BIO

DUO LARBITSSISTERS

Since 2010 social media researcher Bénédicte Jacobs (BE) and media artist Laure-Anne Jacobs (BE) form the artist duo LarbitsSisters. The work of the Brussels-based duo is situated at the crossroads of art, technology, societal questions and ecology. Their collaboration grew out of a shared fascination for the creative drives and patterns in digital media and the friction between an unbridled faith in technological progress and everyday life. In 2011 they together founded Larbitslab that has become the breeding ground for international collaborations between art and science, resulting in social critical installations, performances and events. Gradually questions regarding the use of energy resources, related wealth inequalities, and ecology have come to the fore in their work, as an urgent topic in need of disruptive visions and speculative solutions.

 

The specificity of Larbitslab lies in the methodological approach, which combines observing practices, profound technological explorations and application to current societal questions in a networked society increasingly in need of new relations to ecosystems it is so complexly intertwined with.

 

Their work has been presented in several national and international exhibitions, festivals and symposia amongst other, Imal (Brussels), BOZAR (Brussels), Ars Electronica (Linz), McaM (Shanghai), Kellen Gallery (New-York), ISEA 2020 (Montreal), Elektra 2021 (Montréal – Brussels), TOKAS Arts and Space (Tokyo). Comprising social media researcher Bénédicte Jacobs and media artist Laure-Anne Jacobs, LarbitsSisters has won the NOVA New Media Interactive Art Prize, the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica and the NTAA New Technological Art Award. The duo was selected for various international residency programs.

Bénédicte Jacobs is media artist and social media researcher at the Centre de recherche en philosophie (PHI) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She is graduated in Philosophy and Literature and holds a postgraduate in Information and Communication Sciences. Her research investigates the phenomenon of transformation of the public space and explores the role of rules and regulation mechanisms governing the public domain and the strategies for use and interaction. She is particularly interested in the logics of interaction such as the dynamics of individualization in the production of public expression. Her current research focuses on the ethical, legal and political challenges raised by the phenomenon of the indexation of traceability on the net.

 

@: benedicte.jacobs@larbitslab.be

Laure-Anne Jacobs studied monumental arts in Sint-Lucas Academy in Ghent. She took part in several exhibition projects, frequently with aspects of integrated art. The rising of digital media formed an important role within the evolution of the work of the artist. The expression and the design of her art project find frequently their origin in daily observation. Public space, society issues take part of elementary pillars of her art work and forms the real framework to realize art projects giving expression behind meanings. The interpretation of the existing reality acquires in this way very varied expressions, always adapted to the context. The artist associates different processes, works with digital prints, photographic images, film, internet and other experimental new media technologies.

 

@: laureanne.jacobs@larbitslab.be

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

2026

20/03 – 30/03/2025

Design Fest Gent, Design Museum, Ghent

EXHIBITIONS

2024

Photosynthesising Flowerpots, New European Bauhaus Festival 2024, Fair Visions & Projects, Arts & History Museum, Parc du Cinquantenaire, Brussels.

 

2023

Photosynthesising Flowerpots, As Above, So Below, TOKAS Creator-in-Residence 2023 Exhibition, Tokyo Arts and Space Hongo, Tokyo

Crypto Miner Car, Life/Likeness, ICC Annual 2022 Exhibition, ICC InterCommunication Center, Tokyo Online exhibition venue: https://hyper.ntticc.or.jp/

 

2022

Crypto Miner Car, Life/Likeness, ICC Annual 2022 Exhibition, ICC InterCommunication Center, Tokyo

Crypto Miner Car, NTAA’22 – International Art Exhibition for New Technology, Liedts-Meesen Foundation, Zebrastraat, Ghent, BE

 

2021

Crypto Miner Car, Tactus – 17th Athens Digital Arts Festival, Museum of Modern Greek Culture, Athens, GR

Crypto Miner Car, <MTL> Connect 2021, On-site Moving Programme, The Digital Springs, Montreal – Brussels, CA/BE

Crypto Miner Car, Gluon Art & Research, Brussels, BE

 

2020

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, ISEA 2020, Montréal, CA

Crypto Miner Car, Entropies, Regional STARTS event on future energies, Snowball, Harelbeke, BE

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, Currency, New Media Gallery, New Westminster, Vancouver, CA

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, The Question of Intelligence – AI and the Future of Humanity, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, New York, USA

 

2019

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, Mind the Deep – Artificial Intelligence and Artistic Creation, Shanghai Ming Contemporary Art Museum (McaM), Shanghai, CH

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, Lying Sophia and Mocking Alexa – An Exhibition on AI and Art, Hyundai Motorstudio Art District 798, Beijing, CN

