 2019), the Aesthetica Art Prize (2020) and the Art Laguna Prize (2020).
The three artists regularly give lectures or teach at universities and institutions such as ECAL (Lausanne,CH), HEAD (Geneva,CH), EPFL architecture (Lausanne, CH), the University of Art in Lucerne or the HeK (Basel,CH).
