Institutional presentation / DïaloG. MindSpaces – STARTS . The Art of DïaloG: Are we immigrants in a machine World?
Abstract: Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme in the framework of S+T+Arts initiative (Science, Technology & the Arts). S+T+Arts supports collaborations between artists, scientists, engineers and researchers to develop more creative, inclusive, and sustainable technologies. The main objective of MindSpaces is to develop novel art-driven design processes and technologies, which build upon artificial intelligence, multimodal data analysis and fusion algorithms and are augmented by data insights gathered through the collective social behaviour and responses of occupants experiencing dynamic and adaptive environments. https://mindspaces.eu/
S+T+ARTS is driven by the conviction that science and technology combined with an artistic viewpoint also open valuable perspectives for research and business, through a holistic and human-centered approach. https://starts.eu/
DïaloG a is a public art, generative, interactive, and evolutionist project. He shows how the new status of the artworks that experiences mutations made possible by the technology moved the object it used to be (sculpture in marble, painting on canvas) to a real subject. The art-subject, able to perceive its environment, dotted with memory, and afferent cognitive functions: artificial intelligence, artificial intentionality, autonomous behaviour, may also experience a new form of affectivity. Lost in a human controlled world, the artwork is a strange stranger. It doesn’t look like us, it may express a complex behaviour triggered by specific emotions – from fear to curiosity, from excitement to compassion – it may also activate a semi-organic process of assimilation based on absorption of perceived information altering its own DNA. They want to learn and to understand. What they perceive becomes part of their persona in constant mutation. With more time, they’ll grab bits of language from the public, interact with them, and even more: they will interact with one another. The Alien is the Other, and like highly elaborate robots, these affective machineries are striving to decrypt the world as if it would be a necessity for art survival. In troubled times, when war, climate, or poverty induce large-scale migrations, these aliens offer the possibility to discover and experience the strangely familiar quest of interspecies and intercultural mutual understanding.”
Biography: Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is a media artist, director and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. His body of work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. In taking the data that flows around us as the primary material and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol paints with a thinking brush, offering us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expanding the possibilities of architecture, narrative, and the body in motion. Anadol’s site-specific AI data sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, its temporal and spatial dimensions, and the creative potential of machines.
Maurice Benayoun (aka MoBen or 莫奔) (born 29 March 1957 in Mascara, Algeria) is a French pioneer, contemporary new-media artist, curator and theorist based in Paris and Hong Kong. His work employs various media, including (and often combining) video, computer graphics, immersive virtual reality, the Internet, performance, EEG, 3D Printing, large-scale urban media art installations and interactive exhibitions. Often conceptual, Maurice Benayoun’s work constitutes a critical investigation of the mutations in the contemporary society induced by the emerging or recently adopted technologies.
Alejandro Martín (Art Director and Curator) strongly believes that creativity and art are key in our globalised world. He has a holistic vision stems from his background chemistry and engineering, a vast experience in Business Development, and he has indulged in long research of Fine Arts and Art Production. Founder and director of a contemporary Art Gallery and he has now launched Naranjo Projects, a platform directed to support artists to develop their international career Based in Barcelona, he has a global approach to Art, using the international cooperation as the best formula to promote contemporary art and to facilitate the cultural dialogue.
Institutional presentation / Beyond Matter. Cultural Heritage on the Verge of Virtual Reality – an international collaboration
Abstract: Beyond Matter is an international, collaborative, practice-based research project that takes cultural heritage and contemporary art to the verge of virtual reality. The project is funded by the European Union and the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media. The project runs from 2019 to 2023.
Despite being a project per se, the endeavour, specifically its online platform, can be understood as being a decentralized hybrid institution. Beyond Matter takes cultural heritage and contemporary art to the verge of virtual reality. It reflects on a condition of art production and mediation that is increasingly virtual with a specific emphasis on spatial aspects in art production, curating, and mediation. A plurality of possible solutions and options that are emerging alongside the development of computation is explored through numerous activities and formats, such as the digital revival of selected past landmark exhibitions, the curation of art and archival exhibitions, conferences, artist residency programs, an online platform, and publications.
Initiated led by ZKM | Karlsruhe, the collaborative endeavor relies on partnerships with the Aalto University in Espoo, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest, Tallinna Kunstihoone, and Tirana Art Lab – Center for Contemporary Art. It understands practice-based research as a process within the museum context that encompasses the development and creation of museum experiences, their evaluation with the inclusion of the audiences in order to develop best practices for museum professionals who are increasingly required to apply digital tools.
In attempting to depict the virtual condition, the project probes the ways in which physical and digital space are interdependent and seeks to inhabit computer-generated space as an assembly—as a platform for exchange, for the contemplation and mediation of art—without approaching it as a virtual copy, a depiction or digital twin of actual physical spaces.
Biography: Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás is a curator and art historian. She has curated exhibitions at institutions of contemporary and media art worldwide since 2006, including at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe), Chronus Art Center (Shanghai), Tallinna Kunstihoone, Műcsarnok Budapest, focusing on the constantly changing media of contemporary art and intersections with various disciplines. She has initiated and developed thematic exhibitions raising questions such as the genealogy and social impact of planetary computation and computer code, electronic surveillance and democracy, and synesthetic perception.
As of 2019 she has started research in curatorial studies on the “virtual condition” and its implications on the exhibition space at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, and as acting head and initiator of the international collaboration project entitled Beyond Matter at ZKM | Karlsruhe, which enjoys the partnership with institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Aalto University, and others.
Full paper / One + one = three: the added value of dual degrees in higher education
Abstract: Can Arts & Science/Technology fruitfully co-exist in the minds and on institutional diplomas of contemporary scholarship? This paper considers how in the globall terrain of higher education, the historic tradition of largely mono-disciplinary degrees is being challenged by programmatic complexities that co-join seemingly disparate realms of knowledge and investigation through the introduction of dual degrees. Aided by the benefits of expanding communications technologies, such degrees seek to bridge academic divisions while still contending with very separate intellectual cultures. The discussion takes both an historical and exploratory perspective; ranging from the examination of instutional formations to experiential eamples provided by the authors, ultimately positing the central question of whether the expansion of dual degrees represents mere currucular innovation or some thing much more in line with a distinctly new approach to the structuring of intellectual foundation.
Biography: André P. Czeglédy is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Wilfrid Laurier University and former Head of its Department of Anthropology. In the course of his academic career, he has lectured variously at the University of Cambridge, the Budapest University of Economics, the University of the Witwatersrand and now Wilfrid Laurier University. His chief research interests lie in Business Anthropology, Urban Anthropology and more recently Museum Studies. Such research has involved long-term, ethnographic fieldwork in both post-socialist Hungary and postapartheid South Africa, chiefly looking at the dynamics of rapid change societies. His two decade-long writing partnership with Nina Czegledy focusing on the intersection of Science/Technology, Art & the Body, pays special attention to analyzing the social and cultural dynamics of visualization and power.
Nina Czegledy independent curator, media artist, researcher, educator is based in Toronto, Canada. She collaborates internationally on art& science& technology projects. Upcoming 2022: A Light Footprint in the Cosmos, Substantial Motion Research Network, Vancouver, Sensoria, the art and science of our senses Laznia, Contemporary Art Centre, Gdanks, Dobble Debate on-line game, Balance Unbalance, New Zealand (cocurator). Previous: Agents for Change/ Facing the Anthropocene (2020) The Museum, Canada; On behalf of Leonardo/ISAST initiated, co-presented 27 Leonardo 50th Celebrations in 24 countries (2017/2018). Czegledy published widely, most recent: Eco Art: Ubiquity: The Journal of Pervasive Media, 2020. She contributes regularly to the Journal of Virtual Creativity.Academic affiliations: Adjunct Professor, OCAD University, Toronto; Senior Fellow, KMDI, University of Toronto; Research Collaborator, Hexagram International, Montreal; Board member Leonardo/ISAST; Researcher, NOEMA Italy, Chair, Intercreate org New Zealand, Member: Leonardo LASER chairs, Post Pandemic Provocateurs, 2020 Former affiliations: Chair, ISEA International 2000-2008, AICA Canada (2014-2018)
Abstract: DALL·E 2 is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. It can create original, realistic images and art from a text description and can combine concepts, attributes, and styles. DALL·E 2 can also make realistic edits to existing images from a natural language caption. It can add and remove elements while taking shadows, reflections, and textures into account. Our hope is that DALL·E 2 will empower people to express themselves creatively. DALL·E 2 also helps us understand how advanced AI systems see and understand our world, which is critical to our mission of creating AI that benefits humanity. Early users have created over 3 million images to date and helped us improve our safety processes. We’re excited to begin adding up to 1,000 new users from our waitlist each week.
Sessions: From 10am to 11:30 am From 12 pm to 1:30 pm
Biography: Joanne Jang is the product manager for DALL·E at OpenAI. Before joining OpenAI, Joanne worked on natural language understanding at Google Assistant.
Natalie Summers runs the Artist Access Program at OpenAI. Before joining OpenAI, Natalie worked in social media at Apple and in journalism at WIRED Magazine and USA TODAY.
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company. Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.
Curated talk / DALL·E 2, a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language
Abstract: Joanne Jang, the product manager for DALL·E at OpenAI, will give a presentation about DALL·E 2, a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. It can create original, realistic images and art from a text description and can combine concepts, attributes, and styles. DALL·E 2 can also make realistic edits to existing images from a natural language caption. It can add and remove elements while taking shadows, reflections, and textures into account. Our hope is that DALL·E 2 will empower people to express themselves creatively. DALL·E 2 also helps us understand how advanced AI systems see and understand our world, which is critical to our mission of creating AI that benefits humanity.
Biography: Joanne Jang is the product manager for DALL·E at OpenAI. Before joining OpenAI, Joanne worked on natural language understanding at Google Assistant.
Natalie Summers runs the Artist Access Program at OpenAI. Before joining OpenAI, Natalie worked in social media at Apple and in journalism at WIRED Magazine and USA TODAY.
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company. Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.
Institutional presentation / POM – Politics of Machines Series
Abstract: The overall thematic of the POM-conference series is the question of how the machine and technology impact and contextualize artistic and cultural production and our perception of the world. Moreover, it is aiming at investigating the histories, theories and practices of machines and technologies in-between and beyond disciplines. It seeks to question the governing ideas in the sciences and the humanities through critical engagement with and empowerment of activities of creative production.
Biography: Laura Beloff (PhD) is an internationally acclaimed artist and a researcher in the cross section of art, technology and science. She is Associate Professor and Head of ViCCA-program at Aalto University, Finland.
Morten Søndergaard (PhD) is an internationally acclaimed curator and researcher of the histories, theories and cultures of transdisciplinary practices merging technology, media, art and societal trajectories. He is Associate Professor and Academic Director of the Erasmus Media Art Cultures Master Program at Aalborg University, Denmark
Institutional presentation / Hac Te – Hub of Arts, Science and Technology. Exploring the intersections between art, science and technology to strengthen the digital transformation of society
Abstract: The new hub explores and develop intersections between art, science and technology to boost the digital transformation of society: this is the aim of Hac Te (Art, Science and Technology Hub), promoted by catalan institutions such as universities, scientific centers and cultural centers and festivals all of them of great relevance to make Barcelona a global center for research, training, dissemination, transfer and production in this field. Facilitate and promote the digital, ecological and fair cultural transition, thanks to the joint contribution of the arts, sciences and technology. Contributing to the reindustrialization of the productive sectors thanks to the contributions of arts (design), science and technology A public-private partnership that brings together and interrelates Arts, Science, Technology and Society stakeholders. An initiative that designs common responses that re-imagine our coexistence in the information society.
Institutional presentation / There is no better ending than a good start
Abstract: The NewArtFoundation is the consequence of the activities developed by the Beep Collection, an international reference in the field.
The Beep Collection started its activity linked to the ARCO-BEEP Electronic Art Award in 2006. Since then, more than 70 works by artists from around the world testify to a set of good practices. With a philosophy rooted in the collaborative origins of the Internet, it has developed grant, production, and patronage programs, aware that being an active agent in the community implies supporting it.
In 2015, the Collection, with the participation of prominent Catalan agents such as professional associations, universities, companies, and individuals, founded the NewArtFoundation. The ultimate objective of the Foundation is to transfer the collaborative programs of the Collection to the community and society, contributing its efforts to the development of a more productive and sustainable society, based on research and development. More info: https://www.beepcollection.art, https://www.newartfoundation.art
Biography: Vicente Matallana is the director of the NewArtFoundation and the BEEP Collection, as well as the founder and director of LaAgencia, an independent new media art company created in 1998 in Madrid. LaAgencia is engaged in programs and projects focused on new media art as an alternative paradigm of research and knowledge. Matallana is also a teacher and lecturer and regularly publishes articles and sits on international juries, seminars, and committees for new media art. With Joasia Krysa, he has been the co-director of the Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus. He is member of the steering committee of the HacTe as representant of the NewArtFoundation.
Abstract: Most European cities, large and small, face the challenge of transforming industrial heritage sites. Industrial areas, once hotspots of infrastructure, workers, knowledge, and innovation, have often been abandoned, reduced or relocated due to urban changes, and a shift towards a global extractive economic model. As a consequence, not only historical buildings are being demolished, but neighborhoods are losing elements of their cultural identity and traditions.
The importance of preserving aspects of the local identity combined with the necessity of developing a more resilient and sustainable productive model requires innovative strategies for sustainable urban regeneration.
Within the CENTRINNO Horizon 2020 European Project, Fab Lab Barcelona explores an alternative urban regeneration of Poblenou’s neighborhood in Barcelona as a creative, locally productive, and inclusive hub. The strategies tested by the local team, connected with the Fab City approach for globally connected and locally productive cities and regions, propose a new urban, economic, social and industrial model that fosters local sustainable production and cross-collaboration with stakeholders and existing initiatives in Poblenou. Maker skills, industrial heritage, manufacturing practices and circular principles are being combined to test a collaborative and inclusive local economy model.
Biography: Milena Juarez (female) is a Brazilian environmental engineer with a master’s in Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability and specialization in Urban and Industrial Ecology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. With a large experience in research, Milena has been actively involved in various interdisciplinary research projects in the field of circular economy, resilient cities, co-creation, and sustainable food. She currently coordinates the Barcelona pilot for CENTRINNO EU project at IAAC and works as an action researcher for the REFLOW and FOODSHIFT EU projects. As one of the responsible for community engagement at Fab Lab Barcelona, Milena supports the local activities at the Fab City Hub, a co-creation distributed space to design the future for urban self-sufficiency.
Pablo Muñoz Unceta (male) works as a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona. He works in EU funded projects on productive cities and circular economy. His background is in architecture, planning and urban design and he holds a MSc in the European post-master of urbanism at TU Delft. He has professional experience in Latin American and Europe in different projects and institutions, having worked on topics such as participatory planning, circular economy, social housing and urban regeneration. He has worked for the Municipality of Lima, the World Bank or the Metropolitan Housing Observatory of Barcelona. As researcher, he has been involved in projects with PUCP university in Lima, TU Delft, or Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. Pablo collaborates with offices in Rotterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, and Brussels in projects at the intersection of sustainability, spatial analysis, and urban and housing policies.
Keynotes – Open to the public
CCCB TEATRE
Open to the public with previous registration. Attendees registered in ISEA2022 Barcelona do not need to register to this specific event and will be able to access by showing accreditation.Once the capacity of the CCCB’S Theater is full, public will be able to follow the keynote speeches live from the Raval Room of CCCB.
Expanding the program open to the public, the CCCB, the epicenter of the Symposium, will host four keynote speeches at its Theater by leading figures in their respective fields: Olga Goriunova, academic and curator in the fields of digital arts and cultures; Joan Fontcuberta, internationally renowned photographer and conceptual artist; Christl Baur, head of the prestigious Ars Electronica Festival; and Ricard Solé, expert in complex systems analysis and synthetic biology.
Joan Foncuberta – June 13th at 10 am The age of monsters
Abstract: “Il vecchio mondo sta morendo. Quello nuovo tarda a comparire. E in questo chiaroscuro nascono i mostri”. [“The old world is dying. The new one is slow to appear. And in this chiaroscuro monsters are born”] Antonio Gramsci Almost without realizing it, we have become addicted to images. The old world (photography as a commitment to truth and remembrance) is dying and the new one (images created by artificial intelligence) is striving to emerge. From document to speculation, from natural to synthetic images, we now need to trawl through the chiaroscuro, pointing out their emerging monstrosities: monstrosities of language, of technology, of politics. From the ruins of photography – archive pictures and family albums that decay and become amnesic – to predictions of potential futures and algorithms, with which we don’t know if we are dealing with nightmares or guarantees of progress. What is clear is that algorithms and artificial intelligence are taking the place of the eye and the camera at the core of visual culture.
Biography: For more than four decades, Joan Fontcuberta (Barcelona, 1955) has developed an artistic work focused on the field of photography, also carrying out a plural activity as a teacher, essayist, exhibition curator and historian. Both his creative and reflective production is situated in a critical perspective of language and focuses on the conflicts between nature, technology, photography, memory and truth regimes. His projects, usually of a multidisciplinary nature, explore the narrative and documentary condition of the image, parodying its authoritarian aspects.
Moderated by Jorge Luis Marzo, art historian, doctor of Cultural Studies, curator of exhibitions, audiovisual director and professor at BAU Centre Universitari de Disseny de Barcelona. He has developed several national and international collaborative research projects, in exhibition, audiovisual or editorial format, often in relation to image policies.
Christl Baur – June 13th at 6:30 pm GiriGiri – On the Edge of Possibilities
Abstract: Neither naive escapism into virtual worlds, nor the technological ultra-topia of space colonization will save us from facing the big, uncomfortable questions. How will our life on this planet have to look to prevent ecological super disaster? What actions must we take and what consequences must we accept? How much persuasion, how much effort, how much pressure, how much coercion will be necessary, and what “collateral damage” will be involved? We have been teetering on the edge for decades, knowing what is going to come, but choosing to largely ignore it. The Japanese term “GiriGiri” describes this dangerous but thrilling feeling of living on the edge. We don’t have a planet B, and science nor art can solve our problem. Science can point at it while art and artists, through their work, have the ability to open a space of “art” thinking. This might be our chance for change as change is required when there is no way out. Through artists we can explore the possibilities of our futures.
Biography: Christl Baur (DE) is the head of the Ars Electronica Festival, researcher with an interdisciplinary background in art history, cultural management, and natural science. She is particularly interested in the conjunction of aesthetic and social practices that center on collaboration and experimentation and challenge dominant social, political, and economic protocols. Her research field encompasses topics such as video art, new media technologies, computer art, biotechnology, and interactive art, and she works at the nexus of art & science. Over recent years, she has curated, produced and delivered large-scale exhibitions and performances, research, residency & publication projects—most recently in cooperation with universities and scientific associations such as Google Arts & Culture, Frauenhofer, ESO, ESA, Hyundai as well as the Chinese University of Art Beijing. She has published several articles and works closely together with artists whose practice is situated at the interface of art, science, and technology.
Moderated by José Luis De Vicente, cultural researcher and exhibitions curator specialized in culture, innovation and design. He is the curator of Sónar + D, Sónar Festival Barcelona. He has curated multiple exhibitions for CCCB Barcelona, Fundación Telefónica Madrid, among many others. His latest project is Mirador Torre Glòries, a permanent installation in Barcelona that reinvents the concept of a viewpoint.
Olga Goriunova – June 14th at 10 am Abstract people and model characters
Abstract: When data analytics abstracts people today, it follows some of the routines of statistics. However, understanding statistics paired with machine learning technologies is not enough to grasp what these newly abstracted people are like and what they do to us. This talk engages with these processes to show how model frameworks and idealising setups are used to delineate data-crunching in cultural, political and aesthetic terms. Ideal people and model characters are results of the work of collective imaginaries and the exercise of power beyond computing. Their embodiment of a return of the ideal calls for a re-think of our time in history.
Biography: Olga Goriunova is Professor at Royal Holloway University of London and author of Art Platformsand Cultural Production on the Internet (2012) and Bleak Joys. Aesthetics of Ecology and Impossibility (with M.Fuller, 2019). The editor of Funand Software. Pleasure, Pain and Paradox in Computing (2014) and author of noted articles on new media idiocy, memes and lurkers, she was a co-curator of software art platform Runme.org (2003) before the age of social platforms.
Moderated by Pau Alsina, general Chair at ISEA2022 Barcelona and professor and researcher in Arts and Humanities Studies at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, where he coordinates and teaches courses on art and contemporary philosophical and scientific thought. He is also editor in Chief at Artnodes Journal. He is the author of books such as Arte, ciencia y tecnología, co-author of Monstruos y quimeras: arte, biología y tecnología, of teaching textbooks such as Estética y teoría del arte o Pensamiento contemporáneo.
Ricard Solé – June 15th at 10 am Science, Art and evolution: the Game of the Possible
Abstract: What are the limits of natural forms? Could there be an alternative life based on alternative rules? Why don’t mermaids exist? Will alien minds be different from ours? Does human creativity have limits? Could an artificial system achieve the creativity of van Gogh? Could music be different from the way we know it? Science explores the organizing principles of (living and non-living) systems and the formulation of laws that can define the boundaries of the possible. Using very diverse examples from life, artificial life and art as a reference for what we assume to be limitless, we will explore these and other questions. Physics, mathematics, computation, biology and chemistry intersect with science fiction, painting and literature and allow us to raise new questions and look at reality with the vision of complexity.
Biography: ICREA Research Professor at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), where he leads the Complex Systems Laboratory (IBE-UPF), and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute (USA). His academic background combines biology and physics, the discipline in which he earned his PhD, allowing him to focus his research career on complex systems. His research covers very diverse fields, from the study of the evolutionary dynamics of viruses to synthetic biology and its application in the bioengineering of ecosystems, as well as the study of “liquid” cognitive systems and the origins of major evolutionary innovations. He has collaborated with the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) as a popularizer and scientific advisor for the exhibition +Humans and is one of the promoters of the Science at Christmas program. In addition, he has written the books Redes complejas (Empúries, 2009; published by Tusquets in Spanish), Vidas sintéticas (Tusquets, 2012), La lógica de los monstruos (Tusquets, 2016) and Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems (Princeton University Press, 2018).
Moderated by Pastora Martínez Samper, Vice President for Globalization and Cooperation at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. She is responsible for the UOC’s strategic planning dealing with the contribution of the University to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the implementation of the Open Knowledge Action Plan. She is also contributing to the involvement of both Catalan and Spanish Universities in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
Institutional presentation / Centre of expertise Arts & Education
Abstract: The CoE Arts&Education aims to bring about social innovation from innovative art education along two thematic lines: Education at the intersection of Arts, Technology and Science (OKWT) and Social and ecological engagement. The first theme deals with Education at the intersection of Arts, Science and Technology with artists in the role as catalyst for educational innovation. The second theme deals social and ecological engagement with art in the leading role. Both themes are in line with current curriculum developments in higher education, secondary education and (preparatory) vocational education and are directly linked to so-called ‘wicked problems’, complex issues that require an interdisciplinary (educational) approach. This revolves around inclusive arts education, arts education as citizenship education and socio-ecological issues.
