CIRCA: What You Need To Know

Since launching in late 2020, CIRCA has been moving across the world as a force of positive disruption – pausing day-to-day monotony, inspiring conversation and supporting a global community of artists and causes. Want to get involved? Read our guide to see what you need to know about CIRCA.

CIRCA: What You Need To Know

What is CIRCA?

If you’ve ever commuted through the busy streets of London, it’s easy to notice that people, once set on their destination, very often look up at the world around them. A habit partly fuelled by the ‘antisocial city’ and the mobile phone we hold tightly in our hands, it becomes easy to fall into a dissociative rhythm.

Cue CIRCA, the digital art and culture platform with a purpose to disrupt the mainstream. Every night, CIRCA broadcasts a video created by one of the world’s leading artists online and in various global public spaces – all it needs is a screen. The video, which lasts a few minutes, is an artistic vision of society today. Its triumphs, tragedies, issues, concerns and communities. Each video is free to watch live and on CIRCA’s website.

CIRCA on screens in Seoul’s COEX KPOP (c) CIRCA 2021

Created by London-based artist Josef O’Connor, CIRCA commission a new artist each month to share their work with the world. The goal is to make both artist and audience stop and think, so that we can collectively meditate on the state of the world – a refreshing alternative to the all-too-familiar doom scrolling we’re prone to online. As CIRCA notes on its website: ‘We stop the clock on global media spaces every evening at 20:22 and mobilise the world’s greatest creative minds to broadcast unique works that consider our world today, circa 2022.’

When and where can I see it?

CIRCA has grown from an online platform working in collaboration with London’s Piccadilly Lights to a global phenomenon, taking over screens across the world at 20:22 each night in each time zone. As of 2022, you can make catch a CIRCA screening every night of the year at one of the following locations:

• London – The Piccadilly Lights, 20:22 GMT
• Berlin – Limes, Kurfürstendamm, 20:22 CET
• Melbourne – Fed Square, 20:22 AEDT
• Milan – Luxottica, Piazzale Cadorna, 20:22 UTC
• Los Angeles – Pendry West Hollywood, 20:22 PST
• New York – Luxottica, Times Square, 20:22 EST
• Seoul – Coex, K-POP Square, 20:22 KST
• Tokyo –  Neo Shibuya TV, 20:22 JST

You can also watch every screening online at circa.art

Which artists are taking part?

CIRCA kicked off with bang back in October 2020, with a series of screenings from world-renowned multi-disciplinary artist Ai Weiwei. Since then, the likes of Cauleen Smith, Eddie Peak, Patti Smith, Tony Cokes, Emma Talbot, Vivienne Westwood and David Hockney have all taken to the screen to reflect on current social, political, environmental and personal circumstances.

You can see past screenings on CIRCA’s YouTube channel here.

What is the #CIRCAECONOMY?

In line with each presentation, a run of limited edition prints are sold to the public to fund the platform’s circular model, #CIRCAECONOMY. Money raised through this initiative goes straight back into CIRCA’s free public art programme, which helps to create opportunities for those in the arts. On other occasions, the money raised from these prints goes to charities and causes that CIRCA and its collaborating artists believe need all the help they can get.

IMAGINE PEACE print by Yoko Ono

This month on CIRCA: ANOTHER CONFRONTATION

This month, environmental art pioneer Agnes Denes is taking to London’s Piccadilly Lights to present Another Confrontation, comprised of three new videos from the artist (as well as a interactive AR wheat field on Instagram inspired by Denes’ 1982 work of the same name) to present a forecast of the future’s environmental challenges.

As part of this month’s display, two limited edition prints created by Agnes Denes will be available to purchase on CIRCA’s website for £100 a piece. All profits will go into the #CIRCAECONOMY.

WATCH

Catch a screening of CIRCA every night at 20:22 on the Piccadilly Lights or online at circa.art

Featured image: IMAGINE PEACE art installation by Yoko Ono & CIRCA (March 2022), Piccadilly Circus, London

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