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, Brussels in SongEun: Imagining Cities Beyond Technology 2.0, SongEun ArtSpace, Seoul, South Korea, KO

 

2018

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, ERROR – The Art of Imperfection, Drive, Berlin, DE

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, NOVA New Media Interactive Art Prize, BIG HOUSE Contemporary Art Center, Wuhan, CN

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, CyberArts 2018, Prix Ars Electronica Exhibition, OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, AT

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, Enter the BitRepublic, Gluon Platform for Art, Science and Technology, Brussels, BE

BitSoil Popup Tax & Hack Campaign, Media Fast Forward, and& summit & festival, Leuven, BE

 

2017

Bitsoil Trader, Internet Yami-Ichi (インターネットヤミ市), iMAL Brussels, BE

Claims on public space: on disruptive designs and narrative futures for an open free Internet, Making Public Domain, Middelheim Museum, Antwerp, BE

BitREPUBLIC, exhibition John Doe in the Metacity / Utopia & Distopia in Architecture, Halles Saint-Géry, Brussels, BE

 

2016

BitREPUBLIC, Blockchain Fact. Fiction. Future, Showcase, iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, Brussels, BE

eu4you, exhibition Coding/Decoding Borders, antiAtlas, Espace Architecture Flagey-ULB, Brussels, BE

 

2015

Algorithmic Tube Tales, RRI-ICT forum, iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, Brussels, BE

Algorithmic Tube Tales, D.ART, Mechelen 2015, BE

 

2014

TubePlot, Art & Digital Technologies: Disruptive Innovation practices for an Unknown Future, Bozar Electronic Arts Festival (BEAF), Brussel, BE

TubePlot, Vice versa: From research to media arts, Quinzaine numérique 2014, Mons, BE

Algorithmic TubeTales, exhibition Citysonic #12, International Sound Arts festival, Mons, BE

The Flanograph, 20th International Conference on MultiMedia Modelling, Dublin, IR

 

2013

MyMiniMaxiLoveLife, 5th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment, Numediart Institute for Creative Technologies, Mons, BE

The Flanograph, Sensing by Interface Design, 5th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment, Numediart Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Mons, BE

Flânographier l’espace : pour une poétique computationnelle de saisie de l’expérience Urbaine, HyperUrbain 4: Hybrid Mobility, Valenciennes, FR

The Flanograph, Conference Art and Geography Aesthetics and practices of spatial knowledges, University of Lyon, FR

PUBLICATIONS

2023

Digital Art (World of Art) by Christiane Paul, Thames & Hudson, 4th edition, 2023, pp. 300

Tokyo Arts and Space, Annual Report 2022, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, 2023, pp. 78

 

2022

Japan Media Arts Festival, Award-winning Works and Jury Selections, 25th edition, 2022, pp. 61

 

2020

Why Sentience, 26th International Symposium on Electronic Art, Isea 2020, Printemps Numérique, pp. 81.

 

2019

Mind the Deep, Artificial Intelligence and Artistic Creation, Ming contemporary art museum (Mcam), Ming Yuan Group, Li Songjian, Ling Feifei, pill.design, pp. 84.

Brussels in SongEun: Imagining Cities Beyond Technology 2.0, Laurence Geoffrey’s, Ltd., Top Process, pp. 33-35.

Lying Sophia & Mocking Alexa, Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing, Gioia Xu, New Media Art Production Collaborator: HELU Culture Communication, pp. 9.

 

2018

CyberArts 2018, International Compendium Prix Ars Electronica, Ed. Hannes Leopoldseder, Christine Schöpf, Gerfried Stocker, series: CyberArts, 2018. 256 pp., 578 ills.

 

2014

Eulalie Pierquin & Duo LarbitsSisters, Flanographie, in: 100 Notions pour l’Art Numérique, coll. 100 notions, Paris: Les Éditions de l’Immatériel.

Jacobs Bénédicte, Jacobs Laure-Anne, Frisson Christian, Yvart Willy, Thierry Dutoit, Leleu-Merviel Sylvie, 2014. Scenarizing Metropolitan Views : FlanoGraphing the Urban Spaces, Cathal Gurrin et al. (Eds.): MMM2014, Part II, LNCS, Springer, pp. 11-21.

 

2013

Jacobs Bénédicte, 2013. Flânographier l’espace : pour une poétique computationnelle de saisie de l’expérience Urbaine, HyperUrbain 4 : Mobilité et Parcours Hybrides, dir. Khaldoun Zreik, Europia Productions, pp. 52-65.

 

2011

Digital art in Wallonia-Brussels Federation Grants 2006-2010, Wallonia-Brussels Publication, pp. 71-78-79.

AWARDS & GRANTS