Partners: Amsterdam University of the Arts, iPabo University of Applied Sciences, Avans University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht University of the Arts, Codarts University of the Arts, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, RoC Amsterdam – Flevoland, Presentation by Anne Nigten, director of the Centre of Expertise Arts&Education
Short paper / The art of urgency: cultural mediation as a vehicle for socio-ecological transition
Abstract: The climate emergency has led to a growing recognition of the need for a socio-ecological transition. This recognition has strong cultural dimensions, shaped by representations and narratives as potential vehicles of change. Cultural mediation is a way of connecting these realms. It can stimulate ex-changes between actors (citizens, organizations, policymak-ers), and ultimately help produce dynamics of change and new solidarities. ARTENSO, a research centre in art and social engagement, explored the possibilities of these intersections by conducting documentary research on the relationship between artistic and ecological interventions. It illuminated the relationships be-tween art, culture and social-ecological change, both in their conceptual dimensions and through practical considerations. It developed a tripartite typology to map initiatives that bring about transformations in the current social and environmental context. This study suggests that artists and cultural organizations can become agents of social change by exploring new methods and processes. Often conceived and presented separately, en-gaged art and ecologically responsible practices are neverthe-less dimensions that, when articulated together, can challenge society on environmental issues, question the relationship be-tween populations and the environment, and advance the fight against climate change
Full paper / Rituals of art and science to decompart-mentalize knowledge
Abstract: We here explore the potential of rituals in order to more fully comprehend the subjective mechanisms of listening, leading to a broader understanding of phenomenal consciousness (why and how do I know that I am experiencing something?). The originality of the project resides in the blending of phenomenology, cognitive science, the sonic arts, and rituals studies. Rituals are explored in the context of a practice-led methodology between an artist and a cognitive scientist in order to decompartmentalize and possibly decolonize knowledge, namely shifting away from a purely Western techno-scientific perspective in order to embrace a plural vision involving indigenous epistemology. In this project, the sonic arts include music and sound in the arts, and focus specifically on the very act of listening. Rituals constitute structures for the lives of communities and societies, which we address more deeply from the perspective of sonic and cognitive research, so as to understand their roles and the epistemology emerging from them.
Biography: Luca Forcucci, artist, scholar and guest professor, observes perceptive properties of the first person experience through large scale installations, compositions, video, photographyand writing. The research investigates mental imagery of sonic architectures. The works were held at Ars Electronica Linz, Biennale del Mediterraneo Palermo, Museo Reina Sofia Madrid, Centro Hélio Oiticica Rio de Janeiro, The Lab San Francisco, Rockbund Museum Shanghai, MAXXI Rome, or Akademie der Künste Berlin. His plateform UBQTLAB.ORG develops art and science encounters. https://linktr.ee/Lucaforcucci
Bruno Herbelin is senior researcher in virtual reality and cognitive neuroscience in the laboratory of Prof. O. Blanke at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He was deputy director of the EPFL Center for Neuroprosthetics (2012-2019), and Assistant Professor at the Medialogy Department of Aalborg University, Denmark (2005-2009). He obtained his PhD at EPFL School of Computer and Communications in 2005 for his research work on virtual reality exposure therapy. https://brunoherbelin.github.io/vimix/
Full paper / Connecting new media art archives worldwide
Abstract: Online new media art archives exist throughout the world as repositories documenting theory and practice of electronic art. For a researcher, instructor, or student using these resources for scholarly work or inspiration, the process often involves visiting multiple websites with different interfaces and information. Without knowledge of the wide variety of archives that catalog new media art, the sought-after material may be missed. In 2018, the seeds of an initiative were sown at a roundtable discussion at ISEA2018 (South Africa) and during ISEA2019 (South Korea), the real work began to investigate and initiate the process of connecting new media art archives from around the world. Beginning with a core group including representatives from the ISEA, SIGGRAPH, FILE, Ars Electronica, and the Archive of Digital Art (ADA) archives, group discussions, implementation meetings, summits (Summit on New Media Archiving @ ISEA2020, mini-conferences (FILEALIVE 2020) and presentations at various conferences occurred. This paper outlines the details of the project along with the implementation procedures and challenges.
Biography: Bonnie Mitchell (Ohio, USA) is a digital artist, animator, archivist as well as a professor of Digital Arts at Bowling Green State University. Mitchell’s artworks explore spatial and experiential relationships to our physical, social, cultural and psychological environment through interaction and physical immersion. Her creative work includes interactive installation art, environmental data visualization art, experimental visual music animation, net-art, and new media art archive development. Mitchell is the co-director of the SIGGRAPH History and ISEA Symposium online Archives and also a member of the organizing team of the Summit on New Media Art Archiving (first held in 2021 online and again in 2022 in Barcelona). She is also a member of the ISEA International Advisory Committee, the ACM SIGGRAPH History and Digital Arts Committees and is the SIGGRAPH 2023 History Chair in charge of the 50th conference celebration.
Jan Searleman (California, USA) taught Computer Science at Clarkson University for 37 years, retired in 2015, and since retirement has been an Adjunct Research Professor at Clarkson. Her research areas are Virtual Environments, Human-Computer Interaction, and Artificial Intelligence. A senior member of the ACM, Jan is also on both the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Art Committee (DAC) and the ACM SIGGRAPH History Committee. Jan and Bonnie Mitchell coordinated the DAC Online Exhibition “The Earth, Our Home: Art, Technology and Critical Action”. She co-moderated SPARKS talks (Short Presentations of Artworks and Research for the Kindred Spirit) for DAC on “Robotics, Electronics, and Artificial Intelligence” with Hye Yeon Nam, and “Data: Visual Perception, Interpretation and Truth” with Everardo Reyes. Jan co-directs, along with Bonnie Mitchell, the ACM SIGGRAPH History Archive. She also co-directs the ISEA Symposium Archive with Bonnie Mitchell, Wim van der Plas and Terry C.W. Wong.
Wim van der Plas (Netherlands) studied Social & Cultural Sciences at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He was director of the Foundation for Creative Computer Applications (SCCA, Rotterdam), R&D staff of the Utrecht School of Arts, managing director of the Institute for Computer Animation (SCAN, Groningen), and worked for 3 different departments of the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. He is co-founder of ISEA, organised the first, second and seventh ISEA symposium and served as ISEA HQ and on the ISEA board since its founding. Currently he is co-director of the ISEA symposium archives and member as well as honorary chair of the ISEA International Advisory Committee. In 2018 he received a Leonardo Pioneer Award.
Terry C. W. Wong has a bachelor’s degree from the Applied Science Department of the University of British Columbia and a Master’s degree in Fine Art at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Currently, he is working on his graduate degree in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University. He is doing his research study on connecting new media art archiving worldwide. Terry is also an archivist and co-organizer for the ISEA Archives. He was also on the organizing team of ISEA2016 in Hong Kong.
Full paper / The expanded world of invisible images – BLIND REVIEW’s and BLIND REVIEW’s artworks
Abstract: Image apprehension is a dynamic biological process where our brain receives data and converts it according to previous memories. To experience and understand images, we take simultaneously the role of observers and subjects in action. Our perception is embodied and situated in a world that can be both real and virtual. We receive images all around us and we anticipate movements and project our actions in the world. The role of interaction and plasticity in live-wired and embodied experiences, together with augmented technologies, are shaping and expanding human perception. Anna Unterholzner’s and Diana Carvalho’s artworks explore invisible and expanded imagery to reflect about arts-based research as knowledge creation, production, and dissemination.
Biography: Anna Unterholzner attends the PhD in Fine Arts (Multimedia Art Department) at the Fine Arts Faculty at Lisbon University, Portugal. She completed her Master’s degree in Modern and Contemporary European Philosophy in 2019 at the Luxembourg University and received her Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Social Sciences in 2016 at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria. She is currently a research collaborator at Interactive Technologies Institute ITI/LARsyS, Laboratory for Robotics and Engineering Systems, IST. Anna Unterholzner’s research focuses on transdisciplinary art and design territories that merge arts and emotions, neuroaesthetics, gaming, interactive media, and gender equity.
Diana Carvalho (Lisbon, 1986), lives and works in Lisbon. She holds a degree in Painting (2009) and a Master in Contemporary Artistic Practices (2012) from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, Portugal, and she is currently a PhD student in Fine Arts (Multimedia Art Department) at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, whith a studenship funded by FCT – Portuguese national funding agency for science, research and technology. Currently she is a researcher collaborator at ITI/LARsyS research center. Her work has been shown since 2009 in solo and group exhibitions. In 2012 she was awarded the prize BES Revelation (8th edition). In 2020 she held the art residency Paralaxe in Porto and has been participated in other art residencies in Clermont-Ferrand, Budapest, Porto and Lisbon from 2017 onwards.
Luciana Lima has a PhD in Psychology from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto. Luciana Lima is currently doing post-doctoral studies at the Multimedia Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon with a scholarship from ARDITI, ITI – Interactive Technologies Institute / LARSyS, Laboratory for Robotics and Engineering Systems, IST. She is an effective member of the Portuguese Psychologists Association and her current research interests focus on the intersection between gender, digital games, and gaming culture. Luciana Lima research focus the hegemony of games as interactive and artistic media and their social impacts, with an emphasis on gender equality. Author’s institutional e-mail: [email protected] * Author’s personal email: [email protected]
Patrícia Gouveia is Associate Professor at Lisbon University Fine Arts Faculty [Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa]. Integrated member of ITI – Interactive Technologies Institute / LARSyS, Laboratory for Robotics and Engineering Systems, IST. Co-curator of the Playmode exhibition (Brazil: CCBB Belo Horizonte, CCBB Rio de Janeiro, CCBB São Paulo and CCBB Brasilia 2019_2023) and Portugal: (MAAT Lisbon 2016-2019). Works in Transmedia Arts and Design since the nineties. Her research focus on playable media, gaming, interactive fiction and digital arts as a place of convergence between cinema, music, games, arts and design. More information here: https://fbaul.academia.edu/PatriciaGouveia/CurriculumVitae.
Short paper / Algaphon: Transducing Human Input to Photosynthetic Radiation Parameters in Algae Timescale
Abstract: Urban environments and manicured nature, with no sight unseen of native organism diversity, have led to forgotten evolutionary histories and a reduced understanding of ecosystem relations. The aquatic plant biosphere especially bears a collective amnesia from the humans of its evolutionary roles. It wouldn’t be erroneous to use ‘out of sight, out of mind’ in the context of the biosphere of aquatic plants. While the contributions of these early species have been tremendous to shaping higher plants, they haven’t received a lot of focus in their role from non-scientific communities.
Our work refocuses the attention on algae species and reflects on the role of these species in climate change in specific coastal regions, through very specific micro-capabilities. We were first inspired by algae sounds recorded underwater in the bay and river waters at the East Coast (East River / Hudson River) and West Coast (San Francisco Piers, Sausalito, Point Reyes) areas in the US. These microalgae traditionally form and release oxygen near their macroalgal filaments. When this oxygen is released, the relaxation of the bubble to a spherical shape creates a sound source that ‘rings’ at the Minnaert frequency.
Biography: Harpreet Sareen (US/IN/JP) is a scientist-designer who creates bionic materials and hybrid substrates that lend themselves for future ecological machinery, sensing systems and interaction design. http://harpreetsareen.com/
Franziska Mack (DE/US) is a multidisciplinary designer and researcher based in New York, where she is currently pursuing an MFA at Parsons School of Design. https://franziskamack.com
Yasuaki Kakehi (JP) is a media artist, HCI researcher and a Professor at The University of Tokyo. By combining digital technology and physical materials, he has created installation works that show new (alternative) ways of experiencing objects and environments. http://xlab.iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Full paper / Artistic residencies in digital companies
Abstract: This paper aims to enrich the knowledge of artists’ residencies in digital companies, both to understand their particularities and to help develop methods to evaluate the processes and effects of these initiatives. The popularity of artists’ residencies has increased since the 1990s. This can be seen in the funding organizations that develop support programs but also in the diversity of the host institutions, community organizations and private companies that want to welcome artists and develop links with the art worlds. What explains this growth? What are the different parties involved looking for? What are the effects of these residencies on artistic careers? This research brings a particular attention to artists’ residencies in digital companies. Acting as a precursor in Quebec, the Conseil québécois des arts médiatiques (CQAM) set up its first residency in 2016 at the interactive media company Turbulent, followed the next year by another at the audiovisual entertainment company VYV and in 2018 by Milieux, an Institute of Arts and Technologies. Our research explores the ten residencies that have taken place to date, based on interviews with artists and company employees. A literature search was also conducted to better understand this growing phenomenon. Our work allows us to better understand what artists’ residencies in companies are, do and allow. The host companies seem to seek, in the presence of the artist, a force of reflection and change for the practices and rhythms of work. For artists, the main interest of residencies is the possibility to devote time and resources to a project. However, the link between these two worlds is not automatic and requires a strong commitment, which in turn requires the involvement of intermediary organizations.
Biography: Sylvain Martet holds a PhD in sociology from the Université du Québec à Montréal. As a researcher, he has been involved for the past ten years in numerous research projects on cultural mediation practices, the impact of digital technology on cultural occupations and cultural participation. His work focuses on the circulation of music, particularly in a digital context. He is a member of the Observatory of Cultural Mediations (OMEC), of the Partnership Study for the Mediation of Music (EPMM), of the Interdisciplinary Observatory of Creation and Research in Music (OICRM), and of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM).
Short paper / Umwelten: Shifting agencies among the human, the non-human, and a machine learning algorithm
Abstract: This work is a research-creation project that invites a human, a non-human (a touch-me-not plant), and a machine-learning (ML) algorithm to question and re-formulate the relationship among themselves using the concept of ‘umwelt’ given by the German biologist Jacob Johann Von Uexküll. Through this project, the human and the non-human are brought in the same physical space (with different umwelts) to interact with one another and an ML algorithm, each having an agency to change others’ environment and hence, their umwelts. While the human changes the typography on the screen (using a text writing platform developed as a part of this project) through the typing speed and their choice of letters, both the plant and the (computer vision) machine learning algorithm alter this typography dynamically depending on the images clicked by a camera pointing to the plant. Such interactions manifested on the screen encapsulate a space where a non-linear and confusing typography symbolizes the overlapping, collision, and entanglement of the umwelts of these organisms – depicting the shifting of agencies among the human, the non-human and the machine learning algorithm over time.
Biography: Puneet’s work investigates new forms of communication and interventions between humans and the non-humans in a digital space. He follows both research based and an artistic approach for the creation of interfaces to open a dialogue between the human bodies and the non-humans (a machine, a plant, or sometimes even a slime mould) in the digital – questioning how sensory perceptions are morphed, enhanced, and augmented in such an entangled digital space. Puneet is currently pursuing his PhD at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada where his research lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction, STS, and disability studies. Prior to this, he worked as a research-fellow at I3D Lab, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore where he built assistive technologies for people with sensori-motor (dis)abilities. Puneet has a masters (by research) in Computation and Data Sciences from IISc and has also worked as a Data Scientist at SAP Labs, India from 2016-2018.
Short paper / The vanishing of remix concept in machine-driven text
Abstract: In this paper, the process of remixing is analysed through the evolution of machine- driven text transformation approaches. Starting from semi-random early techniques for the composition of poetic or experimental literature, the process of associating and composing preestablished pieces of text, sourced from analogue and then digital repositories, will be investigated. A continuity emerges from the combinatorial experiments realised by the Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (OuLiPo) group in the 1960s to the later software that has advanced remix possibilities up to the contemporary attempts to establish an almost autonomous “automatic publisher.” The increased sophistication of the algorithms and the growth of available sources have affected the plausibility of the produced texts, including a technical analysis of style, laying the foundation for its simulation. More recent tests, using unusual or different technologies to produce texts, will be included. In the essay, I will analyse the remixes of text’s evolving structure since the early experiments in the 1960s, the role of machines in effectively emulating a writer’s style and their essential support to generate credible fakes, particularly deepfakes.
Biography: Alessandro Ludovico is a researcher, artist and chief editor of Neural magazine since 1993. He received his Ph.D. degree in English and Media from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge (UK). He is Associate Professor at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. He has published and edited several books, and has lectured worldwide. He also served as an advisor for the Documenta 12’s Magazine Project. He is one of the authors of the award-winning Hacking Monopolism trilogy of artworks (Google Will Eat Itself, Amazon Noir, Face to Facebook). http://neural.it
Short paper / Corresponding Wood Tools: Speculative Fabulations of Material Correspondence in Woodworking
Abstract: The rise of materialism questions the position of humans in relation to their surroundings. We engage craft practices as rooted in material encounters that directly affect crafters on various cognitive and physical levels. In these encounters, the crafter’s body is also material which interacts on its own terms. The body’s condition, and the material-at-hand act and correspond with each other. We argue that this contact is an in-the-moment material one, a shared moment of production and becoming. Based on this theory of material encountering, this paper presents the Corresponding Wood Tools project as “speculative fabulations” exploring the ways in which this correspondence can be made visible. It argues for re-shaping the encounter in woodworking to allow new reflections on shared themes, such as care and collaboration.
Biography: Jihan Sherman is an architect, designer and is currently a PhD candidate at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research seeks approaches to design that confront historical transgressions, engage present bias and harm, and imagine progressive futures. She is currently exploring counter-narratives of design and craft-based methods that center on materiality and care.
Michael Nitsche works as Associate Professor in Digital Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he directs the Digital World and Image Group. His research combines elements of craft and performance to develop novel media and interaction designs. Nitsche’s publications include the books Video Game Spaces (2009),The Machinima Reader (2011) (co-edited with Henry Lowood), and the forthcoming Vital Media (2022, all with MIT Press). He is co-editor of the Taylor&Francis journal Digital Creativity.
Abstract: Within the framework of ISEA 2022, the artist Samira Benini Allauoat will present “GEO-LLUM”, an artistic research project part of S+T+ARTS Residences Repairing the Present / CCCB.
The purpose of this residence is the development of a public installation/sculpture that will generate energy through collaboration with bacteria that live in the soil (Geobarcters), being in turn a device that lights up the city and a soil decontaminant.
As part of the presentation, we will develop an open talk with the artist and a group of specialists linked to the investigation. This talk will be moderated by the curator María Ptqk – Doctor in Artistic Research specializing in the intersections between art and science – who is the S+T+ARTS-CCCB advisor for the “Cities of Microorganisms” call. They will participate in the talk: Carmen Tanaka – representative of Akasha Hub – collaborating institution of the project and venue of execution of the artistic residency; Lorenzo Patuzzo, engineer specialized in industrial design; and José Carvajal Arroyo, microbiologist from the BIOE research group, a laboratory focused on studying the scientific bases and applications derived from the interactions of electroactive microorganisms.
Then we will carry out an educational workshop guided by the artist and the microbiologist José Carvajal from the Bioe Laboratory (Alcalá). This activity will explain how we can use electroactive bacteria (Geobacters) to generate electricity, through the construction and explanation of the operation of an MFC – Microbial Fuel Cell (microbial battery). This presentation will be accompanied by a graphic explanation with the fundamentals of the workshop. The public will be invited to interact, learn and see the many simple components that are part of this process.
Biography: Samira Benini Allaouat is an interdisciplinary artist fascinated by ancient technologies and knowledge presenting new contemporary applications. She is also interested in the DIY and maker philosophy, in questioning stereotypes, behaviors and assumed social systems, in exploring new ways of deforming and combining elements, in researching and testing simple low-tech solutions to build a more resilient.
With 25 years of experience in radical street art and moving image design, his favorite medium is the city. The spectrum of her artistic practice is very broad and at an international level she has worked on performances, exhibitions, editorial projects and events under different pseudonyms and also anonymously.
Samira Benini delves into the paradigm shift, conveying broader aspects of the sustainability of human life and bringing a new ethical approach to art and design. Electricity in nature and automation are fundamental and recurring ideas in her artistic research. As in the work “No Plug Sound Machine”, where she wondered how to make electronic music without conventional electricity. The piece was exhibited at the Tate Modern together with his London Hack Space collective Hackoustic, at the London Urban Street Hackaton held in 2015. It was also presented at the Aberystwyth Art Center and performed in Ausland, a benchmark for underground culture and experimental music in Berlin.
Full paper / Click::REVU. An Optophonic Sound Installation
Abstract: If traces of past media remain in contemporary forms of media, how can these traces be appropriated and applied in the creation of a sound-based installation? This paper presents Click::REVU a sound installation developed by the first author. The work blends physical characteristics of an early sonification device, the Optophone – a device that translated optical data to sound – to create an illusory presence through a scanner mechanism from a multifunction printer. The work’s compositional structure reduces the scanner’s image capture ability to an indexical relationship that is expressed as a minimal soundscape of drones and clicks. As a media archaeological sound-based artwork, the ideation of Click::REVU has depicted a form of optophonics through the interpretation of early 20th century Optophones. These forms, as archival sources of knowledge for reinterpretation, have informed the development and realization of this work, one that is expressed through a genealogically related contemporary form of media, the contact image sensor scanner.
Biography: Paul Dunham is a New Zealand based sound artist. His recent work has seen a focus of the relationship between past and contemporary media and connecting their socio-cultural and technical conditions of existence. As media archaeology these relationships are represented and expressed through sound as recorded works, installations or performances. In addition, he has composed a range of acousmatic and electroacoustic works utilising a range of materials ranging from broken media to environmental sounds. His works have been exhibited nationally and internationally including the New Interfaces for Musical Expression conference (Birmingham and Shanghai), ISEA (Durban and Montreal) and Ars electronica Garden Aotearoa (New Zealand). He has recently completed his PhD in Sonic Arts at Victoria, University of Wellington.
Full paper / QATIPANA: Individuation processes on the relationship between art, machines and natural systems
Abstract: This essay revolves around the concepts and processes of Becoming and Individuation where a functional model based on the articulation of an information processing system based on the approaches of the philosopher Gilbert Simondon is evidenced; This research aims to observe a sensorimotor cycle performed by the cognitive system of an Artificial Intelligence agent. To establish this model of biological inspiration, we used the concepts of information and modulation in Gilbert Simondon and information in cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and Stafford Beer. These resources force us to ask ourselves the following question: How does mono-technology and computerization of cultural techniques influence the nature of knowing the affection of being with others (people, things, animals)? To answer this question, an interdisciplinary study (arts, sciences, information technologies) is offered on the effect of this symbiosis and how it can be seen in the full use of knowledge about the fundamentals of living and non-living matter. The architecture is called Qatipana (a Quechua word that denotes the flow of information processing systems), although it cannot be considered as a systems theory, it has the utility of being able to explain some empirical observations that are presented here. In conclusion, the implications and limitations of this model and the research that is being carried out to present its utility and probability as a technodiversified model of the algorithmic cognitive system are part of the issues of communication and affect in the decisions that this cybernetic system provides.
Biography: Renzo Filinich Orozco, 1978. Artista Medial e Investigador, Candidato a doctor en Estudios Interdisciplinarios sobre Pensamiento, Cultura y Sociedad, Universidad de Valparaíso. Magíster en Artes Mediales, Universidad de Chile. Investigador en Cultura Tecnológica y Estética, actualmente labora en el Centro de Estudios de la Interfaz como investigador de la Universidad de Valparaíso y como investigador asociado en el Research Network for Philosophy and Technology que dirige Yuk Hui.
Full paper / Merging Art, Media, and Ecology: Diego Rivera and Ariel Guzik at the Cárcamo de Dolores
Abstract: This paper examines two public art projects at Cárcamo de Dolores, in Chapultepec Park, Mexico City: Diego Rivera’s El Agua, Origen de la Vida en la Tierra [Water, Origin of Life on Earth] (1951) and Ariel Guzik’s Cámara Lambdona [Lambdona Chamber] (2010). Because these projects are new additions to existing literature on environmental themes in art history and media arts histories, the incipient focus is on addressing both their artistic and conceptual significance. Both conceived as creative engagements with water, Rivera’s El Agua, Origen de la Vida en la Tierra is highlighted as the first underwater mural in modern art, with Guzik’s Cámara Lambdona as a sonic installation created to restore the former’s work. To additionally shed light on the artists’ respective aims in merging ecology, art, science, and technology, this discussion then considers these projects’ divergent articulations of human and nonhuman relations, and as well their kindred aspirations, to function as catalysts of a possible, more sustainable world. In including these projects, this examination shares current concerns with broadening the geographical scope of existing environmentally-themed art historical and media arts histories. Expanding upon this focus, this paper not only emphasizes the ecological arts in the Global South, but as well their interdisciplinary basis and media forms. Hence, it combines a global perspective with an inter-disciplinary approach, which, echoing the projects considered, is moreover relevant for further developing the existing histories of the environmental arts.
Biography: Claudia Costa Pederson is Associate Professor of Art History, Wichita State University; author of Gaming Utopia: Ludic Worlds in Art, Design, and Media (Indiana, 2021); and co-curator of FLEFF’s new media exhibitions at Ithaca College, NY, since 2017.
