Last week saw the launch of VRHAM!, a new Hamburg-based biennale for digital art.
Founded by Artistic Director, Ulrich Schrauth– who also curates BFI London Film Festival’s Expanded programme – VRHAM! showcases emerging and established artists and collectives shaping the future of multisensory, interactive and augmented arts experiences.
At the heart of the biennale is an exhibition of innovative digital works across VR, AI, painting, sculpture, photography, and light art, curated by Schrauth and colleagues Liz Stumpf and Lilian Hess. Alongside this, the MOIN film fund Showcase provides a platform for five teams to share new prototypes in digital storytelling – offering a glimpse into the creative processes shaping tomorrow’s media.
Throughout the week, VRHAM!’s Digital Art Lab, curated by Peggy Schoenegge, connects artists and audiences via hands-on workshops and talks, including a number led by members of the biennale’s Digital Art Delegation of international curators and experts in the field.
Highlights of the inaugural edition, which explores the theme ‘Rethink Art!’, include a stand-alone installation of Marshmallow Laser Feast’s ‘EVOLVER’ – a powerful mixed-reality work that invites audiences on a meditative journey through the human body, guided by Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett.
Within the impressive main exhibition, standout works include South Korean artist Yaloo’s holographic installation ‘Shininho’ – a speculative marine adventure that captures the journey of 86-year-old K-pop idol and pirate, ‘Shin In-ho’ – inspired by the artist’s grandmother, and legendary woman pirate Zheng Yi Sao (1775–1844), who was the most successful pirate in history.
Another favourite was Kazakhstani artist Almagul Menlibayeva’s ‘Posthuman Matter: The Map of Nomadizing Reimaginings #3’, which comprises video and textile work – merging feminist craft traditions from Central Asia with post-Soviet histories and speculative futures. AI-generated and hand-embroidered, the large-scale central piece continues a tradition of embedding hidden messages within tapestries – creating a map of sites referenced throughout Menlibayeva’s broader artistic practice. The piece is accompanied by videos that correspond to specific locations, ranging from salt lakes to remote steppe villages and former Soviet nuclear test sites. Documentary video footage captured by the artist is interwoven with feminist rituals of restoration, nomadic mythology, and fragments from vanishing languages. This stream of consciousness is as much a reflection on ecological collapse and geopolitical fracture following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as it is a radical archive of survival, embodied memory and feminist resistance.
Also in the main exhibition, Random International present a pair of relating works, ‘Human Algorithm’ and ‘Imagine All Of Us (Polyptych’), which take as their starting point a performance in Jeddah in 2024, where a group of local participants moved in unison, according to algorithmic patterns inspired by the phenomenon of flocking. The work reverses the role of human and machine, turning people into code and then back again, and plays with our instinctive need to recognise something human in other forms of life, and in art.
Nearby, William Darrell’s ‘The Machinery of Enchantment II’, made up of 3D-printed kinetic sculptures of flowers, also taps into human instinct. This time, the preconditioned pull of humans (and other living beings) towards flora – the seductive power of which is represented through the hypnotic kaleidoscopic movements of spinning petals and stamen. This very physical work stands out within an exhibition of digital art, at first almost seeming out of place. However, it’s not long before the sculpture’s mesmeric rhythms remind you that nature is full of patterns that have no doubt inspired technological and algorithmic innovation, and much of the other work within the exhibition.
Finally, in the MOIN Showcase, Henning Westerwelle’s ‘UNHOME Apart from Society’ deserves a particular mention. A 20-minute VR experience that places players directly into the reality of homelessness, UNHOME offers a first-person perspective on the struggles of life on the streets – and the cycle of isolation, survival, and systemic barriers that those without a home can quickly find themselves in. By engaging with critical decision-making, and experiencing the emotional weight of these choices, participants gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of this issue. Despite still being in development the piece is highly impactful, and it’s no surprise to learn that that the project was created in collaboration with nonprofit GoBanyo, who are dedicated to supporting people experiencing homelessness. The integration of real-life experiences mean the way this digital work hits is guttural – leaving one profoundly moved and truly inspired to empathy.
All these works are installed across several venues in Hamburg’s Oberhafenquartier – formerly a hub for the railway freight industry, which is now set to become a hub for culture and the creative industries. Oberhafenquartier’s potential is palpable – as VRHAM!’s to become a defining force in digital art.
With the biennale already confirmed for 2027 and 2029, exploring the themes ‘Dance & Performance’ and ‘Film & Moving Image’ respectively, and the new UBS Digital Art Museum due to launch in 2026 with Team Lab’s ‘Borderless’, it seems Hamburg has put a stake in the ground when it comes to its cultural future. Based on the energy around the inaugural VRHAM! biennale, what an exciting future that could be.
VRHAM! 11th-18th June vrham.de
