Surreal animations, digital worlds with endless logic, and projections that defy the traditional confines of an urban gallery. The eighth edition of Kinomural will take place on 18 and 19 September in Wrocław’s Nadodrze district. A total of 113 works by 67 artists will be presented, including monumental projections by Extraweg and a special four-channel project by Peter Burr. The festival is increasingly becoming a laboratory for new media art, and Burr’s participation reinforces its experimental nature.
This year, Kinomural once again brings art from mobile screens and galleries directly onto the walls of tenement houses. The audience moves between projection points and charts their own route. The headliner of this edition , themed ‘Endless Circulation’, is Extraweg, but Peter Burr remains an equally significant figure in the programme – a creator of immersive, generative worlds whose works have been exhibited at venues including the Whitney Museum, the Barbican Centre and Documenta 14. This year, the artist has prepared the project *Interstitial Maintenance*, which runs simultaneously on four walls, as well as the curated programme *STATE OF LOOPING*. To mark the occasion, we’re talking to him about the city, architecture, loops and working on a world that never ends.
Kamil Białas: How do you view a city that is becoming a medium for digital art?
Peter Burr: For me, the city is a set of conditions. It determines who will see the work and on what terms. When I show my projects in Times Square, I think about the fact that the surfaces in that neighbourhood exist to display commercial imagery. In Nadodrze, a surface is often someone’s home, and behind it people are having dinner, sleeping or playing games…
What fascinates you most about working with the urban fabric, which was never designed with the presentation of digital art in mind?
I like the fact that it doesn’t always cooperate. Walls have windows, drainpipes and shapes that were created for reasons unrelated to art, and the weather does its bit. I like that the works presented on Kinomural have to adapt to all of this, rather than the other way round.
Does the architecture of the buildings you work with influence the way you construct your generative worlds?
Architecture doesn’t penetrate the world, but determines how the world is divided. In *Interstitial Maintenance* , I create a simulation that could run indefinitely, so every wall in Wrocław’s Nadodrze district is a window onto a fragment of it. The building determines the shape of the windows, their number and the distances between them.
How do you view architecture in Poland? What are your thoughts on Wrocław’s architecture?
I can’t speak extensively about Polish architecture, but I really like Nadodrze. The streets are winding, and the buildings are full of details that few developers would be willing to fund today.
What have you prepared for the audience at this year’s Kinomural?
Two things. The first is *Interstitial Maintenance*, which opens each day across four walls. It’s a portrait of a building that, with every cycle of its looped digital simulation, accumulates more and more debris. Workers traverse it, carrying out maintenance on a system that constantly produces faults and signs of decay, and this year those workers have the faces of the residents of Nadodrze. The second piece is STAN ZAPĘTLENIA, a programme I’ve created around the idea of the loop – the oldest concept in animation. Zoetropes and flipbooks work through the repetition of movement. But a loop is never exact. A line redrawn is a different line, and this programme plays with that fact. In the selection I have put together, you will be able to view works by Yoriko Mizushiri, Réka Bucsi, Takeshi Murata and Meejin Hong.
In this version of the work, faces recorded in Nadodrze become part of the simulation. How does our relationship with the fictional, digital world change when viewers suddenly recognise themselves, a neighbour or someone they passed on the street an hour earlier? Do they become participants, raw material, co-creators – or simply another element of the system?
We’ll find out! This is the first time I’ve presented this work without the character-generating game machine – a mechanism which, until now, has served as the gateway to the world of *Interstitial Maintenance*for viewers . I designed this system to convey to viewers, both literally and visually, the sensation of being inside this world. A special kind of empathy then arises: when you see your own reflection in a new reality – living a different life and experiencing dramas that are not your own.
Interstitial Maintenance will open each day of the KINOMURAL festival with a simultaneous projection onto four walls. What can such a scale and simultaneity offer the viewer that a single screen, a cinema or a gallery cannot?
I hope that this simultaneous projection in a public space will capture the audience’s attention on many different levels. Each wall presents different characters, spaces and moments. It’s impossible to take in the whole work at a single glance, so I expect people will experience it in different ways. Someone who notices the projection against the backdrop of this extraordinary neighbourhood might perceive it much like a view from a window of children playing in a playground or a flock of crows. Someone else might focus on a single wall and a single character, following the story of a whole lifetime. I designed this work as a simulation that, in theory, could go on indefinitely; the ideal viewer is therefore more like someone observing birds in a forest, where individual moments of spotting the animals are merely external manifestations of a much larger system at work.
You have created a world reminiscent of a game, yet at the same time you have stripped it of one of its fundamental promises: the ability to control the course of events. The simulation continues even in the viewer’s absence. Why did you want us to be witnesses to this system rather than participants in it?
I love watching video games in the same way one watches films. When I’m playing myself, I stop thinking about the poetics of the experience and switch to a mode focused on optimisation and victory. This approach is far less conducive to exploration than watching a film. That’s why, when creating a game, I think hard about how to craft situations that encourage the player to appreciate the poetics of a given scene – which, paradoxically, often involves drastically limiting traditional interaction. In *Interstitial Maintenance* , the environment couldn’t care less about its inhabitants, so it seems quite fitting that the game – in functional terms – doesn’t care about the player either.
If you had to describe Kinomural in a few words to encourage someone to take part, what words would you choose?
Go outside at night and look up!
Thank you for the interview.
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Why is it worth attending Kinomural? The festival consistently seeks out new forms of presenting art. This year, alongside projects by Extrawega and Burr, we’ll also see Krzysztof ‘Kuki’ Iwański’s Ghosts of Tomorrow – an installation that draws on the medium of the flag and refers to what we share and what is at risk of being lost. The six walls each have their own programmes, which run simultaneously from 7.30 pm to 10.00 pm, with individual sets repeating throughout the evening. The audience can start viewing from any location and create a slightly different festival experience each time. In their own way.
Admission to the event is free. All you need to do is head to Nadodrze, allow yourself to shift your perspective and view the city as a living screen. Kinomural 2026 comprises two evenings during which Wrocław becomes a space where new media art blends with historic architecture, providing an unforgettable experience. We wrote more about this year’s edition HERE.
The full programme, descriptions of the works and information about the artists are available at www.kinomural.com.
Kinomural. New Media Art Festival
18 and 19 September, 7.30 pm–10.00 pm.
Wrocław, Nadodrze
free admission
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