Full paper / Pulcher Aureus Filum. Biological Substrate Computers and the Ecological Paradigm Shift
Abstract: With the imminent decay of Moore’s law and the difficulties in solving NP problems in computing, researchers around the world have been given the task of finding new ways to manage, process and store information. These new paradigms are known as unconventional computing and among them, biological substrate computers have been developed. These coupled logic gates do not work by directing an electrical current through circuits made of conductive materials, but with collectivities of living organisms and the interaction of their emergent patterns with specific geometries. In this article we will address the implementation of a genetic chip (bacterial computer) in the creation of an artistic work, as well as the paradigm shift from the individualistic artist to the ecology of affections.
Biography: Multimedia artist, composer, curator and independent researcher. He made his studies at the Faculty of Music in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He has had three solo exhibitions, at the Sound Experimentation Space in the University Museum of Contemporary Art, at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda, and his retrospective at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Xalapa, México. His work is part of public and private collections. As a multimedia artist he has participated in several collective exhibitions in Mexico, Berlin, New York, Madrid, Montevideo, Hamilton, Saõ Paulo, Bergen, Tallinn, etc. He is founder of SEMIMUTICAS Research Seminar in Music, Mathematics and Computer Studies and Independencia BioLab a biohacker space based in Mexico City. He has several international publications in conference proceedings, journals and books, in editorials such as Cambridge Scholars, Springer-Verlag, Taylor & Francis, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Siglo XXI and the Mexican Mathematical Society.
Full paper / A Mixed Reality Installation to Elicit Reflexivity on Adverse Childhood Experiences
Abstract: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are an underestimated public health threat. It impairs children’s brain development, immune system, and hormonal systems. These impairments predispose children to various chronic mental and physical dis- eases. However, its negative impacts are not widely known by the general public. Chang Liu created a mixed reality (MR) installation based on her personal experience with ACEs and ACEs related Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which aims to provoke the audience’s reflection on ACEs and the influence of their upbringings on their mental and physical de- velopment. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 audiences, and their response to this MR installation was ana- lyzed using the thematic analysis method. The analysis proved that this MR installation is capable of eliciting the audience’s reflection on ACEs and their upbringing. In addition, The VR experience enabled participants to emotionally and somatically experience several symptoms of PTSD, and 75% of the partic- ipants demonstrated a high level of emotional self-awareness during the VR experience. Lastly, the analysis revealed that participants who had never encountered ACEs are more likely to sympathize with both the victim and abuser in a fictional narrative about ACEs than those who had undergone ACEs.
Biography: Chang Liu is a new media artist who is active in the field of Extended Reality (VR/AR) narrative, installation art, and experimental film. Her interactive film “Bystander” won the global culture prize at the Stuttgart film winter festival and was included in IFVA 2019 as the finalist. “Bystander” was also exhibited at the Microwave festival connecting the dots, Phantom Horizons project, Relentless melt project, and System dream at Art machine2.
Christian Sandor is a Professor at Paris-Saclay University. Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-christian-sandor-b7240890/?originalSubdomain=hk
Alvaro Cassinelli is an Associate Professor and founder of the Augmented Materiality Lab at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Awards include the Grand Prize [Art Division] (9th Japan Media Art Festival), Excellence Prize [Entertainment Division] (13th Japan Media Art Festival), Honorary Mention (Ars Electronica), NISSAN Innovative Award (2010), Jury Grand Prize at Laval Virtual (2011).
Full paper / The Process of Word Automation: From the Spoken Word to the Algorithm
Abstract: In this paper, I will trace a path in which the starting point will be the spoken word, made immortal through writing, and which will lead to the consideration of the word as the fundamental constituent part of today’s algorithms. This analysis will be carried out without losing sight of the fact that we are within an artistic research, in which it is necessary to deal with concepts that belong to other disciplines such as linguistics or computer science. The process of transcription will be the thread that connects the spoken word with the written word, allowing me to analyze how this transcription and its intrinsic characteristics have been used in areas as disparate as the world of art and the development of programming languages.
Subsequently, I will analyze the creation and evolution of the idea of algorithm –from its beginnings centuries before the creation of the first computers– and the link between them and the world of art, through the presentation of works that propose the use of pseudo-algorithms. It will be the algorithms that will allow me to talk about digital computers and how the technology behind them has served as a source of inspiration for contemporary artists.
Biography: Marta Pérez-Campos (Zaragoza, Spain) is PhD candidate at the UPV/EHU University of Basque Country and Master Interface Culture at the Kunstuniversität Linz. Her great interest in language and communication has led her to focus her current research on our relationship with and through technological devices and to approach some technological processes from an artistic perspective.
Institutional presentation / Technoetic Arts: A Journey of Speculative Research
Abstract: First published in 2003 by founding editor Roy Ascott, Technoetic Arts is a peer-reviewed journal that explores the juncture of art practice, technology and the mind. Drawing from academic research and often unorthodox approaches it opens up a forum for trans-disciplinary speculative frameworks. In 2020, with the support of the publisher Intellect, Ascott entrusted the editorship to what he defined the editorial organism, an international assemblage. [composed by: Claudia Jacques, Claudia Westermann, Dalila Honorato, Iannis Bardakos, Tom Ascott and Yong Hu. ] The Editorial Organism of the Technoetic Arts Journal is considered an extitution. The term extitution relates to a radically dynamic form of organisation, differentiating itself from the dominant form of organisations, typically conceptualised as static institutions. Extitutional theory is an emerging area of research that provides a set of conceptual tools for describing and analyzing the underlying social dynamics of a variety of social arrangements, such as communities, businesses, organizations, or any other structure. An extitution is an open, flexible, dynamic and diachronic multiplicity and, in this sense Technoetic Arts, combining academic research and artistic expression throughout the years, has established a unique journey. Within this presentation, we explore the reinvention of the editorial process through an organism that is composed of interdependent conscious units that coexist and apply decision-making in a decentralised way.
Biography: Created in 2020, the Editorial Organism is an assemblage of six independent minds and bodies, serving the journal Technoetic Arts in its daily operations as principle editors. The Editorial Organism, aiming to expand the boundaries of academic publishing, is dedicated to critical creative enquiry on topics of art, technology and consciousness.
John Bardakos is an artist and researcher born in Athens, Greece. He studied mathematics, digital, and traditional media in applied and fine arts in Athens, Paris and Madrid. Bardakos lectured in-between theory and practice in Athens and Paris and joined the Roy Ascott Technoetic Arts Studio in 2017 as a course coordinator and senior lecturer at the DeTao Masters Academy and the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts continuing his research between fine arts, technologies, mathematics, cybernetics and diagrams. He is currently continuing his art and research activities at the Athens School of Fine Arts and the University Paris 8, focusing on interaction, spatial/digital poetics, aesthetics, and mathematical structures following a technoetic paradigm.
Dalila Honorato, Ph.D., is tenured faculty in aesthetics and visual semiotics at the Ionian University, Greece and a collaborator at the Center of Philosophy of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal. One of the founding members of the Interactive Arts Lab, she is the head of the organizing committee of the conference Taboo – Transgression – Transcendence in Art & Science and a co-founder of the network ‘FEMeeting: Women in Art, Science and Technology’. In 2020 she was invited to join the Editorial Organism of Technoetic Arts.
Yong Hu, Ph.D., is associate professor in the School of New Media Art and Design at Beihang University, China, and a researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Virtual Reality Technology and Systems. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in computer science and virtual reality from Beihang University and then continued to engage in interdisciplinary teaching and research on computer science and art design, such as virtual reality art design and interactive art design. He has published widely on topics in CG, VR and art design. In 2020 he was invited to join the Editorial Organism of Technoetic Arts.
Claudia Jacques, Ph.D. (Univ. Plymouth, UK), MFA (SVA, US), is a Brazilian-American interdisciplinary technoetic artist, designer, educator and researcher. Human-computer interactions, cybersemiotics, semiotics, cybernetics, consciousness and design are some of her publication topics. She collaborates with many artists exhibiting and presenting both in the US and abroad. Parallel to serving in the Technoetic Arts Editorial Organism (2020), she has been serving as art & web editor for Cybernetics and Human Knowing since 2013. She has been collaborating with UCLA’s ArtSci Center since 2011 as an Information and Instructional Designer and is the founder and creative director of Knowledge Art Studios Inc. Her studio is in Ossining, NY.
Claudia Westermann (Ph.D.) is an artist and architect, licensed with the German Chamber of Architects, and a senior associate professor in architecture at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China. She holds postgraduate degrees in architecture and media art and obtained a Ph.D. from CAiiA, Planetary Collegium, for her research on a poetics of architecture, titled ‘An experimental research into inhabitable theories’. Her works have been widely exhibited and presented, including at the Venice Biennale (Architecture), the Moscow International Film Festival, ISEA Symposium for the Electronic Arts, the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, and most recently at the 2019 Yanping Art Harvest in Fujian, China.
Full papers / Internet vernacular creativity. Vaporwave, counterculture and copyright
Abstract: This article stems from ethnographic fieldwork I carried out in 2019 on the virtual platforms where vaporwave is developed. Vaporwave is a countercultural phenomenon between a musical genre and a meme developed entirely on the Internet since 2010. In this text I show how copyright laws and technologies operating in the context of vaporwave’s creation traverse and affect its creative forms and processes. Based on this case study of Internet vernacular creativity, I encourage an approach to digital countercultural or folkloric movements by putting into dialogue their symbolic dimension and the sociological, technological and legal bases on which they develop.
Biography: Ezequiel Soriano Gómez works about the internet, folklore and appropriation through ethnography, artistic experimentation and post-digital publishing. He is currently resident at La Escocesa and Santa Mónica art centre and researcher at Mediaccions (Open University of Catalonia). He manages the publishing lab ‘Artefactos Nativos’, whose aim is to print the internet through zines, weird books and unauthorised editions. As a researcher, he is working on his phd about internet vernacular creativity, free culture and experimental collaborations in ethnography.
Full papers / Artificial Life within a frame of metacreation on stage
Abstract: In order to investigate the possibilities of co-creation between performer and interactive virtual system, we have developed a scenic installation composed of two parts: the virtual environment and the interaction interface. We offer an analysis of our creative experience from the point of view of the artist researchers in the field of real-time generative synthetic image. Our results show that the creation depends on how the performer perceives the virtual system as well as how he perceives its influence on this system. The creative potential of the system depends on the mechanisms generated and implemented by the artist in a metacreation context and his interpretation of the interaction data. Our perspectives point towards the conception of a scenography-character.
Biography: Isadora Teles is a Brazilian artist based in Paris. She is currently a PhD candidate within the INREV research team, at the University of Paris 8. Her artistic practice is in the fields of digital generative art, artistic modeling of self-organizing systems and the design of interactive interfaces for live performance. Her artworks have been presented within academic and experimental frames of international exhibitions and institutions such as the Grand Palais, the Bains Numériques festival, the Ars Electronica festival, the Gaîté Lyrique and the Nuit Blanche in Paris. As part of her practice-based research, she is currently experimenting on the design of sensitive and connected electronic costumes as well as on the development of interactive evolving visuals for improvisational theatrical scenography.
Chu-Yin Chen is an Artist and Professor in Digital Art at Paris 8 University and member of the INREV research team. Since 2019, Chair Professor at National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan). Her creations, based on Artificial Life and complex systems develop interaction modes between audience and virtual creatures showing autonomous and evolving behaviors. Her digital artworks have been shown in numerous international exhibitions. Her researches articulate two overlapping areas: 1] Digital Creation using algorithms of complexity and emergence, and 2] Metacognition and Elicitation of the processes of creation, enaction and aesthetic reception, via psycho-phenomenology and mindfulness.
Sorina-Silvia Cı̂rcu holds a BSc in Systems engineering from The Polytechnic University of Timisoara, a MSc in Philosophy from Vest University of Timisoara and a MA in Theatre Directing from Nanterre University in Paris. Transdisciplinary artist and researcher, she is currently preparing a Ph.D between dance and robotics (AIAC laboratory of Paris 8 University and LIRMM laboratory of Montpellier University). Her work focuses on dramaturgy of the body, new media and notions like reality, perception and metamorphosis. She worked among others with Henier Goebbels for his anthology of ”Sound and Spaces”, Silvia Costa, Michel Cerda, Theatre du Soleil, Odin Teatret. Currently she is an artist in residence at DOC! in Paris.
Full papers / Made you look: crossing visual attention with computational design to create motion-based visual distractions
Abstract: Urban spaces are rich in environmental stimuli. This high represents a challenge when creating visual communication objects that address the public’s attention. However, the presence of digital screens turns this into an opportunity to explore new resources for the creation of visual strategies and address the contemporary context of urban spaces. Since attention is a limited resource, each person has to be selective when deciding where to focus on. This selection envolves attend to determined stimuli while rejecting others. To address this issue, we identified the need to understand how the brain processes visual stimuli and chooses where to focus its attention as much as how to create visual stimuli that activates these brain functions. We cross findings in Cognition and Computational Design to support our research and the development of prototypes that explore the dynamic triggering of a selected set of visual stimuli in a visual composition. The findings regarding Visual Stimuli guided the collection of promising visual stimuli to use, either individually or in combination, in the situation we are addressing — contexts where the audience is goal-oriented to other tasks. Also, the knowledge of Computational Design allows the development of dynamic and adaptive systems, which application can be particularly interesting in less predictive and evolving environments such as urban public spaces. In the present research we demonstrate the potential of this approach in addressing the issue raised. Through preliminary results we assign levels of efficiency to a collection of visual stimuli. Additionally, we propose a set of solutions for address the less efficient approaches while identifying new needs that shall be further tested. In sum, we aim to establish a research basis for the development of dynamic systems and consequent generation of graphic stimuli in visually competitive environments.
Biography: Bruna Sousa is a creative technologist fuelled by curiosity. Aiming the creation of effective and affective visual communication, her work combines fields such as psychology and neurosciences with graphic and interactive design. She has a Bachelor and Master degree in Design and Multimedia from the University of Coimbra. Currently is a computational designer and researcher at the Computational Design and Visualization Lab, is enrolled in the PhD in Contemporary Arts of the University of Coimbra, and is also a teaching assistant on the Undergraduate and Master degree courses in Design and Multimedia at the University of Coimbra. Her research interests are related to computational art and design. She also explores different approaches in typography, graphic and motion design, being them interactive, participatory or adaptive.
Ana Rodrigues is a Computational Designer. Aside from being currently enrolled in the PhD Program of Information Science and Technology at the University of Coimbra she does research at the Computational Design and Visualization Lab., CISUC. Additionally, she teaches as an Invited Assistant at the same institution. She is particularly interested in exploring computational bridges that may emerge from crossing the domains of Visual Communication, Music, Cognitive Sciences, and Media Design. Other interests of hers include Computational Creativity and Artificial Intelligence.
Nuno Coelho (Univ Coimbra, CEIS20, DEI) is an Oporto based communication designer; a professor of Department of Informatics Engineering (DEI) of the University of Coimbra, where he teaches on the undergraduate and master degree courses in Design and Multimedia; and an Integrated Researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CEIS20) of the University of Coimbra. He holds a Ph.D. in Contemporary Art from the University of Coimbra, a master in Design and Graphic Production from the University of Barcelona, and a degree in Communication Design and Graphic Art from the University of Oporto. As a design researcher, he is interested in history, material culture, digital humanities, and visual semiotics and representation. He has developed self-initiated projects in the intersection between design and art, raising questions, in its vast majority, about social and political issues. He has curated and coordinated design exhibitions and talks. He has two books published. www.nunocoelho.net
Penousal Machado is the coordinator of the Cognitive and Media Systems group and the scientific director of the Computational Design and Visualization Lab. of the Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra. His research interests include Artificial Intelligence, Evolutionary Computation, Computational Creativity, Computational Art and Design. He is also the recipient of scientific awards, including the prestigious EvoStar Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evolutionary Computation in Europe and the award for Excellence and Merit in Artificial Intelligence granted by the Portuguese Association for Artificial Intelligence. His work was featured in the Leonardo journal, Wired, and included in the “Talk to me” exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art, NY (MoMA).
Full paper / Buildings as Audio Visual Synthesisers: Experiments Performing Live Music on Wirelessly Networked Multi-Speaker Media Architectures (Online)
Abstract: This paper presents an approach to expanding live music per- formance practices to encompass sonic media architectures. We demonstrate a method for creating a playable audio-visual synthesiser that incorporates the notion that the space itself is a medium for performance. We discuss the design concepts that inform this process, as well as detailing specific simulation tools and a creative workflow that facilitates development of performance experiments within architectural spaces.
Biography: Oliver Bown is an Associate Professor at the School of Art & Design, UNSW Sydney, and co-director of their Interactive Media Lab. He researches creative technology practice and is an electronic music maker. He is the author of “Beyond the Creative Species: Making machines that make art and music” (MIT Press, 2021).
Kurt Mikolajczyk is a musician, composer, and creative coder currently undertaking a Ph.D. in interaction design at the University of Technology Sydney. In 2019 he completed a Masters of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, developing software tools for composing polytemporal music and a portfolio of works for jazz ensemble and laptop.
Sam Ferguson is a Senior Lecturer within the School of Computer Science and co-director of the Creativity and Cognition Studios at the University of Technology Sydney. He has a background in music performance, cognitive science, and psycho-acoustics and acoustics. He focuses on sound and music and their relationship with creativity and human experience, in contexts such as installation art, creative coding, and machine learning, as well as focusing on cognitive science. He has more than 80 publications in areas as diverse as spatial hearing and loudness research, data sonification, emotion, and tabletop computing.
Benedict Carey’s work branches aspects of computer science, musicology and cognitive science, focusing on analysis and creation of unique forms of music notation. Currently he teaches interactive media, rapid prototyping, music and sound production at the University of Technology Sydney and University of Sydney, is a research assistant in the Interactive Media Lab at the University of New South Wales, and is completing a doctorate in musicology at the University of Music and Drama Hamburg.
Full papers / Queer Communication: Human-Nonhuman Encounters
Abstract: In the times of Anthropocene, with global pandemic and climate change, it is necessary to investigate narratives that show respect and accountability for all forms of life. In this scenario, the research for interspecies communication reveals other ways to promote human-nonhuman encounters that overcome a past of human mastery over nonhumans. This research analyzes how interspecies communication can be conceived beyond language. Moreover, it also analyzes how those communications can be understood as queer. The source of investigation is the series of artworks Wombs (2018-2019), by Margherita Pevere. The artist researched for bonds between her body on hormones, from taking birth control pills, and two different species, bacteria (asexual) and slug (hermaphrodite). The queer communication in Wombs talks about disrupting the opposition nature/culture and man/woman in interspecies encounters and articulates more equalitarian narratives that are accountable for human actions.
Biography: Natacha Lamounier is an artist and researcher in Media Arts with a multidisciplinary background. She holds a MA in Arts from an Erasmus mobility program at the Universities of Krems (Austria), Aalborg (Denmark), and Lodz (Poland). She has BA degrees in Materials Engineering from the Federal Center for Technological Education of Minas Gerais (Brazil) and in Fashion Design at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil). Natacha’s main research areas are feminist-queer theories, interspecies communication, and interactions human-machine in wearable technology. In her art practices, she uses diverse skills, such as painting, collage, uncanny materials, and electronics. She lives currently in Denmark.
Full papers / Cultivating the possible: using design methodologies for artistic research
Abstract: the possible, to capture a contemporary moment and to look towards the future. This seems to be their prerogative and a requirement for reflecting critically on ‘the now’. The digital medium demands this. In order for a new possible way of working to be imagined – artists and researchers need to look outside of their own contexts, towards other ways of working to ensure sustainability, longevity and relevance. The covid-19 pandemic demands that artists, curators and researchers re-imagine their practice for a technology orientated future. As digital product design or interaction design has progressed, so have the research methods which aid in the realisation of digital products and systems. This field of human computer interaction (HCI), leverages design thinking as an iterative, agile approach. This paper will present //2Weeks special edition, theTMRW residency programme and the Floating Reverie website as case studies indirectly and directly been inspired by this way of working applied to an artistic research practice, curatorial projects and collaborative working within the digital medium. Through the use of different methodologies and approaches to artistic research and art residencies, within the context of the digital medium, a reinforced connection between arts and technology has the potential to occur.
Biography: Carly Whitaker is an independent curator, researcher, artist, and lecturer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Reading in the UK focusing on curatorial networked methodologies in South Africa. Whitaker has participated in numerous exhibitions at art spaces in Johannesburg, Freiburg, Casablanca, Miami and Sao Paulo. Through her practice she engages in a constant exploration of how we communicate through media and the ways we use technology to create dialogues, form connections between ourselves and the digital space. Noteworthy curatorial projects include Floating Reverie, an online digital residency programme, which has been running for over six years and Blue Ocean an online digital project space that started in 2022. Whitaker is currently the Curatorial Director of the TMRW Gallery a mixed realities workshop based in Johannesburg.
Full papers / A comparative study of practice-based research and research-creation in media art: Comparing two doctoral studies in Australia and Canada
Abstract: This paper examines the differences and similarities between practice-based research (PBR) and research-creation (RC) in media art. As case studies, two PhD research projects — one from Australia (Sojung Bahng, PBR) and the other from Canada (Stéphanie McKnight, RC) — are compared. The comparative analysis demonstrates that critical reflection and phenomenological awareness through creative practice are crucial in generating knowledge in both PBR and RC. Simultaneously, this study shows that research methods and approaches between PBR and RC differ due to different academic and socio-cultural factors. PBR’s main aim is to generate knowledge through practice in a broader sense, whereas RC, with its conceptual roots in fine arts, emphasizes social and community-based engagement.
Biography: Sojung Bahng is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker and researcher, and currently works as a postdoctoral fellow in the Bachelor of Media Production and Design at Carleton University in Canada. She will be appointed as an Assistant Professor in Media and Performance Production at Queen’s University, beginning in July 2022. Sojung holds a PhD from SensiLab at Monash University in Australia. She explores cinematic media via digital technologies to reflect aesthetic and narrative experiences in cultural and philosophical contexts.
Stéphanie McKnight (Stéfy) is an Assistant Professor in the Bachelor of Media Production and Design at Carleton University. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from Queen’s University. Her creative practice and research focus are policy, activism, governance, and surveillance trends in Canada and North America. Within her research, Stéfy explores research-creation as a methodology, and the ways that events and objects produce knowledge and activate their audience.
Jon McCormack is an Australian-based artist and researcher in computing. His research interests include generative art, design and music, evolutionary systems, computer creativity, visualisation, virtual reality, interaction design, physical computing, machine learning, developmental models and physical computing. Jon is the founder and Director of SensiLab and oversees all operations, research programs and partnerships. He is also full Professor of Computer Science at Monash University’s Faculty of Information Technology and currently an ARC Future Fellow.
Full papers / Museum Practices and Posthumanist Assemblages: Activating the Possibilities of Technology Collections
Abstract: This paper discusses the potential of computational media and museum collections to enable encounters with the technological present that complicate narratives of progress, modernity and individual (male) genius that often frame the conceptualization of technology in the museum space. It provides an account ofan exhibition and associated time-based objects to help anchor a wider discussion of the potential of posthumanist modes of thinking in the museum space.
Biography:
Deborah Lawler-Dormer is a research manager at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Her work is transdisciplinary and often engages art, science and technology in collaboration with industry, tertiary and community partners. She is the lead curator for the exhibition Invisible Revealed (2022) developed in partnership with Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. She is also a visiting Research Fellow with the Expanded Perception and Interaction Centre at University of New South Wales and Adjunct Research Fellow at Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. Recent publications include ‘Critical posthumanist practices from within the Museum’ in The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism (2022).
Christopher John Müller is a senior lecturer in Cultural Studies & Media at Macquarie University, Sydney. His work focuses on the intersection of technology and the deceptive “immediacy” of feeling. He is the author of Prometheanism: Technology, Digital Culture and Human Obsolescence (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), and his articles, translations and reviews have appeared in Parallax, Thesis Eleven, CounterText, TrippleC, Textual Praxis. Chris co-edited ThePalgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism (2022) and he co-edits the Genealogy of the Posthuman on www.criticalposthumanism.net.
