María Castellanos and Alberto Valverde
María Castellanos and Alberto Valverde began working together as an artistic duo in 2009. María Castellanos is an artist and PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Vigo. She was a postdoctoral researcher at Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway) within the project FeLT – Futures of Living Technologies between 2021 and 2023. Alberto Valverde is an artist and technologist with extensive experience in system design, the creation of interactive environments, multimedia and robotics.
Their artistic practice explores interactions between humans, non-humans and machines, developing complex systems that foster dialogue between diverse forms of life. Their work, closely linked to the relationships between living beings and their environments, drives new forms of communication and understanding beyond the human. From a critical perspective, it integrates ecological and feminist sensibilities to question conventional boundaries and hierarchies, challenging the structures of power that have historically defined our relationship with other forms of life.
Over the past years their work has received several awards, including the Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators from the BBVA Foundation in 2020, the VERTIGO STARTS Prize in 2017 (a European initiative of EU-Horizon 2020 led by the Centre Pompidou and IRCAM in Paris and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in Germany, promoting collaboration between artists and R&D projects). In 2016 they received the Antón Grant for Sculptural Research from the Antón Museum in Candás (Asturias). They were also nominated for the STARTS’ Prize 16 of Ars Electronica, Linz (Austria), and for the Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo (Japan).
Their work has been exhibited at numerous art centres and festivals, including Ars Electronica Festival (Austria), LABoral Centro de Arte (Spain), Athens Digital Arts Festival (Greece), House of Electronic Arts Basel (Switzerland), La Gaîté Lyrique Museum (France), DRIVE Volkswagen (Germany), Matadero Madrid (Spain), Touch Me Festival (Croatia), Bozar Electronic Art Festival (Belgium), CEBIT – Europe’s Festival for Innovation and Digitisation (Germany), Arts Santa Mònica (Spain), Onassis Stegi (Greece), MUSAC León (Spain), V2_Lab (Netherlands), Pompidou-Metz (France), Antre Peaux (France), Trondheim International Biennale for Art and Technology (Norway), RIXC Festival (Latvia).