Full papers / Spectrograms of the environment: entangled human and nonhuman histories
Abstract: The article discusses the use of the proprietary spectrocartography research method to study the interdependencies between history, forms of landscape design, colonization mechanisms, green areas management, processes of ecological degradation, and urban policies. This method involves carrying out research using various data from the fields of sound ecology, biocommunication, botany, ecology, and environmental psychology, as well as methodology from the field of art-based research and art & science. The genesis and hidden ideology contained in the design of the artificial lake Elsensee-Rusałka, which was dug in Poznań by Jewish prisoners of war during World War II, as well as post-war and modern forms of the revitalization of the lake area and adjacent green areas, are analyzed in detail. The ultimate goal of the research project is to create an open experimental digital archive relating to the concept of hybrid space, digiplace, and augmented reality, in which all the data obtained during the research will be collected. These data will be used to create a new form of storytelling, taking into account historical asynchrony, nonhuman actors, and the space itself as a causative entity.
Biography: Agnieszka Jelewska, Professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, Deputy Dean of Department of Anthology and Cultural Studies and director of Humanities/Art/Technology Research Center AMU. She has served as a visiting fellow at Kent University, Cantenbury, UK. She held lectures and workshops at Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University, Emerson College Boston, Folkwang Universität der Kunst, Essen. Jelewska has authored and co-edited books Sensorium. Essays on Art and Technology (2012 in Polish), Ecotopias. The Expansion of Technoculture (2013 in Polish), Art and Technology in Poland. From Cybercommunism to the Culture of Makers (2014, as editor); and number of articles. She examines the transdisciplinary relations between science, art, culture, and technology in the 20th and 21st century, their social and political dimension. She is also a curator and co-creator of art and science projects: Transnature is Here (2013); Post-Apocalypsis (2015) – awarded golden medal from PQ 2016; Anaesthesia (2016); PostHuman Data (2019).
Michał Krawczak, assistant professor at Anthropology and Cultural Studies Department (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan), co-founder and program director of Humanities /Art /Technology Research Center. Author of texts about media arts, editor of book Post-technological experiences. Art-Science-Culture (2019). Researcher, designer, and curator of art and science projects, such as Transnature is Here (2013), Post-Apocalypsis (2015), Anaesthesia (2016), Artropocene (2017). His main research fields are postdigital studies and media ecologies.
Full paper / STEAM research in Higher Education, an exploratory project
Abstract: Hybrid Lab Network (HYBRID) is an exploratory project to promote innovation and good practices for Higher Education, bridging areas of Art, Science, Technology/Engineering and Humanities, and fostering knowledge sharing and training. HYBRID aims to upgrade the work carried out by the individual partners – two excellent Higher Education Institutions (Slovenia e Finland), a world-class Research Institute (Portugal), and an outstanding Foundation (Netherlands) -, giving it a strong EU dimension, promoting reflection processes and real action over what should be Higher Education for the future: innovation, autonomy, curricular flexibility, and collaborative and sustainable approaches. HYBRID is implementing a multidisciplinary approach to improve STEAM training, particularly in bio-sciences, including the development of didactic tools and resources to promote critical and creative thinking and innovation. Through an intertwined structure of Workshops and Intellectual Products this Erasmus+ experimental project has been achieving some knowledge on how to educate transnationally and cooperatively. Due to this relatively small sample size implications of this study might not be generalizable to a larger context, however, they can provide further insight about the practice of developing and using these intertwined models and the support needed to achieve critical thinking and meaningful experiences by participants.
Biography: Maria Manuela Lopes is a visual artist whose practice is transdisciplinary, investigating relations of memory and iden-tity informed by the biological sciences and medical research; her work appears in a varied format within the visual arts re-sulting in multimedia installations, drawings and performanc-es. She studied sculpture at FBA-UP and MA at Goldsmiths Col-lege in London. She has a Doctorate in Fine Arts and New Media at the University of Brighton and UCA-Farnham in the UK. She did a Postdoc Art Research Project at the University of Aveiro and Porto – i3S Institute of Research and Innovation in Health. Lopes is Visual Arts Adjunct Professor at ESE – Institute Politech of Porto IPP and a researcher at i3S as co-responsible for the Cultural Outreach Art/Science interface. Maria Manuela Lopes has curated several international exhibitions and her work has been shown nationally and internationally. She is also co-founder and Deputy Director of Portu-guese artistic residency programs: Ectopia – Laboratory of Artistic Experimentation and Cultivamos Cultura.
Júlio Borlido Santos Biologist and science communicator; Head of i3S’s Communication Unit (since 2015). He led IBMC.INEB Office for Science Communication, worked as life sciences researcher, schoolteacher and demonstrator at UPorto. He organizes, promotes and teaches advanced training for scientists and other audiences on “Science, Ethics and Society”; was member of several Science with Society projects, namely e EU projects NERRI and PARRISE and third party in the national hub of the EU funded RRI TOOLS project. Presently he is member of EU funded projects MIRACLE and INTEGRITY (among others) and coordinates the Erasmus+ HYBRID Lab Network. He is member of General Council of a Portuguese School cluster; vice-president of i3S Council Ethics and Responsible Research; member of the Communication Council of UPorto; former vice-President of Scicom.pt network, and is member of other advisory boards.
Maria Rui Vilar-Correia Biologist, PhD in Didactics. Professor in Didactics of Biology Teaching – Fac. of Sciences of the UPorto (1981-2003). Experience in teachers training; producing learning materials and activities for university and secondary students; qualitative methodologies and studies. Projects: a) the Hybrid Lab Network Project, ERASMUS+; Blue Design Alliance (PRR). Co-responsible for the Cultural Outreach Art/Science interface of i3s. Accreditation Commission member at the “Art and Design Courses of ESAD – Matosinhos”.
Anabela Nunes has a bachelor in Journalism and Communication Sciences – specialisation in Multimedia Communication, from the University of Porto. She works in science communication since 2007 and participated in several national and international projects. Anabela worked at IBMC.INEB Office for Science Communication from 2010 to 2015 and at i3S Communication Unit from 2015 onwards
Full paper / Emergent. A post-pandemic mobile gallery
Abstract: This project emerges form a series of reflections about the state and the potentials of the arts and their exhibition spaces in post-pandemic times. The pandemic of 2020-21 forced many galleries and museums to shut their doors for several months or forever. These closures have created a void in social gatherings and cultural events, urging artists and cultural workers to rethink ways of making, exhibiting and bringing their work to the general public. Now that the world slowly re-opens to social gatherings, we wonder whether we should re-invent the role of the gallery as an enclosed space alltogether, by freeing it from the constraints posed by its traditional spatial and cultural configuration (real and virtual),and redesigning it as a multipurpose mobile object in dialogue with the city and its human and non-human dwellers. This choice is in part inspired by the first artworks and specimens this gallery will carry: a project at the intersection of art and science exploring “new life forms,” that is, living and imagined organisms emerging from digital, laboratory, and environmental contexts. The mobile gallery then acquires a new meaning: it is not just a new safe exhibition space, but also a space where emergent life is both debated and created, as well as an emergent “life” on its own.
Biography: Working in the artist-curator role, we are proposing a post-pandemic mobile gallery, which will contain a variety of artworks by invited artists. Roberta Buiani, Ilze Briede [Kavi] and Lorella Di Cintio are the Emergent collective. The members’ educational and creative backgrounds are wide-ranging in scope. They are melding together the artist as researcher, the artist as academic and the artist as curator.
Roberta Buiani, Ph.D. Buiani has received degrees in Modern Literature (Italy), Art History (Canada), and Communication and Culture (Canada) and teaches at York University and the University of Toronto, Canada. She is the co-founder of the ArtSci Salon at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences (Toronto) and is co-organizer of LASER Toronto. Her creative practice and teaching navigate the intersection of art and science.
Ilze Briede [Kavi], Ph.D. student. Briede has received degrees in Chinese language and culture studies (Latvia), Digital Media Production (UK), Interactive Media (UK) and Visual Arts (Canada). Her creative practice and teaching navigate the realm of bio-physiological sensing and human-computer co-creative practices.
Lorella Di Cintio, Ph.D. Di Cintio has received degrees in Environmental Design (Canada), Architecture (US) and Media and Communications (Europe) and teaches at X (Ryerson) University, The Creative School, School of Interior Design, Canada. Her creative practice and teaching navigate the realm of design activism and interiority.
Full paper / The multicultural and transdisciplinary construction of anti-consumerist critical thoughts – the multisensory diversity of the artistic installation series “The wishing Tree” (2012 – 2019)
Abstract: “The Wishing Tree” is a sort of multimedia sensorial installations made in artistic workshops that have proposed anti-consumerism thought and practice by a mix of recycling assemblage, handcraft, visual art, interactive music and technological artistic experiences. They are initially aimed at art educators and elementary and high school students and promote, from the integration of different means of expression, the integration between the visual arts, the audiovisual and digital/sensorial systems. This article evidences some aspects of these procedural art series, such as critical protagonism, agency, pro-activism and other ethical and cognitive additions in the courses of these international workshops-installations held between 2012 and 2019.
Biography: Paulo Cesar Teles is media-artist,graduated in Radio and Television (Faculty of Architecture, Arts and Communication at Paulista State University – UNESP, 1992); Master in Multimedia (Institute of Arts at UNICAMP, 2001); PhD in Communication and Semiotics (Catholic Pontifical University / PUC – SP, 2009), with Postdoctoral Degree from the School of Communications and Arts at University of Sao Paulo / USP, (2015). Professor Doctor of the Arts Institute at the State University of Campinas – UNICAMP since 2011 in the Post-Graduate Programs in Visual Arts; in Scientific Publicity (Labjor); and in the undergraduate programs in Visual Arts and Social Communication – Midialogy (Head of Program). He is also coordinator of the ARTME Research Group (Art, Technology and Emerging Media: Development, Literacies and Trans-culture).His current artworks and academic research are focused on technological art, multiculturalism and multiplatform educommunication processes through Art.
Short paper / E-Waste: The Unnatural, Natural Resource | A Case Study on Creative Uses of Obsolete Technology
Abstract: With many issues surrounding our high-tech products including: 1) planned obsolescence, 2) a linear “cradle-to-grave” life cycle, 3) the accumulation of electronic waste (e-waste), and 4) consumer culture, there is potential in finding practical/creative solutions to reusing/repurposing our obsolete technology. These solutions not only benefit the consumer, but also the communities that are affected by the growing e-waste problem. These issues analyzed through a case study where an artist converts a typewriter into a USB printer using the design principles laid out in this paper, including the use of open-source hardware and software as well as incorporating adaptive design for future updates. While it is unfortunate that our massive accumulation of e-waste has turned this material into an unnatural, natural resource that can be foraged, there is potential for projects (both practical and creative).
Biography: Erik Contreras is an interdisciplinary designer and engineer with a background in mechanical engineering and rapid prototyping. His work involves prolonging the lifespan of consumer electronics and finding alternative uses for post-consumer products. His design philosophy seeks to promote user repair, modification, and reuse for consumer products. As an advocate for the right to repair, he wishes to develop products and prototypes that “welcomes the end-user, inside and out”.
Erik typically uses a hands-on approach towards his work/research and can be found hacking obsolete tech or 3D printing custom parts in his home machine shop. With technology being part of every aspect of life in the Bay Area, there also a vast accumulation of e-waste in the community. With e-waste being readily available, Erik feels the material is an “unnatural, natural resource” when it comes to finding parts and inspiration for his prototypes.
Short paper / Telewindow: a flexible system for exploring 3d immersive telepresence using commodity depth cameras
Abstract: Video conferencing has become an essential part of everyday life for many people. However, traditional 2D video calls leave much to be desired. Eye-contact, multiple viewpoints, and 3D spatial awareness all make video conferencing much more immersive. We present TeleWindow: a frame with mountable volumetric cameras that attaches to a display for immersive 3D video conferencing. The full system consists of a 3D display and a frame with up to four volumetric cameras. Our system was flexible conceptually as well as physically. We intended our research to be “unfettered” rather than focus and directed, e.g., for anything directly entrepreneurial and commercial: “art as unsupervised research”. In contrast to similar work, our focus was on making an accessible system for exploring immersive teleconferencing so cost of materials and required technical knowledge is kept to a minimum. We present a technical baseline for immersive, easily replicable 3D teleconferencing.
Biography:David Santiano is a researcher and technologist that likes to perform scrappy and artsy research to explore possible and impossible avenues in new media and technology.
Cameron Ballard is currently completing his PhD in computer science at NYU Tandon’s Center for Cybersecurity. His current work focuses on the sociotechnical implications of social media, especially applying data science methods to understand the financial ecosystem behind online disinformation. Before joining the Center for Cybersecurity, Cameron completed his undergraduate degree at NYU Shanghai, and stayed on as a researcher for the Telewindow project. In addition to his academic pursuits, Cameron co-founded Raditube, a research tool to study disinformation and radicalization on YouTube.
Michael Naimark is an artist, inventor, and scholar in the fields of virtual reality and new media art. He is best known for his work in projection mapping, virtual travel, live global video, and cultural preservation, and often refers to this body of work as “place representation”. Naimark has been awarded 16 patents relating to cameras, display, haptics, and live, and his work has been seen nearly 400 art exhibitions, film festivals, and presentations around the world. He was the 2002 recipient of the World Technology Award for the Arts. Since 2009, Naimark has served as faculty at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and the MIT Media Lab. In 2015, Naimark was appointed Google’s first-ever “VR resident artist” in their new VR division. Since 2017, Naimark has served as visiting faculty at NYU Shanghai, where he taught VR/AR Fundamentals and directed research on online telepresence.
Short paper / eCO2system: exploring the environmental and social impact of the internet’s materiality through a data-driven media art installation
Abstract: The internet’s materiality often lacks attention in recent controversies surrounding the environmental footprint of physical versus online activity. The operation of the internet presupposes a physical infrastructure that consumes natural resources and generates pollution. The obfuscation of the materiality of the internet conceals power asymmetries produced by the uneven access to the control of the internet’s material infrastructure.
This paper investigates the social and environmental impact of the internet’s materiality through the data-driven, media art installation eCO2system. The installation consists of an aquarium which is connected to the Internet of Things and contains a small-scale ecosystem of fish. The technologically augmented aquarium retrieves data from a social media platform and detects digital activity promoting climate change awareness. The living conditions of the ecosystem deteriorate according to the number of awareness-promoting posts, highlighting the divergence between digital actions and physical consequences.
A complex network of more-than-human agents is articulated around the aquarium, including things, animals, humans, technologies, cultural structures, and other material and immaterial entities. The dynamics of this network impel us to rethink technology as part of a symbiotic whole of heterogeneous agents and to adopt less technocratic and more ethic criteria to redesign, reprogram, (re)use and recycle technologies.
Biography: Caterina Antonopoulou is a media artist, engineer and researcher. She is currently an adjunct lecturer of interactive art at the department of Digital Arts and Cinema of the University of Athens. Caterina holds a PhD in media art form the University of the Aegean (Greece), a Master’s in Digital Arts from of the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona and a diploma in Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. Her artistic work explores everyday practices and social interactions through a creative, critical and ludic appropriation of technology, while her research investigates the materiality of digital art focusing on critical, socially engaged and tactical media artworks.
Full paper / A Case for Play: Immersive Storytelling of Rohingya Refugee Experience
Abstract: The displacement of refugees from their natural homes have caused violence and estrangement all over the world, to the detriment of victims who live in unbearable conditions outside their homelands. There’s misunderstanding amongst hosts and Western media that see refugees as destructive hoarders of resource. Educating two sides of a refugee-host divide have applied immersive filmmaking following the cinematic 2D approach, portraying static scenes with narratively voiced works that try to put us inside refugee camps to elicit empathy. Instead of this approach, we embarked on a refugee-centered journey-based approach to show the daily lives of Rohingya refugees in Balukhali, Bangladesh using dynamic movements in VR space, spatial audio that surprise, and collaborative filmmaking that involves the participants empowering themselves using 360 camera and phone as tools for exploration. Instead of investigating the hardships of refugees from a Western perspective, we enabled a boy and his family in the refugee camp to create a visual experience that represent their lives. The interactive VR film is an empowerment tool to enable self-expression in a corner of the world that have become used to being the observed as opposed to the observer, taking advantage of VR as a medium for immersion and capability to surprise.
Biography: RAY LC’s practice creates interaction environments for building bonds between human communities, and between humans and machines. He takes perspectives from his own research in neuroscience (pubs in Nature Comm, J. Neurosci, J. Neurophys) and in HCI (pubs in CHI, DIS, HRI, TEI, Frontiers, etc) in his artistic practice, with notable exhibitions at BankArt, 1_Wall, Process Space LMCC, New York Hall of Science Residency, Saari Residency, Kyoto Design Lab Residency, Kiyoshi Saito Museum, ICRA Elektra Montreal, ArtLab Lahore, Ars Electronica Linz, NeON Digital Arts Festival, New Museum, CICA Museum, NYC Short Documentary Film Festival, Burning Man, NeurIPS, Deconstrukt, Angewandte Festival, University of Graz, Elektron Tallinn, Floating Projects, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, Goethe Institute, Osage Gallery, Hong Kong Arts Centre. RAY comes from Cal Berkeley EECS-Math (BS), UCLA Neuroscience (PHD), Parsons School of Design (MFA). His current work uses artistic interventions to probe our spatial relationship with machines.
Full paper / Knowing VR through practice
Abstract: How might we come to know the particular qualities and affordances – as well as the constraints and biases – of the medium of Virtual Reality (VR)? Responding to this situation from the perspective of Educations and Societies, we submit that more nuanced understandings of the qualities (aesthetic, narrative, experiential) and affordances (conceptual as much as technical) of the medium can be gained if VR is approached as a form of cultural and research practice. In this paper we will present a curated selection of innovative creative research projects developed at SensiLab, a trans-disciplinary research centre based at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia; and do so in the interest of exposing some of the investigative ways that practitioner-researchers (media artists, creative technologists, content producers) are extending understandings of both studio practice and the medium itself by engaging deeply, experimentally and reflexively with immersive imaging technologies. Illustratively, these dynamic, discovery-led PhD projects – undertaken by Sojung Bahng (visual artist and filmmaker), Oscar Raby (VR director) and Lucija Ivsic (performing artist) – reveal how we might come to know the medium through practice in an iterative way by investing in creating, making and exhibiting throughout the research process.
Biography: Vince Dziekan is a Senior Academic and Practitioner-Researcher at Monash Art Design and Architecture (MADA), Monash University, Australia whose work engages with the transformation of contemporary curatorial practices at the intersection of emerging design practices, creative technology and museum culture.
Sojung Bahng is an artist, filmmaker, postdoctoral researcher and instructor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
Lucija Ivšić is a Croatian-born emerging new media artist, composer and experienced performer, currently undertaking her practice-based PhD research at SensiLab, Monash University.
Oscar Raby is a visual artist, creative director at VRTOV and PhD researcher focusing on the software metaphors underpinning the development of narrative XR work.
Jon McCormack is a research Professor in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and director of SensiLab.
Full paper / The Bartleby Machine
Abstract: The idea of disobedient machines is developed from the perspective of artificial intelligence, rather than fiction. Misbehavior in humans and machines is presented as a one of the skills which are indispensable for natural intelligence. Different approaches to AI are presented, from symbolism to emergism. The limits of computational formalism are presented, together with Hofsdtader’s theory of consciousness. It is argued that a machine cannot reach human intelligence unless it is also able to disobey. Hence, an exploration of algorithmic misbehavior is urgent for further development of AI for the arts and society in general.
Biography: Bruno Caldas Vianna lives in Barcelona. He is pursuing a doctorate from the Uniarts in Helsinki, Finland, in visual arts and artificial intelligence. He has a degree in Film from Universidade Federal Flumiense in Rio de Janeiro, and a master’s degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He creates visual narratives in innovative and traditional supports, having done short and feature films, live cinema, augmented reality, mobile apps and installations. He was a resident in Hangar, Barcelona, in 2008; in Laboral, Gijón, with the Vida production award winner project Ionic Satellite Fountain; In Quebec’s La Chambre Blanche and London’s Battlesea Arts Centre, among others. Between 2011 and 2016, he ran Nuvem, a rural space dedicated to art and technology in Brazil. From 2012 and 2018 he taught at Oi Kabum, a school for art in technology in Rio de Janeiro. He is part of the autonomous communications collective Coolab.
Full paper / The Fun Palace: Designing Human Experiences at Mixed Reality Events to Increase Engagement
Abstract: This article is the culmination of an intervention designed to improve active engagement with emerging technologies at a public mixed reality event. An opportunity arose to experiment with the design of interactive audience experiences at the The Fun Palace: Carnival of Mixed Realities—an event that took place in 2019 and featured 10 installations with close to 400 attendees. A number of strategies emerged to increase attendee engagement that may be useful for xR developers, museum curators, and event producers that present interactive technologies and installations publicly.
Biography: Dr. Patrick Parra Pennefather is an award-winning composer, designer of asynchronous, synchronous, blended and hybrid instruction, teacher, researcher and disruptor. He has mentored multi-disciplinary teams co-constructing scalable digital prototypes with over 50 companies and organizations in games, mobile dev, Mixed Reality, VR, AR, education and the arts. Patrick has facilitated human-centred workshops in-person and as a virtual cat for EA, Riot, Microsoft Games, and many others in the xR space. He’s published multisyllabic words in the fields of 3D, Sound Design, xR, VR, MR, Bio-Medical Visualization and Agile application development. He’s an Assistant Prof at UBC Theatre and Film, and a founding member of the Master of Digital Media (MDM) Program.
John Desnoyers-Stewart is an interdisciplinary artist-researcher who creates immersive installations and performance to encourage new perspectives on immersive technology and to better understand its true potential. Through his artwork and research, he hopes to encourage social connection and collaborative creativity, exploring positive social applications of abstract embodiment in virtual reality.
Full paper / Artistic residencies in digital companies
Abstract: This paper aims to enrich the knowledge of artists’ residencies in digital companies, both to understand their particularities and to help develop methods to evaluate the processes and effects of these initiatives. The popularity of artists’ residencies has increased since the 1990s. This can be seen in the funding organizations that develop support programs but also in the diversity of the host institutions, community organizations and private companies that want to welcome artists and develop links with the art worlds. What explains this growth? What are the different parties involved looking for? What are the effects of these residencies on artistic careers? This research brings a particular attention to artists’ residencies in digital companies. Acting as a precursor in Quebec, the Conseil québécois des arts médiatiques (CQAM) set up its first residency in 2016 at the interactive media company Turbulent, followed the next year by another at the audiovisual entertainment company VYV and in 2018 by Milieux, an Institute of Arts and Technologies. Our research explores the ten residencies that have taken place to date, based on interviews with artists and company employees. A literature search was also conducted to better understand this growing phenomenon. Our work allows us to better understand what artists’ residencies in companies are, do and allow. The host companies seem to seek, in the presence of the artist, a force of reflection and change for the practices and rhythms of work. For artists, the main interest of residencies is the possibility to devote time and resources to a project. However, the link between these two worlds is not automatic and requires a strong commitment, which in turn requires the involvement of intermediary organizations.
Biography: Sylvain Martet holds a PhD in sociology from the Université du Québec à Montréal. As a researcher, he has been involved for the past ten years in numerous research projects on cultural mediation practices, the impact of digital technology on cultural occupations and cultural participation. His work focuses on the circulation of music, particularly in a digital context. He is a member of the Observatory of Cultural Mediations (OMEC), of the Partnership Study for the Mediation of Music (EPMM), of the Interdisciplinary Observatory of Creation and Research in Music (OICRM), and of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM).
Full paper / Click::REVU. An Optophonic Sound Installation
Abstract: If traces of past media remain in contemporary forms of media, how can these traces be appropriated and applied in the creation of a sound-based installation? This paper presents Click::REVU a sound installation developed by the first author. The work blends physical characteristics of an early sonification device, the Optophone – a device that translated optical data to sound – to create an illusory presence through a scanner mechanism from a multifunction printer. The work’s compositional structure reduces the scanner’s image capture ability to an indexical relationship that is expressed as a minimal soundscape of drones and clicks. As a media archaeological sound-based artwork, the ideation of Click::REVU has depicted a form of optophonics through the interpretation of early 20th century Optophones. These forms, as archival sources of knowledge for reinterpretation, have informed the development and realization of this work, one that is expressed through a genealogically related contemporary form of media, the contact image sensor scanner.
Biography: Paul Dunham is a New Zealand based sound artist. His recent work has seen a focus of the relationship between past and contemporary media and connecting their socio-cultural and technical conditions of existence. As media archaeology these relationships are represented and expressed through sound as recorded works, installations or performances. In addition, he has composed a range of acousmatic and electroacoustic works utilising a range of materials ranging from broken media to environmental sounds. His works have been exhibited nationally and internationally including the New Interfaces for Musical Expression conference (Birmingham and Shanghai), ISEA (Durban and Montreal) and Ars electronica Garden Aotearoa (New Zealand). He has recently completed his PhD in Sonic Arts at Victoria, University of Wellington.
Full paper / Sparking Emotion in Mexican Electronic Art
Abstract: This paper deals with the methodological and cognitive processes involved in how innovative ideas evolve in the human mind. It also addresses the principles and foundations of creating new ideas and the different phases of creative processes: participation, tendency, incubation, intuition, evaluation, actualization, communication, and participation. Also significant are the reactive, interactive, and emotional facets of the participation phase of the creation process. Hence, these aspects are analyzed in order to produce an in-depth reflection on the elicitation of emotions during the production processes of electronic artworks. Finally, the paper examines a number of techniques and resources used to elicit emotions in electronic artworks.
Biography: Cynthia Villagomez is a professor and researcher at Guanajuato University, Mexico since August 2002, she is the author of seven books, several book chapters, and articles about Electronic Art, Creativity, and Design. From 2003 to 2021 she was the editor of the University of Guanajuato magazine Interiorgrafico de la Division de Arquitectura, Arte y Diseño. In addition, she has made several trips Spain in connection with the research she has been developing. She is a Graphic Designer, with a master’s degree in Creativity for Design from the School of The National Institute of Fine Arts and a Ph.D. in Visual Arts and Intermedia from Polytechnic University of Valencia (UVP), Spain. Her Ph.D. thesis on Processes of Production in Mexican Digital Art received UVP’s “Extraordinary Award for Doctoral Theses” in 2016. She is a former Member of The Mexican National Research System, Level II of Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology, CONACYT.June 14th
Full paper / Knowledge cultures in new media art
Abstract: New Media Art reflects the dramatic creative and cultural shifts in science and technology of the past century. With these shifts the multitude of forms of art-making have expanded to include a wide range of ideas and techniques. Following several decades of new contributions this plurality of expression has resisted monolithic or curatorial approaches to organization along the lines of media. This paper defines knowledge cultures as flexible, over-lapping, non-exclusive, ideological sub-groups and seeks to identify such groups within the practice and theory of New Media Art. While practicing groups may be associated with specific media such as games, 3D printing, or artificial intelligence, we seek to identify knowledge groups by their explicit, hidden or shared ideological principles.
Biography: Rama Carl Hoetzlein is a media artist and theorist working in knowledge systems and simulations. He was co-founder of the Game Design Initiative at Cornell University, Lead architect for voxel-based simulation research at NVIDIA, and co-director with Alan Liu of the experimental social network, RoSE, in the digital humanities. Dr. Hoetzlein is currently assistant professor of animation in Digital Media Design at Florida Gulf Coast University
Full paper / Making a Manual: The Manual for the Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art
Abstract: The Manual for the Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art is a creative commons living document aimed at assisting curators and exhibition designers, particularly non specialist curators seeking to engage with interactive new media art. This paper will explain the design philosophy of the manual as well as the methodologies employed.
Biography: René G. Cepeda is a Mexican multidisciplinary designer/artist/art historian specializing in new media art. He is currently a lecturer at UNARTE (MX) and curator of the New Media Caucus’ Header/Footer gallery. His studies include Information Design and software development, museum studies and art history master’s degrees in the UK. and a Ph.D. that combines design and curatorial practice to help curators engage with interactive new media art and create exhibitions that retain the meaning and interaction of such works. As a curator, he combines his artistic background including 5 years as an artist’s apprentice to create immersive and interactive exhibitions that combine formal curatorial practice with creativity in the design and implementation of spaces and objects to create exhibitions that can both entertain and educate audiences.
Full paper / Museum Practices and Posthumanist Assemblages: Activating the Possibilities of Technology Collections
Abstract: This paper discusses the potential of computational media and museum collections to enable encounters with the technological present that complicate narratives of progress, modernity and individual (male) genius that often frame the conceptualization of technology in the museum space. It provides an account ofan exhibition and associated time-based objects to help anchor a wider discussion of the potential of posthumanist modes of thinking in the museum space.
Biography: Deborah Lawler-Dormer is a research manager at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Her work is transdisciplinary and often engages art, science and technology in collaboration with industry, tertiary and community partners. She is the lead curator for the exhibition Invisible Revealed (2022) developed in partnership with Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. She is also a visiting Research Fellow with the Expanded Perception and Interaction Centre at University of New South Wales and Adjunct Research Fellow at Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. Recent publications include ‘Critical posthumanist practices from within the Museum’ in The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism (2022). https://www.maas.museum/research/
Christopher John Müller is a senior lecturer in Cultural Studies & Media at Macquarie University, Sydney. His work focuses on the intersection of technology and the deceptive “immediacy” of feeling. He is the author of Prometheanism: Technology, Digital Culture and Human Obsolescence (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), and his articles, translations and reviews have appeared in Parallax, Thesis Eleven, CounterText, TrippleC, Textual Praxis. Chris co-edited ThePalgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism (2022) and he co-edits the Genealogy of the Posthuman on www.criticalposthumanism.net.
Full paper / Spectrograms of the environment: entangled human and nonhuman histories
Abstract: The article discusses the use of the proprietary spectrocartography research method to study the interdependencies between history, forms of landscape design, colonization mechanisms, green areas management, processes of ecological degradation, and urban policies. This method involves carrying out research using various data from the fields of sound ecology, biocommunication, botany, ecology, and environmental psychology, as well as methodology from the field of art-based research and art & science. The genesis and hidden ideology contained in the design of the artificial lake Elsensee-Rusałka, which was dug in Poznań by Jewish prisoners of war during World War II, as well as post-war and modern forms of the revitalization of the lake area and adjacent green areas, are analyzed in detail. The ultimate goal of the research project is to create an open experimental digital archive relating to the concept of hybrid space, digiplace, and augmented reality, in which all the data obtained during the research will be collected. These data will be used to create a new form of storytelling, taking into account historical asynchrony, nonhuman actors, and the space itself as a causative entity.
Biography: Agnieszka Jelewska, Professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, Deputy Dean of Department of Anthology and Cultural Studies and director of Humanities/Art/Technology Research Center AMU. She has served as a visiting fellow at Kent University, Cantenbury, UK. She held lectures and workshops at Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University, Emerson College Boston, Folkwang Universität der Kunst, Essen. Jelewska has authored and co-edited books Sensorium. Essays on Art and Technology (2012 in Polish), Ecotopias. The Expansion of Technoculture (2013 in Polish), Art and Technology in Poland. From Cybercommunism to the Culture of Makers (2014, as editor); and number of articles. She examines the transdisciplinary relations between science, art, culture, and technology in the 20th and 21st century, their social and political dimension. She is also a curator and co-creator of art and science projects: Transnature is Here (2013); Post-Apocalypsis (2015) – awarded golden medal from PQ 2016; Anaesthesia (2016); PostHuman Data (2019).
Michał Krawczak, assistant professor at Anthropology and Cultural Studies Department (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan), co-founder and program director of Humanities /Art /Technology Research Center. Author of texts about media arts, editor of book Post-technological experiences. Art-Science-Culture (2019). Researcher, designer, and curator of art and science projects, such as Transnature is Here (2013), Post-Apocalypsis (2015), Anaesthesia (2016), Artropocene (2017). His main research fields are postdigital studies and media ecologies.
Full papers / Possible City: legacies of trauma in media space
Abstract: Electronic art occupies a transmedial space with other media including film, television, streaming video and, as the paper asserts, architecture. These forms of media are charged with the politics and cultural value of space, and these are often mediated through the image of the city: a media-space. This paper takes as its lens the mediated image of a mid-size, mid-western city: Winnipeg, Canada. It sets up a discussion of the image of this city by considering key examples of (industry-based) narrative media shot here, before moving on to works of independent film and media art. Industry film frequently repurposes Winnipeg’s urban spaces to depict other cities – Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit – to tell stories of crime, and worse. The paper makes the case that what visiting filmmakers are in fact “buying” is a heritage of historical pain: the legacy of colonialism embodied in urban space, indeed hidden there in plain sight. This legacy has only begun to be visible to most Canadians, but it has been there for all to see as harvested and displayed on the screen, a sign or symptom of a deep malaise. A more complex relationship between city and image is revealed by what is done with the same urban spaces by independent film artists – and architects. Their crop, which is explored last, exposes more completely the potential for new relationships between city and image, buyer and seller, authenticity and fiction, colonial legacy and possible city.
Biography: Lawrence Bird practices in architecture, urban design and media art. His artistic practise focuses on relationships of image to space, materiality and the body, often exploiting broken digital systems. His work has been installed at RAW:Gallery (Winnipeg), Inter/Access Gallery (Toronto), Furtherfield Gallery (London, UK), Greenwich Royal Naval Hospital (UK), Espace Architecture La Cambre Horta (Brussels), and the International Symposium on Electronic Arts 2017 (Manizales, Colombia). His design practise has spanned from work at Pentagram Design on the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (1988, 1989-1990) to his current contributions at Sputnik Architecture on cultural and heritage sites in Western Canada (2019-present). Lawrence has a PhD in History & Theory of Architecture and a professional degree in architecture from McGill University, as well as an MSc (City Design & Social Science) from London School of Economics. His research has been funded by SSHRC, FQRSC, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Full papers / Protest and Aesthetics in The Metainterface Spectacle
Abstract: The article asks how political agency play out in contemporary uses of the interface. It, firstly, stipulates that the interface is a ‘spectacle’, belonging to a longer history of media spectacles, mass organization, politics and aesthetics. Secondly, that contemporary interfaces are metainterfaces, depending on a new organization of the masses characterized by mass profiling. Finally, it analyses how this play out in examples from art and cultural practices, and speculates on what political protest and revolution is in light of the interface.
Biography: Christian Ulrik Andersen is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Digital Design and Information Studies, Aarhus University. He is Director of Digital Aesthetics Research Center (DARC), co-editor of A Peer-Reviewed Journal About, and previous Research Fellow at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies.
Søren Bro Pold is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Digital Design and Information Studies, Aarhus University. He publishes on media aesthetics – from the 19th century panorama to the interface in its different forms, e.g., on electronic literature, net art, software art, creative software, urban and mobile interfaces, activism, surveillance culture and digital culture.
Full papers / The Bartleby Machine
Abstract: The idea of disobedient machines is developed from the perspective of artificial intelligence, rather than fiction. Misbehavior in humans and machines is presented as a one of the skills which are indispensable for natural intelligence. Different approaches to AI are presented, from symbolism to emergism. The limits of computational formalism are presented, together with Hofsdtader’s theory of consciousness. It is argued that a machine cannot reach human intelligence unless it is also able to disobey. Hence, an exploration of algorithmic misbehavior is urgent for further development of AI for the arts and society in general.
Biography: Bruno Caldas Vianna lives in Barcelona. He is pursuing a doctorate from the Uniarts in Helsinki, Finland, in visual arts and artificial intelligence. He has a degree in Film from Universidade Federal Flumiense in Rio de Janeiro, and a master’s degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He creates visual narratives in innovative and traditional supports, having done short and feature films, live cinema, augmented reality, mobile apps and installations. He was a resident in Hangar, Barcelona, in 2008; in Laboral, Gijón, with the Vida production award winner project Ionic Satellite Fountain; In Quebec’s La Chambre Blanche and London’s Battlesea Arts Centre, among others. Between 2011 and 2016, he ran Nuvem, a rural space dedicated to art and technology in Brazil. From 2012 and 2018 he taught at Oi Kabum, a school for art in technology in Rio de Janeiro. He is part of the autonomous communications collective Coolab.
Full papers / Forging emotions. A deep learning experiment on emotions and art
Abstract: Affective computing is an interdisciplinary field that studies computational methods that relate to or influence emotion. These methods have been applied to interactive media artworks, but they have been focused on affect detection rather than affect generation. For affect generation, computationally creative methods need to be explored that lately have been driven with the use of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), a deep learning method. The experiment presented in this paper, Forging Emotions, explores the use of visual emotion datasets and the working processes of GANs for visual affect generation, i.e., to generate images that can convey or trigger specified emotions. This experiment concludes that the methodology used so far by computer science researchers to build image datasets for describing high-level concepts such as emotions is insufficient and proposes utilizing emotional networks of associations according to psychology research. Forging Emotions also concludes that to generate affect visually, merely corresponding to basic psychology findings, e.g., bright or dark colors, does not seem adequate. Therefore, research efforts should be targeted towards understanding the structure of trained GANs and compositional GANs in order to produce genuinely novel compositions that can convey or trigger emotions through the subject matter of generated images.
Biography: Amalia Foka (b. Greece) is a creative Artificial Intelligence researcher and educator who explores the intersection of computer science and art. Her work makes use of different artificial intelligence technologies and social media data to generate and study art. Her work has been presented and published internationally including the Leonardo Journal (MIT Press); WRO Media Art Biennale; EVA London and many more. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Computer Science: Multimedia Applications for the Arts at the School of Fine Arts, University of Ioannina, Greece, where she teaches courses on creative coding, creative interactive systems, and generative AI art. She holds a BEng in Computer Systems Engineering (1998) and an MSc in Advanced Control (1999) from the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology (UMIST) in the United Kingdom. She also holds a Ph.D. in Robotics (2005) from the Department of Computer Science of the University of Crete.
Full papers / Weaving Augmented Reality into the Fabric of Everyday Life
Abstract: In 1997 Ronald T. Azuma introduced the now generally accepted and followed definition in Augmented Reality (AR) research. In short, it tells us that in AR we introduce virtual content into the real world, this virtual content needs to be aligned with real content, and a user of an AR environment can interact with the (dynamic) virtual and real content in real-time. This definition leaves open how virtual content is generated, which display technology is desired and which senses are addressed. This has advantages, but it is now becoming clear that these missing aspects lead to confusion, also because with the current smart technology in general and ubiquitous computing in particular, AR technology can no longer be considered in isolation. We present the arguments that lead to this conclusion. We will explain the arguments with examples in which the vision, auditory and olfactory senses play a role. Starting point and conclusion obtained is that AR eventually will become an everyday technology that will merge into reality.
Biography: In 1989 Anton Nijholt was appointed full professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. For some years he was a scientific advisor of Philips Research Europe. At Twente, he initiated the Human Media Interaction group where now he is an emeritus professor. His main research interests are human-computer interaction with a focus on entertainment computing, playable cities, augmented reality, and brain-computer interfacing. He edited various books on playful interfaces, playable cities, and brain-computer interaction. Nijholt, together with many of the Ph.D. students he has supervised, wrote hundreds of journal and conference papers and acted as program chair and general chair of large international conferences on affective computing, multimodal interaction, intelligent agents, and entertainment computing. Nijholt is Chief Editor of the section Human-Media Interaction in the journals Frontiers in Psychology Frontiers in Computer Science, and series editor of the Springer Book series “Gaming Media and Social Effects”.
Full papers / kin_ – An AR Dance Performance With Believable Avatars
Abstract: Reflecting on the challenges and potentials that Mixed Reality (MR) media present for the production of digital performance art, we present the concept of the Augmented Reality (AR) artwork kin_. The piece is opening the question on how to transfer a real live performative experience into AR, as well as the question of owning and maintaining agency within an artistic fabric. This is explored with a focus on the interaction of different types of agents, using artistic research at the intersection of art, dance and technology.
Biography: Performance artist and choreographer Charlotte Triebus researches with her ensemble New Human Body Society and MIREVI (Mixed Reality & Visualization, www.mirevi.de), University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf at the interface between dance, art and technology. She combines artistic practice and theoretical research, specifically asking about the acting body, agency and queer identity relations. www.triebus.com
Christian Geiger leads MIREVI Lab, which researches in the field of VR/AR/MR and Human-Technology Interaction, Robotics, Digital Health and Intelligent Systems. One focus of the work is on motion-based interfaces and the use of digital technologies in art and cultural contexts. In particular, non-technical aspects of user experience and social and ethical implications are considered.
Ivana Družetić-Vogel is part of the MIREVI team at the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf since 2018 where she manages several projects at the intersection of art, culture and Mixed Reality technologies. She graduated in Cultural Studies (BA) and holds an MA in Cultural Anthropology and Museum Studies.
Full papers / Can machines predict our future?
Abstract: Based on the notion of the Datacene, understood as the time when data directly affects the social, cultural, economic, political, and even affective structures of the present. In this article we propose how Big Data and Artificial Intelligence give rise to the Internet of Behavior; a new technological paradigm that has incredible potential to induce human behavior. Since ancient times, human beings have always wanted to predict and alter the future, but in the last ten years, this wish is beginning to become a reality thanks to great recent advances in the field of social engineering, raising serious doubts about social control and the loss of freedom. In this context of analysis, we present two projects developed within the framework of ACTS. Data Biography shows the enormous amount of digital traces that we generate daily and composes, from them, the biography of a person. On the other hand, Machine Biography investigates how current artificial intelligence techniques can predict and induce future human behavior. Both projects invite us to consider from a critical perspective the present and future of the social transformations produced by Big Data and AI.
Biography: Diego Díaz, PhD, isAssociated Professor at Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana.
Clara Boj, PhD, is Associated Professor at Universitat Politècnica de València. As an artist team, they have been working together since 2000. Their work critically engages new media technologies and the notion of public space within the hybrid city. Recently they are working with Machine Learning techniques to analyze how computers can understand and predict our future. Their projects and works have been shown in Museums, Art Centers and Festivals worldwide.
Full papers / Possibilising performance through interactive telematic technology: Mental Dance
Abstract: Mental Dance engages audiences in modes of performance that call attention to multiplicitous dimensions of the present. As an interactive improvised dance-sound-tech event, we invite perceiving attention to the mutable present as always already shaped by perception, prior experience, cognition and corporeal change. Neuroscientific research underscores our approach to a digital interface that proposes new relations between audience and performer as a result of repeated COVID-19 lockdowns. Using MediaPipe pose estimation technology to track dancers’ movements from webcam feeds, we directed telematic rehearsals and performance of the work on Zoom where dancers in their home environments sculpt and respond to sound in real- time. Constraints such as forced isolation, lack of access to technology and space to move, were embraced to create a new type of collaborative performance where the screen becomes the stage and the interface between movement and sound. This workflow can be used to enable interactive telematic performance where collaborators are unable to be in the same physical space with no specialist hardware requirements.
Biography: Carol Brown is a dancer, choreographer and artist-scholar from Aotearoa whose work has been presented globally. Her choreographic imagination straddles academic and professional contexts and is renowned for its transdisciplinary reach. Touring internationally with her company, Carol Brown Dances, Carol has developed innovative choreographic methodologies in dance-architecture, digital dance and site dance and has written extensively about questions of space, ecological change, gender and hidden histories. She has been awarded the Jerwood Prize for Choreography and the Ludwig Forum International Prize for Innovation. Carol is Head of Dance and Professor of Choreography at the University of Melbourne.
Monica Lim a composer and PhD researcher in Interactive Composition at the University of Melbourne. She is interested in the collision between new media and classical traditions, and the use of technology in an interactive, participatory context. Monica’s research delves into collaborative musical expression through novel interfaces using web technologies and embodied sound.
Full papers / From hallucinatory Art to hallucination in the Virtuality. Devices for Alternative Realities.
Abstract: Throughout this text we will analyze some human concerns that are the subject of analysis in different fields of knowledge such as philosophy, art, science and technology. These concerns revolve around what is reality? what is fiction? what are the effects of hallucination? and what is virtuality? through different cultural products such as art, literature, cinema, psychoactive or entheogenic experiences, up to the most recent proposals of Virtual Reality and their forms of interaction. We will try to envision and propose new ways of perceiving reality, seeking a balance between the real and the virtual world. We will take a tour from the way we process reality and create fictions around it, to the illusionism that has constituted an important part of our search for consciousness, mediating between rationality and experimentation in the construction of new realities to finally make a proposal on Virtual Reality based on the therapeutic use of hallucinogens
Biography: Sandra CUEVAS, Master in Visual Studies and Bachelor in Graphic Design, both titles from UAEMéx. She has various diplomas in animation, screenwriting, art direction and computer and electronic programming. Professionally, she has collaborated in animation studios as Nikel Studios, Onirik Studio, Inzomnia Animación, Delotroladodelcero Films, working on projects that have been awarded the Ariel award by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences and the Silver Goddess, among others. In teaching, she has been a professor in the degrees of Engineering in Technology and Digital Animation of the UVM, in Digital Art of the Faculty of Arts of the UAEMéx, in Design, Art and Interactive Technologies in the University Center of Art, Architecture and Design of the University of Guadalajara. She has been interested in issues related to imaginary production, creative processes, complex thinking, the use of new technologies, among other topics.
Reynaldo THOMPSON studied architecture at the University of Guanajuato and postgraduate studies at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona and the University of Texas at Dallas, the latter being where he obtained a doctorate in aesthetics estudies focused on Contemporary Art. He has participated in collective and solo exhibitions and curated shows in Mexico and abroad. He served as Head of the Department of Art and Business at the University of Guanajuato and is currently focused on research on art, science and technology in Latin America. His research results have been published in domestic and foreign journals. He is a member of the National System of Researchers of the National Council for Science and Technology in Mexico and a member of the Ibero-American Observatory of Digital and Electronic Arts.
Tirtha MUKHOPADHYAY, PhD is Professor of Art and Aesthetics at Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico. He is multi-disciplinary scholar who taught at Presidency University of India (1996-2000), University of Calcutta (2000 -2016) and at University of Texas at Dallas from 2002 to 2005, before migrating to Mexico. He was Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA from 2013-2014. His publications include books like ‘Affective States in Art’ (Proquest-UMI) ‘Cezanne to Picasso’ (Calcutta University Press, India) and more than 50 articles on creativity, cognition and aesthetics, digital art, visual anthropology and literature, that were published from reputed publishers like OUP, IOS Press, MIT and Atelier-Etno. Mukhopadhyay is also a poet in the Bengali language. He is the Chief Editor of an indexed interdisciplinary journal called ‘Rupkatha’ since 2009.
Full papers / Rebalancing media in environments: analysing flows of action
Abstract: An exploration into how portable projections can serve to counterbalance the bias towards screen-based media experiences and how these projection devices can contribute to a more texture-based understanding of the relationships between environments and their constitutive actants. The constantly changing relationships between media and things enable the construction of a sense of place which moves and flows. To undertake this exploration, I use a three-fold method to analyse site-specific video walks (The Surface Inside, I-Walk, and (wh)ere land), draw on nascent thoughts derived from a series of workshops about flows, environments materials, and resonance, and engage with critical discussions about space, assemblages and materiality.
Biography: Rocio von Jungenfeld is a German / Spanish creative practitioner and media researcher based at University of Kent (UK), working in embodied perception and how media art and technology alter human-non-human interactions in environments. Her creative practice involves collaborative, interdisciplinary, and participatory media production; hybrid / immersive installations; outdoor-mobile projections; interaction design; and art in public space. In collaboration with Dave Murray-Rust, she won the British Computer Society A.I. Award (Lumen Prize 2019). She is part of two large research projects: Playing A/Part & SOCORRO. She obtained her PhD and MSc at University of Edinburgh (UK), and her BFA at University of Barcelona (Spain). She has presented her artistic, collaborative and research work in venues such as ZKM, IBM, Scottish National Gallery, EISF, NTAA, MAN-Singapore, EIF, National Museum of Scotland, Talbot Rice Gallery, Margate Festival, I-Park (US), ACM CHI and C&C, EvoMusArt, Leonardo, ISEA, AMPS, and NECS.
Full papers / Postlocative Art for a Non-Anthropocentric World
Abstract: The existence of a new hybrid spatial ontology (mate-rial/virtual, offline/online) has triggered some unique territorialization processes closely linked to the technopolitical and technoeconomic domain. These processes involve a new symbolic-cultural output that questions the validity of locative art’s theoretical framework, initially associated with situationist psychogeography and with the informational context associated with GPS metadata. By contrast, postlocative art deploys strategies that critically accept the important role that non-humans play in public representation as well as in delegating the production of meaning to AI, thus moving beyond the locative framework and closely associating itself with the postphenomenology of complex systems.
Biography: Santiago Morilla is a multidisciplinary artist, PhD in Contemporary Art (UCM, Complutense University of Madrid) and specialised in New Media Art (Erasmus Scholarship at The Media Lab Media Lab, University of Art and Design UIAH Helsinki, Finland), researcher and lecturer at UCM Faculty of Fine Arts. He is currently part of the research groups “Artistic practices and new forms of knowledge” (UCM id: 588) and “Energy humanities. Energy and sociocultural imaginaries between the industrial revolutions and the ecosocial crisis” (CSIC, PID2020-113272RA-I00, ENERGEHUM).
Short papers / Humans and Machines: A Study of the Impacts of the Technological Advances in the Light of Generative Art Theory
Abstract: This paper is dedicated to the analysis of two works produced by two contemporary artists, more specifically “Rachael is not real” by Matthias Winckelmann and “Machine Hallucination”, by Refik Anadol, having as convergence point the generative method of production employed in both. The article describes both works using, as theoretical foundation, the most widely accepted definition of Generative Art and reveals nuances of both works that might not be fully comprehended by the current theory. Finally, the article looks at some of the most recent technological advances and their impact on the art world, such as Artificial Intelligence, which have been used to create art, and proposes a reflection on the importance of revisiting theoretical definitions in order for them to be able to be able to keep up with the technical evolution of art.
Biography: Dr. Huoston Rodrigues is a Multidisciplinary Digital Designer and Researcher with interdisciplinary skills and extensive experience in Interaction Design, Motion Design, 3D Animation, and Digital Games. In over 20 years of career, he has worked for companies of different industries in Brazil and several countries, developing concepts, interfaces, digital prototypes, 3D images, animations, and brand identities. His academic background includes a bachelor’s degree in Technology in Design and Advertising Production, a graduate degree in Art History with an emphasis on Theory and Criticism, and a master’s and Ph.D. in Computer Science and Knowledge Management. He has a keen interest in Interactive Media and Animation, especially Games and Virtual Reality, topics in which he teaches and conducts research, and is mesmerized by everything on the frontier between Art and Technology.
Dr. Juergen Hagler is an academic researcher and curator working at the interface of animation, game, and media art. He studied art education, experimental visual design and cultural studies at the University for Art and Design Linz, Austria. Currently, he is a Professor for Computer Animation and Media Studies and the head of studies of the degree programme Digital Arts at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg Campus. Since 2014 he is the co-head of the research group Playful Interactive Environments with a focus on the investigation of new and natural forms of interaction and the use of playful mechanisms to encourage specific behavioral patterns. He has been involved in the activities of Ars Electronica since 1997 in a series of different functions. Since 2017 he is the director of the Ars Electronica Animation Festival and initiator and organizer of the Expanded Animation Symposium.
Full papers / 3D Printing backwards
Abstract: The ethical development of these technological parameters is paramount, as our entire made environment is created through interactions with computers. The stakes are environmental, geological, and political. As computers connect with making machines it is important to address issues within the automated future we are facing and have begun to live with (Bennett 2010, Vallgårda, A. 2009, Ingold, etal).
Examples include robotics and advanced manufacturing tools that rely on top-down desk-based instructions generated by a select few. This clay-first perspective on making seeks to realise a deeper understanding of the materials and processes involved in our daily lives and to describe the hybrid materiality we are part of. This approach is made possible by working with computer programmers to create disruptive innovations that affect the framework of how our fabricated environment is designed. In so doing, it is possible to ‘3D print in reverse’, allowing the digital to be touched.
In this article I describe how 3DP clay has served as a learning tool and conduit for a new digital expansion in my practice. I describe a way of making digital sculpture that directly originates from an experienced physical place through the blended interaction with clay and new technologies. The projects that I will describe are based at Grymsdyke Farm, the European Ceramics Work Centre (EKWC) and my home studio, expressing this hybridity in the form of hand-printed clay, digital models, robotically printed and 3DP clay and ceramics
Biography: Theo Harper is an artist and researcher based in Northumberland, UK. His practice spans site-specific installation, sculpture, video, and photography. Clay always at the centre; Theo interrogates material and processes, intuitively inventing ways to release expressive making narratives. It is a constant inquiry: Born out of repetitive, time consuming and layered techniques. Theo believes that; by mastering different making systems, it is possible to break apart pre-existing realities.
Theo studied Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London. He has shown work nationally and internationally and taken part in various residencies. Alongside gallery-based exhibitions he has organized various projects that include a permanent installation in a terraced house, London (2013-16), a cliff polishing in Cornwall (2014) and more recently taken part in a three-month residency at EKWC in the Netherlands. Theo has been working on a AHRC funded PhD that he has completed in April 2022 titled A Hybrid Material; re-thinking computer aided design through hand-printing-clay
Full papers/ Splitting Defense: A Methodological Journey into the Material Basis of Practice-Based Research
Abstract: This text details a practice-based research project which was partially materialised within the art-installation Splitting Defense. Splitting defense is a mixed media artwork, comprising an audio narrative embedded within a physical installation. It places the recipient into the realm of a future society, remembering the horrors of the present. While evoking a languorous sense of belonging to the future, it casts an eerie light on current practices of feeling, empathising, caring, ignoring, and dividing. The artwork thus playfully engages topics such as gendered patterns of valuing and devaluing phenomena of emotional labour.
Biography: Michael Heidt likes to situate his practice at the intersection of poietic code creation and critical-reflective theory production. He has conducted practice-based research endeavours informed by fields such as philosophy, media art, and electronic writing. Project foci range from software-based inquiry into microbiological populations to speculative inquiry into the potentials of distributed ledger technologies to foster post-scarcity economies. An ongoing focus of Michael’s research is complexity, which he has applied as intellectual lens motivating research engagements with biological systems, interaction systems, and distributed systems. Michael was a visiting scholar at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology, is an alumnus of German Academic Scholarship Foundation, of DFG’s research training group crossWorlds, and of Andrea von Braun Foundation. Currently, he is conducting the project CoGS at Anhalt University while being an affiliated researcher at University of Kassel’s Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems group
Full paper / autonomX—Real Time Creation/Composition with Complex Systems
Abstract: autonomX is an “open source desktop application [that] allows multimedia artists and students to easily and quickly experiment with lifelike processes via a graphical interface in order to generate dynamic, emergent and self-organizing patterns and output these patterns via OSC to control light, sound, video, or even robots in real time” [1].
The article begins by presenting the background that motivated the production of autonomX. In particular, we describe some histories of artistic and lighting practice involving stochastic systems and the role of vitality in the time-based arts. We follow with the presentation of the three core design paradigms of autonomX: generator, signal, and drawing. The generators are the algorithmic encapsulation of complex dynamical systems (systems that model the temporal evolution of a deterministic set of parameters) in a format that gives rapid and intuitive access to their parameters, without resorting to coding, and visualizes the inner workings of these algorithms on a 2-dimensional lattice. The generators send and receive time varying signals from the implemented algorithms in real time, making the system appropriate for temporal expression and interaction with any computer-driven media. The manipulation of signals is made intuitive to the user by drawing directly on the visualization lattice so that they can easily specify which parts of the system serve as signal inputs and outputs. The article then gives an overview presentation of the current version of the software by discussing the main elements of its interface.
Finally, we offer a discussion on concrete artistic creations with complex systems that led to the development of autonomX and on the results of an online workshop held during ISEA 2020 in which participants discovered the first prototype of the software.
Biography: Alexandre Saunier is a multimedia artist and PhD Candidate at Concordia University. His research addresses the intersection between artistic creation with light, autonomous systems, and sensory perception. His artistic work is regularly presented in international festival such as Mutek, Bcn_Llum, Impakt, and Festival de la Imagen.
Chris Salter is an artist, full professor of computation arts at Concordia University in Montreal and Co-Director of the Hexagram network for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technology, also in Montreal. His work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale and Barbican Centre among many others. He is the author of Entangled (MIT Press, 2010) and Alien Agency (MITP, 2015). His new book Sensing Machines will appear from MIT Press in March 2022.
Full papers / The Last Play: A transmedia installation
Abstract: This paper focuses on the methodology undertaken and the lessons learned, to create the location-based Virtual Reality (VR) story-telling experience. The last play was initially staged in Limassol as a student exhibition show in May 2021 and then again in September 2021 at the Animatikkon festival in Pafos. The installation is for two people and takes place in two different sections, one physical and one virtual, and it can be experienced in either order. The experience aims to immerse and engage the users by utilizing mechanisms borrowed by immersive theatre and game-design such as spatial storytelling, agency, engaging multiple senses and telling the story through multiple mediums. The integration of these various practices seems to be an important element that complements the immersive qualities of the VR experience. Furthermore, the spatial storytelling methodology, the transmedia approach, and the integration of the various physical objects into the experience seem to positively con-tribute to the storytelling aspect of location-based VR installations.
Biography: Dr Doros Polydorou is an Assistant Professor at Cyprus University of Technology. He is a creative coder and digital artist with a keen interest in immersive technologies. Doros has a background in multimedia design and computer animation and he is currently teaching the 3d animation modules at the department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts. Doros has worked internationally in universities in Singapore and the UK in both artistic and commercial projects. He is the co-founder of the Media Arts and Design (MAD) lab, and his current research interests explores experimental narratives through immersive technologies and techniques in site specific performances, installations and exhibitions.
Full papers / Evoking Empathy Through Immersive Experiences in A Walk Alone
Abstract: Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old woman who went missing and got tragically murdered during her walk home, sparked an international conversation about women’s safety in early 2021. It is one thing to discuss such a tragic and unfortunately common occurrence, yet it is even more harrowing to experience it for yourself. A Walk Alone is a virtual reality experience that simulates what it feels like for women to walk alone at night. The experience is centered around a linear story involving the user in first person point-of-view navigating a night-city environment with eerie sound design, immersive visuals, and dim street lighting.
Biography: Eman Al-Zubeidi is an educator/artist exploring the concept of identity as a fabricated construct. Through videography, graphic and interaction design, Eman merges Arab and Western cultures; two worlds that have entirely opposing sets of beliefs, traditions, and dialects, which are yet one and the same.
Julia DeLaney is a 3D artist/researcher focusing on creating 3D visuals for interactive and narrative projects. With a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Visualization from Texas A&M, Julia is interested in combining live rendering techniques used in interactive media with narrative work that reflects the current state of the world.
Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo is an interactive artist/researcher focusing on aesthetics of interactive experience. With interdisciplinary, interactive art practice, Seo investigates the intersection between body, nature and technology. She is fascinated by the aesthetic qualities of human experience, the relationships that emerge through interactions within artworks, the underlying beauty and pattern inherent in the nature.
Full papers/ A Sonic Exploration of Spanish Flamenco and the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey with Wearable Technology
Abstract: Humans have gone to great lengths in recent years to augment their bodies with wearable technology using commercial devices such as smart phones, watches, and jewelry. Wearable technology has also been incrementally shaping the future of the performing and fine arts. This research explores creating a device that can be worn on clothing or costumes that performers can interact with as a digital musical instrument. This device can be used as an extension to the body with built-in sensor systems and haptic vibrations for producing sounds. The work draws from multidisciplinary practices including, sound and music, digital technology, costume design, body movement combined with traditional forms of cultural practices. Creating and expressing sounds using gestures and body movements can allow the performer/wearer to engage in a more interactive movement experience. The practices of Spanish Andalusian Flamenco and the Mevlevi Dervishes of Turkey are inspirations for creating a performance with these devices that will morph these styles by creating historical links through music and sound, body movements and gestures. These devices will track specific movements while emitting sound compositions that are related to music performed in these traditions. The experience will be an embodied one; a new way of performing with sound that can entrance both the wearer and the audience.
Biography: Hedy (Hédi) Hurban is a designer of costumes, wearable technology, and a composer of electronic music. She is working towards her PhD at University of Plymouth (U.K.) where she is designing wearable technology body instruments to be used in new performance practices. Hedy has taught in several institutions across the globe including the Art Institute of Toronto, Canada, National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in Hyderabad, India, Sehir University, Istanbul, Turkey and as an Associate Lecturer at the University of Plymouth. She has designed the costumes for the operas Lampedusa (2019 Plymouth, UK) and The Mother of Fishes (2020 Pittsburgh, USA). She has a BFA in Visual Arts from York University in Toronto and a ResM in Computer Music from the University of Plymouth (UK). She isthe music composer on several short films such as, Grand Theatre and Picture Palace, Bees Mecanique,and feature films Salaat and Deccani Souls.
Full papers / Tuning in: Reflections in the Wake of Blackness through a Knitted Textile Antenna
Abstract: The paper presents the context and inspirations for the Flower Antenna, a large-scale, hovering, sculptural sound installation that combines sound and transmission art, computational textiles, and architectural design. Computational textiles include microcontrollers and other electronic components as well as use the natural property of the fabric to communicate information to people The Flower Antenna was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art’s (MOMA) Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America during the spring of 2021. The authors discuss the use of electromagnetic waves via an electronically active textile construction as a form of non-visual media used to represent the paradox of Blackness and the presence of Black people in architecture in the wake of the history of slavery in the United States. Electromagnetic waves are neither seen nor recognized by most people, yet they shape the spaces people inhabit and support almost every part of society today with the use of invisible networks cast by the internet and its structures. This artistic project contributes to a discussion and reconstructing an understanding of Black culture in transmission arts, textile design, and in architecture.
Biography: Erin Lewis is a Ph.D. candidate in Textile Interaction Design at The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås. Her research explores the interactive space between structural textile design and electromagnetic fields. She employs artistic methods and designs custom electronic tools to explore the aesthetic and expressional possibilities of the phenomena in relation to textile designs. She has recently published her licentiate thesis entitled ‘Radiant Textiles: A Framework for Designing with Electromagnetic Phenomena’. Prior to her studies in Sweden, Erin was a researcher and instructor of wearable technologies in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. She previously held the position of Education Manager at Canada’s leading new media art gallery, Inter/Access, in Toronto.
Felecia Davis’ work in computational textiles questions how we live and she re-imagines how we might use textiles in our daily lives and in architecture. Davis is interested in developing computational methods and design in relation to specific bodies in specific places engaging specific social, cultural and political constructions. Davis is an Associate Professor at the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing in the School of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University and is the director of SOFTLAB@PSU. She completed her PhD in Design Computation at MIT. Davis’ work in architecture connects art, science, engineering and design and was featured by PBS in the Women in Science Profiles series. Davis’ work was part of the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Reconstruction: Blackness and Architecture in America. She is a founding member of the Black Reconstruction Collective a not-for-profit group of Black architects, scholars and artists supporting design work about the Black diaspora.
Farzaneh Oghazian started her Ph.D. in 2018 as part of the Design Computing cluster at Penn State University. Her research focuses on developing computational methods to enhance the implementation of knits as a material for architectural design. Behavior, form-finding process and predicting the shape of knitted textiles are central to her research. She uses machine learning methods for the reverse form-finding process in architectural knitted textile structures. Farzaneh is currently a research assistant in the SOFTLAB@PSU at the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing in the School of Architecture, doing research on large-scale application of the knitted textiles under supervision of Dr. Felecia Davis.
Berfin Evrim is a current Ph.D. in Environmental Design student at the University of Calgary. She graduated with Integrated Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Science in Architecture (Design Computing) from Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on digital fabrication, computational design, and lightweight smart materials. Currently, she studies the combination of 3D printing and knitting fabrication methods to design adaptive building skins. She utilizes simulation techniques to understand the structural behavior and environmental performance of the knitted vertical element.
Full papers / Decolonizing the imaginary through the tactical use of machinimas
Abstract: This essay starts from a reading of Decolonizing the virtual: Fu-ture Knowledges and the Extrahuman in Africa, a collection of essays published in the Journal of African Studies in March 2021, responses, and commentaries to the Abiola lecture delivered by Achille Mbembe in 2016 in the context of #Rhodesmustfall and the new light given by this movement to the question of decolo-nizing knowledge.[1] During this lecture, Mbembe states that Africans are better able to leap into the digital because there is a similarity between the plasticity of pre-colonial knowledge and the plasticity of digital virtuality. I therefore sought to know if this hypothesis could be verified: is the digital, through immer-sive works, video games and machinimas, a good way to docu1-ment, archive, represent and promote oral tradition and ancestral knowledge? And it is then that I discovered the text of Lia Beatriz Teixeira Torraca published in April 2021 on the Aesthetic look of affect which analyses the machinima as being a medium allowing to change the point of view, to proceed to a displacement, to a reterritorialization while simultaneously presenting multiple worlds and spaces, often invisibilized.[2]
Biography: Isabelle Arvers, PHD Candidate, LARSyS, Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI), Faculdade de Belas-Artes, Universidade de Lisboa (FBAUL), Portugal, is a French artist and curator whose research focuses on the interaction between art and video games. For the past twenty years, she has been investigating the artistic, ethical, and critical implications of digital gaming. Her work explores the creative potential of hacking video games through machinima. As a curator, she focuses on video games as a new language for artists. She curated several shows and festivals around the world, including Jibambe na Tec (Nairobi, AF, 2020), Tecnofeminismo (Bogota, AF, 2019), Art Games World Tour exhibit (Buenos Aires, 2019), Interspecies Imaginaries (Overkill, 2019), Machinima in Mash Up (Vancouver Art Gallery, 2016), UCLA Gamelab Festival (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles 2015, 2017), Evolution of Gaming (Vancouver, 2014), Game Heroes (Alcazar, Marseille, 2011), Playing Real (Gamerz, 2007), Mind Control (Banana RAM Ancona, Italy, 2004), Node Runner (Paris, 2004) Playtime (Villette Numérique, 2002).
Full papers / Towards a Theory of Machine Learning and the Cinematic Image
Abstract: This paper addresses state-of-the art and prehistory of machine learning technologies as they pertain to the moving image. It discusses the challenges and potential hazards of these technologies, before showing how artists and image-makers are using these techniques to create a new relationship to the space of the cinematic in the age of big data. This paper strives to interrogate and overcome technologically deterministic accounts of this new technology. Accordingly, it situates examples within the discursive fields from which they emerge and favors diachrony over synchrony in outlining four clusters of media-archaeological inquiry that intersect in the application of machine learning techniques to the moving image. I believe that this approach is a necessary intervention into the hegemonic discourse on machine learning that has emerged from the technology sector which obscured deep ideological problems within the algorithms themselves, and also overlooks the potential of these technologies.
Biography: Owen Lyons is an Assistant Professor at Ryerson (X) University, Toronto. His work addresses media archaeology, documentary, digital media, and critical theory and he holds a PhD from the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture at Carleton University as well as an MA in Film and Media Studies from the University of Amsterdam. His forthcoming book with Amsterdam University Press examines representations of finance during the Weimar Republic and the emergence of the idea of the world economy. His current research projects include Liquid Screens: The Media Landscape of Financial Markets, which addresses the visual culture of 21st-century financial markets and their reflection in digital media, as well as an examination of the application of artificial intelligence to cinema entitled Machine Learning and the Moving Image.
Full papers / Digital Anarchival Poetics: Algorithms looking into Audiovisual Heritage
Abstract: Throughout the 20th century and up to the present day, many artists have addressed the archive by questioning its function, classification systems, legitimacy, registration technologies or inclusion/exclusion protocols. Considering that within digital culture, AI has become a key factor for information management, this article explores how the use of these technologies in art is offering new perspectives to think about the archive, heritage and memory.
Within the meshwork of existing practices and approaches that operate creatively challenging traditional hierarchies and protocols of the archive, we will pull from two strings: 1) on the one hand, the group of appropriationist-type tactics that operate by activating new interpretations of already constituted archives; 2) on the other, those that propose the creation of new archives, generally dealing with scattered elements that were previously ignored or discarded.
We will delve into these two anarchival strategies by focusing on two case studies that address critically the filmic and audiovisual heritage: Jan Bot: bringing film heritage to the algorithmic age and the Oráculo de Capturas de Pantalla (OCP). In both cases we will study the strategies by which other possibilities are opened up for history, and the place given to algorithms in their construction.
Biography: Vanina Hofman, PhD (Buenos Aires, 1978) works and lives in Barcelona. Lecturer at the History and Art History Department of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV). She develops her work in a hybrid territory between academic research and cultural production. Her field of research lies in the intersections among Art, Science, Technology & Society. She is particularly interested in the processes involved in the construction of memory in contemporary culture, the archiving of media arts, the unconventional arts histories and the digital heritage. She has recently published the book “Divergent Practices of Media Arts Preservation. Remembering and Forgetting in the Digital Culture” (Prometeo Libros, 2019) based on previous fieldwork conducted in Argentina. She is part of the interdisciplinary Research Group SETOPANT (URV, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Institut Català d’Arqueologia Clàssica).
Valentina Montero (Santiago de Chile, 1973). PhD in Advanced Artistic Production (University of Barcelona, 2015). Lives in Valparaiso and works in Santiago. Curator, educator and researcher. Her research, texts and exhibitions address the uses and appropriations of technologies and science in creative practices from a critical perspective. Currently is Associated Professor in Finis Terrae University; director of the Master’s in Image Research-Creation at the same university, and professor in the Master’s of Media Arts at the University of Chile. She also is director of PAM / Plataforma Arte y Medios and ANID / Fondecyt postdoctoral researcher.
Full paper / Robophilia and device art in Japan
Abstract: The current Japanese revolution in industrial, social and service robotics; the different mechanical anthropomorphic developments: assistance dolls, hostesses, dancers and concert performers, etc., are well known due to their constant appearances in all the media. But the situation in which we find ourselves today is a reflection of the natural evolution produced in the world of automata since the middle of the 16th century. Japanese artisan technicians begin to develop their own technology, initially influenced by the Western one. They will have to refine the mechanisms to suit their culture: clocks (wadokei) have to conform to the traditional japanese division of time. This knowledge began to be used in the creation of different wooden automatons: Karakuri ‘mechanical devices to produce surprise in a person’. Its objective is the reproduction of daily actions within Japanese social life: religious or private rituals, theatricalization of historical events, indigenous dances, etc.
The development of Manga comics strengthens a close vision of cooperation between the human being and the technological being. The successive techno-organic evolutions of the mecha, robots led by a human pilot (Mazinger Z, Tetsujin 28-go), lead us to the total integration of the robotic body with the human soul (Neon Genesis Evangelion).
The permeability between art and design, so complexly raised in the West, does not suffer from this categorical distinction in Japan, where the concept of Device Art opens up the possibilities of aesthetic experimentation with new technologies towards productions that are more or less industrial and, therefore, its approach to a wider audience. Authors such as Nobumichi Tosa, Kenji Yanobe, Momoyo Torimitsu, Shunji Yamanaka or Takeshi Ishiguro show different and complex robotic constructions, always from a close, friendly point of view, but at the same time critical of the possibilities that technology offers in the contemporary world.
Biography: Bachelor of Philosophy and Letters (UAM), PhD Cum Laude in Fine Arts (UB). European rank and Extraordinary Doctorate Award 2011-2012. He is currently a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts. UCM. In 2015, III MADATAC New Media Art Essay Award and publication: Art and robotics: technology as aesthetic experimentation. Work concepts: interaction, communication and control.
Exhibitions (selection): (Al)most life, after all (Barcelona 2019) Expanded Aesthetics (Colombia 2019), The Origin of Magic (Madrid 2019) Electronic November (Buenos Aires 2017) HarddiskMuseum (Barcelona, 2017), Electronic Timing. BEEP Collection of Electronic Art (Valencia 2017) ArtPlay 1840s (TATE, United Kingdom, 2014) Metaphors of Survival (Buenos Aires 2013) Video Guerrilla Festival (Sao Paulo 2012).
Residency_grants: International researcher UB-Univ. Maimonides-UNTREF (Buenos Aires 2017) Artistes residents. Center Hangar (Barcelona 2014) LICAP. Residence (Buenos Aires 2013) NCCA. Residence (Saint Petersburg 2013) VEGAP Proposals (2012) OSIC Scholarships (2012), Ramon Llull Institute Subsidy (2011/2006) CONCA. Arts Visuals (2011).
Full paper / Probing Food and Power with Robotized Spoonfuls of Edible Paste
Abstract: Food, technology, and humans are entangled in a set of complex relationships that both produce and resist systems of power. The specifics of these dynamics often remain hidden, whether in agroscience, cuisine, mobile apps, or other mediated contexts. In this paper, we present a reflexive analysis of Orchestrer la perte / Perpetual Demotion, a food-and-robotic art installation that demonstrates how putting food matter ‘where it doesn’t belong’ can reveal what often remains obscured in our bodies, digital realms, and other relational spaces. Conceived around the themes of domination and nurturing, OLP/PD features a feeding robot that delivers spoonfuls of edible paste to humans’ mouths, using facial-tracking technology. The work probes issues of mutual enslavement, deskilling, the loss of privacy, and the fear-risk-trust within eating. At a broader scale, OLP/PD also troubles food and safety policies, probes culinary authenticity and heritage, and heightens tensions relative to eating and bodily penetration. Drawing on our experiences, we show how digital-material art can illuminate a variety of ways in which dominance and power arise. We propose that this can help surface different and more equitable forms of interaction, whether among food, technology, and humans, or in the more abstract realms of power, culture, and ‘mattering.’
Biography: David Szanto is a teacher, researcher, and writer who takes an experimental approach to gastronomy through design, ecology, and performance. Past projects include performative meals focusing on urban foodscapes, collaborations with sensory and music artists, and performance-installations about memory, death, and the microbiome. He has taught about food, performance, and communications at several universities in Canada and Europe, and has published widely in both scholarly and consumer outlets.
Simon Laroche is a media artist and teacher who creates installations, audio and video performances, and robotic and body artworks. Co-founder of the art collective, Projet EVA, he takes a critical perspective on socio-technical hybridization, focusing on problematics related to relationships between individuals, computer systems, and their physical extensions. Laroche teaches Electronic Arts at Concordia University in Montreal. His work has been presented in Asia, Europe, South and North America, and the Middle East.
Full paper / Summoning the nereid nerds: invisibility and visions within network architectures
Abstract: This paper explores the impact of invisible and incomprehensible computational processes on human-technology relations via a series of multi-channel video installation art investigations. Historically, gaps in knowledge and understanding have been filled with mystic and superstitious systems of belief. The spheres of computation, from network technologies to machine-learning, are equally susceptible to mystic lenses. I explore how the use of metaphor both anthropomorphises and governs programming and systems design in ways that involve irrational thought systems, such as those associated with mysticism and superstition. The interplay between metaphor and the physical actualities of computational structures has informed my research in making the iterative networked video installations Summoning the Nereid Nerdz (2017) Access Remote Fervour (2018) and Dense Bodies and Unknown Systems (2021). How is the invisible and the unknown shaped by cultural attitudes? In contrast to conceptions of cloud technologies as being formless, quantised, wireless or ephemeral, I discuss how twenty-first century data architectures are housed and maintained by centuries old infrastructures, replete with excessive power draws and pollution. In jarring contrast to common conceptions of computing as an emblem of rationalist innovation, many core processes carry out functions that are unknown, invisible, impractical and confusing.
This paradox of the visible and the invisible in network architectures, of form and formlessness, and of rationality and wilful blindness in understanding computation was the premise for my development of Summoning the Nereid Nerdz (2017), Access Remote Fervour (2018) and Dense Bodies and Unknown Systems (2021). In a 21st century context where art schools are being cannabalised and dissolved into larger amorphic institutional hybrids whilst, simultaneously, computer engineering faculties are staking claim as the rightful centres for creativity and imagination, this paper posits that historically informed creative research remains a formidable toolkit in understanding this current moment of the connected condition.
Biography: Ella Barclay is a contemporary artist, writer and lecturer at Australian National University. Working across installation, sculpture, performance, electronics and moving image, she maps the terrestrial aesthetics of network architectures and the politics of computation. Recent exhibitions include The Ramsay Art Prize, Art Gallery of South Australia (2021) Experimenta Make Sense: International Triennial of Media Art (2017-2020), Soft Centre, Casula Powerhouse (2018), Light Geist, Fremantle Art Centre (2017), Bodies Go Wrong, Orgy Park, NY (2016), That Which Cannot Not Be, Vox Populi, Philadelphia (2016), Almost, Instant 42, Taipei (2016), I Had to Do It, UTS Art, Sydney (2016). Her work resides in numerous government, institutional, corporate and private collections.
Full paper / Star-Stuff: A Shared Immersive Experience in Space
Abstract: Inspired by Carl Sagan and emerging from the ashes of a rejected design, Star-Stuff: a way for the universe to know itself is a unique immersive experience that transforms immersants into galaxies and constellations. The two-player hybrid experience can be used telepresently or in a physical installation, connecting anonymous strangers through abstract virtual bodies. In this paper, I describe my inspiration and the open, intuitive process by which Star-Stuff was developed. I outline design decisions made along the way and present observations made during the artwork’s first public exhibition.
Biography: John Desnoyers-Stewart is an interdisciplinary artist-researcher who creates immersive installations and performance to encourage new perspectives on immersive technology and to better understand its true potential. Through his artwork and research, he hopes to encourage social connection and collaborative creativity by exploring positive social applications of abstract embodiment in virtual reality.
Full paper / A Networked Multi-channel Audio and Video Authoring and Display System for Immersive Recombinatory Media Installations
Abstract: Waterways Past, Present and Future is an informative interactive media exhibition aimed at increasing awareness of the fragile relationship between people and water in the Okanagan Valley and catalyzing sustainable water practices among residents. The exhibition draws on the power of multi-channel sound and video media immerse, provoke, destabilize, transform and move participants to act responsibly and sustainability. We describe the system design toward a networked multi-channel audio visual system capable of generating sequences of environmental recordings and interview footage over an arbitrary number of modules in an installation.
Biography: Miles Thorogood is an assistant professor of digital art in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and heads the Sonic Production Intelligence Research and Applications Lab at The University of British Columbia. His current research aims to identify the facets of human perception used in creative processes to develop computational-assisted tools for art and design making.
Maria Correia is a PhD candidate and Killam Scholar in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Program at the University of British Columbia. Her current research focuses on cross-cultural adaptive governance of complex social-ecological systems in the Okanagan valley of British Columbia, Canada.
Aleksandra Dulic is an artist-scholar with expertise in interactive art, climate change communication, and media for social change. She is the Director of the Centre for Culture and Technology (CCT) at The University of British Columbia. She leads an interdisciplinary research team that engages multiple forms of art, media and information technologies as vehicles for the expression of community, culture, and identity.
Full paper / Unrecording Nature
Abstract: The colonial import of early media technologies, e.g. sound recording in Global South faced a stiff resistance from the local practitioners. In this paper, I am interested to investigate why leading South Asian musicians and sound practitioners were not enthusiastic about recording their voices on the shellac discs; and for a long time resisted recording their improvisational sounds as they were: offerings to nature and the situated environment. What were the reasons of their contention and resistance? I argue, the pre-colonial sound practitioners feared that recording technology would contaminate their performances by mutating the natural and embedded connections they uphold in their practice. By discussing this unknown history, the paper aims to shed light on the discourse on how do we inhabit and relate with nature, and transform our environments on the media.
Biography: Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is an artist, media practitioner, researcher, and writer, and a professor at Critical Media Lab, Basel, Switzerland. Incorporating diverse media, creative technologies and research, Chattopadhyay produces works for large-scale installation and live performance addressing contemporary issues of environment and ecology, migration, race and decoloniality. Chattopadhyay has received numerous residencies, fellowships, and international awards. His works have been widely exhibited, performed or presented across the globe, and released by Gruenrekorder (DE) and Touch (UK). Chattopadhyay has an expansive body of scholarly publications in the areas of media art history, theory and aesthetics, cinema and sound studies in leading peer-reviewed journals. He is the author of three books, The Nomadic Listener (2020), The Auditory Setting (2021), and Between the Headphones (2021). Chattopadhyay holds a PhD in Artistic Research and Sound Studies from the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University, and an MA in New Media from the Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University.
Full paper / Écosystème(s) : a self-interactive sound installation
Abstract: This article presents the creation process of Écosystème(s) : a self-interactive installation. This work is based on an ecosystemic approach to sound creation. Such an approach aims at creating aesthetic, technical and conceptual links between ecology and sound art practices. In the context of Écosystème(s), it is expressed through the sharing of a sound and sensitive experience of fragile living systems. This perspective considers and practices listening as a means of understanding and confronting the ecological crisis, while attempting to convey it through an interactive work. This approach proceeds through the use of algorithmic processes for the fabrication of artificial sound environments that integrate, cohabit and underline existing natural sound relationships, in a dialogue between artificial technologies and natural ecosystems, while setting up a context for attentive listening. A great deal of room is left to intuition and imagination in this creative process, through the desire to seek a balance between concept and expression of interconnected subjectivity.
Biography: Estelle Schorpp holds a masters degrees from École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. She also graduated from Université de Montréal with a masters degrees in Sound Creation and Composition during which she wrote a thesis entitled Sonic interactive environments : an ecosystemic approach.
She uses sound installation, music composition, writing, performance and new technologies to put together projects that both embrace and criticizes our daily relationship with our natural-cultural sonic environment. She is interested in sound ecology, hybridity between nature and technology, and the attention to the unremarkable. Her projects often consist in form of hybrid environments giving space to non-human narratives and to many imaginaries about soundscapes.
Recently, she has been inspired by natural ecosystems and explores the potential of algorithmic systems through interactive sound installation.
Her work has been presented in festivals such as Prix Ars Electronica (AT), MUTEK (MX, CA, AR, JP), FIMAV (CA), Exhibitronic (FR, GER), MuTeFest (FIN) and in group exhibitions at the Centre d’Exposition de l’Université de Montréal (CA), Palais des Beaux-Arts de Paris (FR) and Exhibition Laboratory (FIN). She has participated in study days and symposiums at CIRMMT (CA) and EHESS (FR). In 2016 she received the first Exhibitronic award for her electroacoustic composition Bagdad 9ème siècle. She is the recipient of several research-creation grants.
Full paper / In pursuit of the Schizomachine: for a(n) (in)possible listening
Abstract: The Schizomachine is an ongoing work-research that consists in the development of a wearable neuro-biofeedback system for aesthetic-affective experiences. As all research is also a creative process, this work, thought to be introduced in an artistic context, crosses other fields beyond Art and Product Design, such as Computing, Biology and Engineering. In search of the realization of the ideas that emerged throughout the process, listening and sound (Schaeffer, 1966; Schafer, 1969; Cage, 1973; Pelling & Gimzewski, 2002) came out as important concepts, which have guided the research so far. This article addresses the intuitive path that has been traced from the very first idea to the very first prototype, with the aim of reaching other possible listenings.
Biography: Maria Lucília Borges is Associate Professor at the Federal University of Ouro Preto – UFOP, Campus Mariana, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, PhD and Master in Communication and Semiotics by Pontificial Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP) and Graduated in Graphic Design at State University of São Paulo (UNESP/Bauru). From her current position as permanent Professor at UFOP, since 2012, she has been teaching Aesthetics, Sound Art and Graphic Design to Journalism students, with whom she has been creating art installations, performances and exhibitions. Currently, her research is focused on Art (music and art installation), Affective Technologies (biosensors, neuro-biofeedback systems and smart textiles) and Sensitive Processes of Communication (silence, listening and human body’s affections).
Full paper / Sonus Maris
Abstract: Sonus Maris is a collaborative creative-research project at the Water Research Laboratory, Sydney Australia (University of New South Wales) which is developing a series of artworks that attempt to manifest the underlying dynamics and complex interaction of natural climate and oceanic systems. Employing visual and telemetric data from satellites as well as on the ground observations and ariel surveying the research team aim to generate sophisticated sonification and visualisation that offer a palpable and visceral experience of the long-term flows and patterns as well as of the singularities that make up the world around us. The work is currently being developed as a large-format audio/visual presentation and as a touring exhibition and associated project website.
Biography: Dr Nigel Helyer is a sculptor and sound artist whose interdisciplinary practice combines art and science to embrace our social, cultural and physical environments. He brings these concerns together in creative projects that prompt the community to engage with their cultural histories, identity and sense of place; inviting us to examine the abstract conditions of our world and our complex relationships to it. Nigel is a board member of the Paris based Association Internationale de Critiques d’Art and is a prolific contributor to journals, conferences and broadcasts. Principal web archive – http://www.sonicobjects.com
Full paper / Living Biotechnical Lives: Noise, Parasites, and Relational Practices
Abstract: Life in the era of biotechnology opens up opportunities but also brings challenges related to our values and questions on how we want to see coexistence on our planet inhabited by many species.
The parasite is our case study and an interesting concept that we inherit from biology, but which is also addressed in humanism and philosophy. As humans, we commonly understand a parasite as a negative concept that suggests that someone or something benefits at our expense. However, French philosopher Michel Serres has thought differently about the parasite. According to him, the parasite is based on relations between different entities and that there is often noise in these relationships. Michel Serres refers to biologist Henri Atlan, who has argued that noise forces the system to reorganize in a way that incorporates noise as a part of the complex system. The idea of noise included as a part of the system is quite far from today’s thought-processes with the development of bio/technology that typically aims at noiseless, error-free and aesthetically attractive results.
Therefore, although parasites are often associated with terms such as inhospitable, undesirable and disgusting, and they are seen to be located outside of art and technology, in this paper we argue that the concept of parasitical is tightly intertwined into our contemporary biotechnical lives. The article relates the parasitic thinking by Michel Serres to an artistic mediation of the biological parasite, a tick.
Biography: Laura Beloff (PhD) is an internationally acclaimed artist and a researcher in the cross section of art, technology and science. The research is in a form of installations, wearable artifacts, and experiments with scientific methods that deal with the merger of the technological and biological matter. The research engages with human enhancement, biosemiotics, AI, AL, robotics affiliated with art, humans, natural environment and society. She is Associate Professor and Head of Doctoral Education in the Department of Art & Media at Aalto University, Finland.
Morten Søndergaard (PhD) is an internationally acclaimed curator and researcher in the histories, theories and cultures of transdisciplinary practices merging technology, media, art and societal trajectories. From the master thesis on the method of Michel Serres in-between poetry, art and science (1995) to the Phd on unheard avant-gardes in Denmark (Show-bix and the Danish media poet Per Højholt) (2007) the line of inquiry draws the analysis of transdisciplinary practices into epistemological questionings regarding the complexities of human and non-human relations, as well as a general study of the overarching question regarding experiencing and evidencing posthumanity. He is Associate Professor and Academic Director of the Erasmus Media Art Cultures Master Program at Aalborg University, Denmark.
Full paper / Ecopornography in Digital Arts
Abstract: This paper investigates the presence and use of ecopornography in digital arts. Here, “ecopornography” or “ecoporn” is defined as the representation of nature intended to stimulate the viewer into a heightened state of arousal and excitement similar to that when exposed to pornography. There has been an exponential growth in ecopornographic content in contemporary society and culture due to the massive use of digital media and technologies. Ecoporn is now more common, accessible, and persuasive on both personal and societal levels than conventional porn.
This paper calls for an in-depth analysis of nature-related content across digital media and media arts. How can digital arts be more critical in exploring and exposing the effect of ecoporn on society? When does ecoporn’s hyperaestheticization of nature lead to an anaesthetic loss of sensation? A new taxonomy of ecoporn can help us reflect on these questions. Five major subcategories are proposed: a) Nature Pure, b) Nature Rough, c) Nature Hurt, d) Nature Saved, and e) Nature Fake. Finally, the paper introduces the “Ecoporn Personality Test” – a digital tool that allows users to explore their ecopornographic preferences and tendencies.
Biography:Stahl Stenslie (NO) artist, curator and researcher, specializing in experimental art, embodied experiences and disruptive technologies. His research and practice focus on the art of the recently possible – such as panhaptic communication, somatic sound and holophonic soundspaces; disruptive design for emerging technologies. He has been exhibiting and lecturing at major international events (ISEA, DEAF, Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH) and moderated symposiums like Ars Electronica (Next Sex), ArcArt and Oslo Lux. As a publisher he is the editor of EE – Experimental Emerging Art magazine (eejournal.no), he has written numerous scientific articles and co-founded The Journal of Somaesthetics (somaesthetics.aau.dk). His PhD on Touch and Technologies (virtualtouch.wordpress.com) Former professor in new media at The Academy of Media Arts, Cologne; The Oslo National Academy of The Arts; Aalborg University (DK). Currently head of R&D at Arts for Young Audiences Norway (kulturtanken.no)
Zane Cerpina [LV/NO] is an interdisciplinary female author, curator, artist, and designer. Cerpina lives in Oslo and currently works as project manager/curator at TEKS (Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre) and editor at EE: Experimental Emerging Art Journal. From 2015 – 2019 she worked as creative manager at PNEK (Production Network for Electronic Art, Norway). Cerpina is the author of the The Anthropocene Cookbook: Recipes and Opportunities for Future Catastrophes, co-written with Stahl Stenslie and forthcoming at MIT Press, October 2022. Her extensive body of works also include curating and producing Meta.Morf 2022: Ecophilia; FAEN (Female Artistic Experiments Norway); The Dangerous Futures Conference 2018; Oslo Flaneur Festival 2016, and The Anthropocene Kitchen event series (2016-). Cerpina has initiated and been part of several important archival and research projects such as The Norwegian Media Art Library and is one of the editors for the Book of Electronic Arts Norway.
Full paper / Inhaling Quantum Consciousness: Ecological Vibrational Possibles
Abstract: Navigating the contemporary debate on the Vibrational Theory of Olfaction (VTO) as a quantum mechanism, there is a rising hope it can lead us to an understanding of the biological world more as ‘energy interchanging in charged playgrounds’ and less as related to molecules’ shape-dependent trades. This can teleport our understanding of the biological as ‘moist’ to the biological as ‘molist’ – crossing scales in complementary moves from the molecules-atoms-bits’ realm of moistmedia to the charged ‘scale free’ panpsychist realm of molmedia. As the third move in a series of works that starts as invitations to explore humans’ body molecular informational exchanges with the microbial, the paper presents and discusses the genesis of the installation ’Inhaling Quantum-Consciousness’ in a direct dialogue with Hélio Oitica’s appropriation of Russian Suprematism aesthetics and structural principia, expanding the use of the pure pigment to an experiment in biochemical art.
Biography: Clarissa Ribeiro is a multimedia artist and researcher with interest in cross-scale information and communication dynamics that impacts human-nonhuman behavior and other macro-scale emergent phenomena, exploring in her more recent projects the metaphysics of information-visualization in subversive morphogenetic strategies that welcome the animic to navigate ecologies as cosmologies.
Full paper / Posthuman Rituals
Abstract: As we become increasingly entangled with digital technologies, the boundary between the human and the machine is progressively blurring. A posthumanist perspective embraces this ambiguity, giving primacy not to the individual agents that comprise a system, but to the relationships between them. In this hyperconnected age, our relationships with technology mediate and mould our perceptions of reality, and now they are beginning to define us. This research project explores new possibilities for human-machine relationships, moving away from relationships marked by habitual, unconscious behaviours towards those imbued with intention and meaning. Three works: Mirror Ritual, Message Ritual, and Worn Ritual take inspiration from the mutual entailment of matter and meaning in the dynamic configuring and re-configuring of self-identity. The proposed relationships are not intended to replace or imitate existing ritual practices among humans, but to inspire new forms of shared meaning in the human and non-human assemblages of contemporary culture.
Biography: Nina Rajcic is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and developer exploring new possibilities of human-machine relationships. Her recent works draw inspiration from the link between language and the self, exploring the role of narrative in the synthesising of meaning and the constructing of identity. Her broader research investigates the nature of human-machine relationships in an increasingly post-human world, ultimately seeking to offer new rituals that produce shared meaning in the human and non-human assemblages of today. Nina is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD at SensiLab, Monash University. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science, and a Masters of Physics (Theoretical Particle Physics) from The University of Melbourne.
Jon McCormack is an Australian-based artist and researcher in computing. His research interests include generative art, design and music, evolutionary systems, computer creativity, visualisation, virtual reality, interaction design, physical computing, machine learning, developmental models and physical computing. Jon is the founder and Director of SensiLab and oversees all operations, research programs and partnerships. He is also full Professor of Computer Science at Monash University’s Faculty of Information Technology and currently an ARC Future Fellow. Jon holds an Honours degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Monash University, a Graduate Diploma of Art (Film and Television) from Swinburne University and a PhD in Computer Science from Monash University.
Full paper / Speakers, More Speakers!!! – Developing Interactive, Distributed, Smartphone-Based Immersive Experiences for Music and Art
Abstract: We describe a multi-speaker, smartphone-based environment for developing interactive, distributed music and art applications, installations, and experiences. This system facilitates audience engagement through participation via personal smartphones, potentially connecting with traditional computing devices via the Internet without additional software or special configurations. The proposed approach has been inspired and motivated in part by the COVID-19 pandemic and builds on earlier works and technology. It demonstrates a design approach that is more efficient and provides a new avenue for music composers and artists to design highly distributed, participatory, immersive music and art experiences, utilizing various input sensors and actuators available in today’s smartphones. These include individual smartphone accelerometers, video cameras, and – of course – speakers. The use of smartphones also provides for relatively precise geolocation through GPS or simple social engineering approaches, such as using dedicated QR codes for different locations (e.g., seats in an auditorium). This allows for composing experiences to be rendered in the same room / auditorium, highly distributed across the Internet, or a combination of both. The paper presents the technological background and describes three case studies of such experiences, in an attempt to demonstrate the approach and inspire new avenues for artistic creativity and expression towards highly immersive, participatory installations / performances of music and art works for the 21st century.
Biography: Bill Manaris is a computing in the arts researcher, educator, and musician. He is Director of the Computing in the Arts program, and Professor of Computer Science, at the College of Charleston, USA. His interests include computer music and art, human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence. He explores interaction design and modeling of aesthetics and creativity using statistical, connectionist, and evolutionary techniques. He designs systems for computer-aided analysis, composition, and performance in music and art. He studied computer science and music at the University of New Orleans and holds an M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the Center for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Louisiana. Manaris has published a textbook in Computer Music and Creative Computing and is co-developer of the JythonMusic environment (http://jythonmusic.org).
Anna Forgette is a graphic artist and visual designer who is currently studying Computer Science and Computing in the Arts with a concentration in Digital Media at the College of Charleston, USA. She is especially interested in the intersection of visual art, graphic design, digital media, computer programming, and technology. She has been focusing on creating compelling new media art installations and performances, employing a user-centered experience design approach.
Meghan Gillikin is a multi-media artist studying Computing in the Arts, and Studio Art at the College of Charleston, USA. She aims to create works that combine the logical methods of the medium of algorithm with the organic nature of traditional studio art techniques. She explores techniques on how to allow these elements to combine naturally to create interactive, ever-evolving, immersive artworks.
Samantha Ramsden is a musician studying Computing in the Arts, and Computer Information Systems at the College of Charleston, USA. She explores the relationship between music composition and computer programming and has developed various techniques for creating generative music through the sonification of textures and colors found in aesthetic images. She aims to create restorative, interactive experiences which bring users together in shared, community soundscapes.
Full paper / NUAGE: A Digital Live Audiovisual Arts Tangible Interface
Abstract: This paper presents a literature review rooted in Human-Computer Interaction research as the methodological basis for the proposal of a tangible interface called NUAGE. It is aimed at artists, performers and designers in the research field of Digital Live Audiovisual Arts.
Audiovisual performance combines musical and video arts together in a live artistic context. Tools to create such performances are often only software and do not provide the artists a wide range of interaction possibilities. A show where the performer’s actions are hidden behind his/her computer screen can be visually less interesting. To provide guidance to designers and help them branch out from the traditional graphical user interfaces, we propose a different and structured design approach, Digital Live Audiovisual Arts, that builds upon Tangible Interaction concepts. We map Digital Live Audiovisual Arts by investigating its distinctive design intentions (expressiveness, performativity, participation, aesthetics and engagement) and proposing interface types taxonomy. To implement and validate this novel methodology, we developed NUAGE, an original performative interface. We thus bring together different perspectives on understanding Human-Computer Interaction and set a platform for future research on artistic tangible systems.
Biography:Marie-Eve Bilodeau recently completed her master’s degree in electrical engineering at École de Technologie Supérieure in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Her research focuses on human-computer interaction and the design of tangible interfaces for the field of audiovisual arts. She holds a technical degree in audiovisual electronics and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. Marie-Eve has worked in the field of media, audiovisual and interactive arts. She previously worked as an FPGA Designer at Grass Valley and as a Systems Designer at Thinkwell Studio Montreal. Marie-Eve is a Manager on the board of the SMPTE Montréal/Québec Section.
Ghyslain Gagnon (Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada, in 2008. He is currently a Full Professor and the Dean of Research with the École de Technologie Supérieure, Université du Québec, Montréal, Canada. His research interests include CMOS IC design, digital signal processing, and machine learning with various applications. Dr. Gagnon was also the Director of the LACIME Research Laboratory (2013–2020), a group of 15 professors and 150 highly dedicated students and researchers in microelectronics, digital signal processing, and wireless communications. He is highly inclined toward collaborative research with industry and was awarded the 2020 partnership and innovation award from ADRIQ.
Yan Breuleux is a professor at the NAD (École des arts numériques, de l’animation et du design in Montréal). He graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts and a Master of Industrial Design (M.Sc.A) and a doctorate in composition in the Faculty of Music at the University of Montreal. He’s also a researcher and practitioner in the field of visual music for immersive display. His most recent achievements are exploring immersive storytelling with the projects Illumination Frankenstein (2018) Enigma (2017-21), Les Planètes (2018), Re-Génération (2015), Nuée | Swarm (2015), Engima (2015), VjGraph (2014). For twenty years he has collaborated with musicians and composers to create multi-screen, panoramic, and fulldome pieces. His works with the composeur Alain Thibault have been broadcast at recognized intertational digital art festivals like ISEA, Ars Electronica, Transmediale, Scopitone and Nemo.
Artwork / RNR Project
Venue: Hall basement 1 CCCB (ISEA2022 Barcelona: from June 13 to 16, from 11 am to 8 pm) Also, CCCB – Exhibition room (Exhibition BRAIN(S): from July 26 to December 11)
Abstract: In the award-winning Human Study #1 series of performative installations, a human is drawn live by several robots during a 20-minute session, Both audiences and participants often mention the robot’s attention as a striking element. It is conceived as such, a camera mounted on the pan and tilt system enables the robot to observe the sitter with tiny saccades, occasionally comparing with the drawing, and most of the time following the pen’s movements. Although these movements are theatrical, they effectively convey a character and give the impression of the system paying attention to the human in an animal mammal-like way. Furthermore, the robot’s eye following the pen’s movement gives the impression that it is looking at what it is doing.
I have been researching a forthcoming series of installations for the past three years, including developing a new robot (RNR). Instead of being strongly influenced by human behaviour that is perceived as familiar like the human study #1 robots, I am exploring ways to make it [RNR] perceived as alien, unfamiliar, and foreign.
The RNR is an intermediary work, where I will specifically explore how having a robot looking at us with a different unfamiliar perceptual system affects our perception of it. As an animal, if attention is directed toward us, it needs to be evaluated instantly: can we eat it? Is it going to eat us? As humans, the way we are observed triggers a wealth of emotions. What if we can’t decode the intention of the observer? And what will the robot draw if it sees differently?
The aim for the final installation would be for the emotions in the human being drawn during ten-minute performances to progressively move from unsettled to intrigued, reassured, captivated, and charmed.
Biography: Patrick Tresset is a Brussels-based artist who, in his work, explores human traits and the aspects of human experience. He is best known for his performative installations using robotic agents as stylized actors that make marks and for his exploration of the drawing practice using computational systems and robots.
After working as a painter for 15 years, he attended Goldsmiths College, London, for a master’s degree and then an MPhil in arts and computational technologies. Aside from his artistic practice, in 2013, he was a senior visiting research fellow at Konstanz University and is currently an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Canberra.
Since 2011, his work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, including in association with major museums such as; The Pompidou Center (Paris), Prada Foundation (Milan), Tate Modern (London), V&A, MMCA (Seoul), The Grand Palais (Paris), BOZAR (Brussels), TAM (Beijing), Mcam (Shanghai), Mori Museum (Tokyo).
This project has been awarded with the ISEA2022 Barcelona Grant by.Beep Collection and NewArtFoundation
Full paper / Machine Learning-based Approaches in Biometric Data Art
Abstract: This paper explores issues of bias on biometric data and anxieties about identifications through audiovisual interpretations of the biometric data artworks. As seen in previous historical approaches, many people have been concerned about the reading of race, character, and narratives into genetic traces. Recent history and current trends in biometrics show that biometric data relates to statistical prediction, and bias is an inevitable part of biometrics. The bias has been observed in my previous exhibitions from spectators who experienced their biometric-driven audiovisual outcome. The artist created an experimental version of the two biometric data artworks using machine learning (ML) methods of artificial intelligence (AI) to investigate the bias on biometrics. The AI-driven interface analyzes the input data, improves predictions, and extracts visual features based on sample data. Two biometric data (iris and finger-print) are used in the artworks, and an informal user study is dis-cussed. This project investigates the possible artistic approaches in using biometric data and attempts to find unbiased solutions for biometric data interpretations.
Biography: Yoon Chung Han is an interaction designer, multimedia artist, and researcher. Her researches include data visualization, biometric data visualization and sonification, a new interface for musical expression, and multimodal sensory user experience design. Her recent research focus was on multimodal interactions using body data, in particular on creating a personalized experience in media arts using biometric data visualization and sonification. Her works have been presented in many international exhibitions, conferences, and academic journals such as ACM SIGGRAPH, Japan media arts festival, ZKM, NIME, ISEA, IEEE VIS, ACM CHI, and Leonardo Art Journal. She holds a Ph.D. at the Media Arts and Technology, UC Santa Barbara, and currently is an Assistant Professor in Graphic Design at the Department of Design in the San Jose State University.
Full paper / AI Creativity: AI.R Taletorium, New Storytelling Realm
Abstract: While stories provide an effective and concise way to share experiences, visual content acts as a more comprehensive and universal communication tool that transcends barriers between user groups with different cultural backgrounds and physical preferences. However, the meaningful learning process for coherent story visualization is a challenging task in AI studies. This paper proposes AI.R Taletorium, an intelligent artistic fairytale visualizer that interacts with users in real-time. Furthermore, language and mental development are key aspects of early childhood education.
Our system is collaborative and enables common creative experiences between groups of children at remote locations. We aimed at offering an entertaining and imaginative platform for children to communicate with each other, improving their psychological health, especially under extreme circumstances such as the COVID- 19 pandemic. The system comprises two novel modules, a character-centric storyline generator and a visualizer in the form of doodlers. We connect the modules with characters and build a bidirectional link to allow kids to participate in the fairy tale creation process by simple adding their drawings.
Our key contribution is as follows:
– A novel multimodal fairytale co-creation interface based on interactive text-to-image transfer and vice-visa.
– The system presents a novel fusion method between a learning-based language model and rule-based graph update, allowing for more flexibility in story generation and visualization with limited data.
– Proposing a CLIP transformed story graph as an intermediate representation to transcend the barrier between digital storytelling content and insufficient illustration data (automatic AI fairy tales storytelling case).
We fuse the rule-based language model with a learning-based generation model into a unified visualization system to allow for more flexibility during generation. AI.R Taletorium can visualize complex fairy tale scenes with stylized characters and rare relationships with our fused framework.
Biography: Dr Predrag K. Nikolić is an Associate Professor at the University of The Bahamas, Faculty of Liberal and Fine Arts in Nassau. He is an interactive media designer, media artist and researcher who holds a PhD in Digital Media and an MBA. He focuses on singularity, posthumanism, AI juxtaposition, and emancipation in his creative practice. His project Syntropic Counterpoints (www.syntropic-counterpoints.com) had numerous exposures worldwide together with other artworks such as Botorikko, Robosophy Philosophy, MindCatcher, InnerBody, Ciklosol, Before & Beyond, Vrroom, Digital Lolipop, In_Visible Island. Dr Predrag K Nikolic exhibited and presented his work at Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, ACM SIGGRAPH Sparks, Technarte USA, Technarte Spain, Singapore Science Center, Hong Kong – Shenzhen Design Biennial, Maison Shanghai, National Museum of Applied Arts in Belgrade, National Museum of Education in Belgrade. Professor Nikolić is Editor-In-Chief for EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies Journal and European Alliance for Innovation (EAI) Fellow and founder of AI.R Lab.
Ruiyang Liu is a PhD student at ShanghaiTech University working on computer vision, She worked with Professor Predrag K. Nikolić on artificial intelligence for digital art and design topics. In the five years of PhD study, she has published on several CV top conferences including CVPR, ECCV etc. Besides research, she also worked for top internet companies including Microsoft and Google as software engineering.
Giacomo Bertin is a Physic of Data student at the University of Padova who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics with a thesis in computational methods for drug discovery. He is a machine learning engineer and artificial intelligence developer who is part of the Professor Nikolic’s Syntropic Counterpoints project and co-founder of AI.R Lab, focused on computer vision and natural language processing.
Full paper / The Cabinet of Wolfgang von Kempelen: AI Art and Creative Agency
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to expand the existing critical discourse of AI art with new perspectives which can be used to examine the creative attributes of emerging practices and to assess their cultural significance and sociopolitical impact. It discusses AI art projects that explore creative agency and associated topics such as authorship, authenticity, intellectual property, and labor. The focus is on works that exemplify poetic complexity and manifest the epistemic or political ambiguities indicative of AI science, technology, and business. By comparing, acknowledging, and contextualizing their accomplishments and shortcomings, the paper outlines the possible directions to advance the field.
Biography: Dejan Grba is an artist, researcher, and scholar who explores the cognitive, technical, poetic, and relational aspects of emerging media arts. He holds a doctoral degree and a master’s in fine arts from the University of the Arts Belgrade. He has exhibited in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and published papers in journals, conference proceedings, and books worldwide. In 2019/2020, Dejan was a Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Art Design and Media at NTU in Singapore. He has served as a Co-founding Associate Professor with Digital Art Program of Interdisciplinary Graduate Center at University of the Arts in Belgrade since 2005, and as a Founding Chair and Associate Professor with New Media Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1998 to 2020. He was a Guest Assistant Professor at Computer Art Program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University in 2007.
Short papers / Algorithmic Vision and the Dialectic of Visibility
Abstract: This article proposes to analyze the definition of the human being through the ‘eyes’ of machine learning models dedicated to the recognition and classification of people. For this, the image of a dialectic of surveillance and social control is offered based on the constant visibility of those affected and the invisibility of those who benefit from this system. The algorithmic vision emerges here as a privileged place to exercise this power, but at the same time as the place of vulnerability, from where it is possible to transform this dialectic and the power relations that it determines. The article then proposes a reflection on the different counter-surveillance strategies that take advantage of creativity and aesthetic experience to think about other power relations, that is, about other possibilities to think about what a human being is today.
Biography: Hugo F. Idárraga Franco: Filósofo e investigador en el área de la comunicación y las humanidades digitales, se ha interesado desde la teoría y la práctica en problemas relacionados con la cultura visual, la epistemología de la visión por computador, la transformación estética provocada del aprendizaje de máquinas, así como por las estrategias de resistencia ante los actuales sistemas de vigilancia y control social basados en modelos de inteligencia artificial. •
Paloma Gonzáles Días: Docente e investigadora, ha desarrollado e implementado nuevas metodologías de desarrollo en proyectos interactivos creativos y docentes, tanto para empresas privadas como para organismos públicos, integrando su formación y experiencia en tecnología, diseño, artes y comunicación. Imparte Cultura Audiovisual en BAU (Centro Universitario de Diseño), Lenguajes experimentales en el Grado de Artes de la Escola Massana, y asignaturas de Diseño e Interacción en la UOC. Es componente del grupo de investigación GREDITS (Grupo de Investigación en Diseño y transformación social). Especializada en la evolución de la creación digital, la interacción y las relaciones de poder que se establecen a través de la tecnología. Desde 2007 publica el blog especializado en media art, vigilancia y privacidad “Uncovering Ctrl”, que forma parte del Archivo Español de Media Art AEMA/SAOMA.
Short papers / The Gap: Science Always Goes Before The Law
Abstract: I WANT TO PROCLAIM SOS AGAINST ILLEGAL EXPERIMENTATION ON HUMANS BY USING BIO/NEUROTECHNOLOGIES.
– The crime category: medical experiments (clinical trials without consent) – crimes committed with innovative scientific tools. (Combined multidisciplinary sciences – medicine, psychiatry, physics). – The recidive: victims home and bed becomes the place of a cruel regular crime – clinical trial. – The body: human – is like an animal, abused by criminals for medical experiment needs. – Implantable neuro-electronics started to be used for human functioning-operating control.
Research object. Globally, many people are suffering from newly invented technologies, approximately 2000 to 10,000 people worldwide, could even be more. Some of them call themselves TI (Targeted Individuals), some of them TI cyborgs, TI neurorobots. Some of them have implants with remote influences 24 hours per day. Therefore, they have no privacy, they are 24 hours per day tracked, 24 hours per day tortured (with UV laser, micro waves, and so on), discredited, forced to have no authenticity, no future, no social lives. This is like the “Second Life”, except this “virtual reality game” is controlled by criminals. The victims can’t get help – scientific and competent medical, adequate police and media response. Human Rights, in their case, do not apply.
Biography: Interdisciplinary artist-researcher Aistė Laisvė Viršulytė was born in 80’s and has spent most of her life in Vilnius, Lithuania. She finished a BA in photo-media art at Vilnius Academy of Arts, and MA in sculpture there. Since 2016, she is a member of Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artist’s Association. The focus of her current creative effort is shifted more towards time-based media where she explores the areas of art and science, experimentation, process, sensory perception, sound art, mythology, locative media, and more.
Short papers / Media Art and face recognition: critical lines of work
Abstract: In recent years, Media Art practices related to facial recognition reflect present concerns about AI in general and facial biometrics in particular. The ambiguities, biases and lack of ethics present in the development and implementation of facial recognition techniques is apparent in pieces and essays by creators determined to reveal the lack of ethics and transparency of these mechanisms of classification and control. Artistic spaces and festivals are beginning to support and make these kinds of issues more widely visible. At present, we distinguish three lines of critical work: those that attempt to “annul” the effects of technology, those that show how detection algorithms work, and a small group, more experimental and less fruitful so far, made up of works that propose to reinterpret the uses of technology more in line with social needs.
Biography: Lecturer and researcher at UOC and BAU. Member of the GREDITS research group. Expert in new media art, design and communication. Her research focuses on relating technological control and its impact on society from a critical point of view. She focuses, above all, on the vision of digital creators.
Short papers / Hybrid Art: technology and nature in arts practice and mediation
Abstract: Hybrid Art: technology and nature in arts practice and mediation, reflects on a series of installations produced in 2021 and 2022 for the “Hybrid Culture” exhibitions (3 different ones in distinct locations as part of “Viver ao Vivo” project) and for the “Contingency” exhibition (ARTECH 2021). The text highlights the complex entanglement of producing and mediating art with technology and nature elements.
These installations arise from the focus on images produced in scientific laboratories and my ethnographic exploration of the relation between what I considered to be different virtual archival spaces (i.e. the natural environment, the studio, the art gallery, the laboratory, my body). Its main aim was to establish a critical link between the scientific imaging process and practices and visual arts, in a highly technical society where the experience of nature is somehow mediated, as well as memories, and there is a sense of technically constructed nature.
Biography: Maria Manuela Lopes is a visual artist whose practice is transdisciplinary, investigating relations of memory and iden-tity informed by the biological sciences and medical research; her work appears in a varied format within the visual arts re-sulting in multimedia installations, drawings and performances.
She studied sculpture at FBA-UP and MA at Goldsmiths Col-lege in London. She has a Doctorate in Fine Arts and New Media at the University of Brighton and UCA-Farnham in the UK. She did a Postdoc Art Research Project at the University of Aveiro and Porto – i3S Institute of Research and Innovation in Health. Lopes is Visual Arts Adjunct Professor at ESE – Institute Politech of Porto IPP and a researcher at i3S as co-responsible for the Cultural Outreach Art/Science interface.
Maria Manuela Lopes has curated several international exhibitions and her work has been shown nationally and internationally. She is also co-founder and Deputy Director of Portu-guese artistic residency programs: Ectopia – Laboratory of Artistic Experimentation and Cultivamos Cultura.
Short papers / In Sight of Allo-states: Tracing the Path from Environmental Personhood to Agentials, Performances of Personhood and Other Artworks on the Agency-Personhood Continuum (APC)
Abstract: In the spirit of combinatory play, this paper examines how the concept of environmental personhood may impact art, design, and culture in novel ways. It introduces the landmark legal decision in 2017 that granted legal personhood to the Whanganui River in New Zealand. Legal decisions such as this have the potential to provide productive conceptual fodder for artists, designers, and architects whose work imagines new relations between humans and the environment at a time when ecological degradation is ubiquitous. This paper then presents a heuristic framework called the Agency-Personhood Continuum (APC) that traces broad esthetic strategies used in artworks that engage with concepts of nonhuman material agency and environmental personhood. Finally, it seeks to open new imaginatory space by positing a new class of supra-governmental entities called allo-states. Allo-states are organizations that represent massive ecological entities such as the Amazon River which that transcend a single nation-state. Theoretically, allo-states could exist alongside, but independent from nation-states in supra-governmental parliamentary proceedings such as the UN General Assembly. Ultimately, Allo-states provide a hypothetical means for environmental persons to receive representation that focuses on their intrinsic worth instead of their resource value. Through speculation about emerging notions of environmental personhood, the aim is to activate new areas of social, cultural, and creative inquiry.
Biography: Devon Ward is an artist, designer, and educator who creates digital and living systems to explore notions of time, place, and identity. His works often rely on speculative allegories that examine current social conditions affected by emerging technologies. These works often focus on the changing relationships between humans, non-humans, and the environment at a time when the environmental degradation is ubiquitous.
Ward holds a Master of Biological Art from SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia and a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Florida. He is currently Assistant Teaching Professor of Graphic Design and Visual Communication at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, USA. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, US; Chronus Art Center, CN; 798 Art District, CN; Science Gallery Dublin, IE; and Melbourne Design Week, AU.
Short papers / Data, performances and urban environments
Abstract: Effective activism is predicated on its ability to summon strong emotions and desires, yet its affective palette appears depleted. Next to a fear for destruction of the planet, other emotional and affective programs seem to fade rapidly. Is it possible to develop an eros for a future dominated by hyperobjects like climate change, characterised by unravelling of traditional political structure, and populated by new technological monsters in the form of AIs and lifelike robotics? What kind of desires can provide cohesion to activist collectives? Digital art presents unique opportunities for practicing negotiations and desires within collectives to come. Within this paper we are proposing the notion of Xenoactivism as a conceptual ally to activists and digital artists alike. To this end the notion of xenoactivism seeks to productively hijack new materialist discourse around machines. Art practices are discussed as germinal agents for these unborn, nascent, and as of yet unproduced desires. These are desires for novel formalisms and abstractions that span anthropic, vegetal, faunal, and machinic phyla.
Biography: Michael Heidt likes to situate his practice at the intersection of poietic code creation and critical-reflective theory production. He has conducted practice-based research endeavours informed by fields such as philosophy, media art, and electronic writing. Project foci range from software-based inquiry into microbiological populations to speculative inquiry into the potentials of distributed ledger technologies to foster post-scarcity economies. An ongoing focus of Michael’s research is complexity, which he has applied as intellectual lens motivating research engagements with biological systems, interaction systems, and distributed systems. Michael was a visiting scholar at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology, is an alumnus of German Academic Scholarship Foundation, of DFG’s research training group crossWorlds, and of Andrea von Braun Foundation. Currently, he is conducting the project CoGS at Anhalt University while being an affiliated researcher at University of Kassel’s Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems group.
Victoria Moulder is an artist, researcher, and imaginative advocate for a better world. She is a pioneer in the field of social art practice and has co-produced events with not-for-profit organizations since 1988 in Europe, Canada, the United States and Asia. Moulder’s research explores narrative design in the context of everyday activism (i.e., the habit of working socially conscious choices into our everyday lives). She draws on human-computer interaction design theory, as well as fine art practice to investigate how (or if) mobile and social computing can support the exploration of real-world places, histories and collaborative problem solving platforms. Moulder holds a PhD, School of Interactive Art + Technology, Simon Fraser University, as well as a BFA, Emily Carr University in British Columbia, Canada.
Short papers / ‘Taman Tugu: Interference/Resistance’ – addressing urban rewilding with a musical augmented reality experience
Abstract: ‘Taman Tugu: Interference/Resistance’ is an immersive, interactive musical work that has been mapped onto the pathways of the Taman Tugu jungle park in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Taman Tugu is an unusual place – a large rewilded space teeming with wildlife in the centre of a modern metropolis. ‘Taman Tugu: Interference/Resistance’ uses Audio Augmented Reality and placed sound to raise questions about the importance of urban green spaces in general and rewilded urban spaces in particular. This paper explains how the work asks these questions of its audience through the mapping of electronic sound over the unique geography of Taman Tugu.
Biography: Yoni Collier is currently working towards a practice-based PhD; an examination of how location-based recording, musical performance and production can be used as tools for examining artistic practice, landscape and history. Alongside a written thesis, Yoni is composing and producing immersive, interactive musical pieces that are laid over specific landscapes and ‘performed’ through location-aware Smartphone apps. Yoni holds a BA in Popular and World Musics from Leeds University and an MSc in Sound Design from Leeds Beckett University. Alongside his research, he continues to work as a freelance producer, composer and performer. His experience in composition for visual media includes work for dramatic film, corporate clients and video games. His music has featured on TV shows on ABC Family, ITV and Sky Sports, and he has scored films that have been exhibited at numerous international film festivals including the BFI London Film Festival and The ECU European Independent Film Festival.
Short papers / Live data in live performance
Abstract: This short paper discusses the value and potential of live data feeds in live performance. Live data feeds offer a new kind of liveness – a characteristic that is prized in the performing arts. Dance and theatre experiments using movement and biometric data processed in real time have already taken place, using data from performers and spectators. Artworks by data artists such as Andrea Polli and David Bowen demonstrate the creative potential of data drawn from natural systems, such as meteorological data. Proponents of Gaia suggest that we adopt an understanding of the world as a multi-species network of living beings and systems, in which humans are integrated, not separate or superior. Using data from natural systems on stage could enable these phenomena to participate as dynamic, unpredictable forces, and thus contribute to a less anthropocentric portrayal of the world.
Biography: G. Isla Borrell is a doctoral student in theatre and performing arts at the École Doctorale Esthétique, Sciences et Technologies des Arts at Paris 8 University. Isla worked for several years in production design, props and set decoration for film and theatre before beginning postgraduate studies. Her thesis project, Data Theatre, la mise en scène des données à l’ère numérique, explores the creative potential of data on stage, particularly the use of live data feeds to generate image and sound.
Short papers / KŌDOS: multiple investigations through art, science, and technology
Abstract:The artistic poetics produced related to science and nature increased prominence as they incorporated political, technological, and social changes into their discourse aware of the environmental crises and their connection with the capitalist economic program. Hitherto, the union between artists and scientists has inspired works that, in general, incorporate new forms of organization between organic systems, technologies, and symbolic processes. Many contemporary artists conduct their projects through multispecies collaborations and work with a high potential for questioning and formulating non- hegemonic knowledges. This paper focuses on the recent KŌDOS experiments, a Brazilian art collective, which aims to investigate the visual poetics in relations with non-human organisms (living and non-living) and technologies to provide alternative and speculative models to inhabit the Earth. KŌDOS is composed by Claudio Filho and Fernanda Oliveira both members of ACTlab – laboratory for arts, science, and deviant technologies hosted at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil
Biography: Claudio M. Filho (Campinas, SP) artist-researcher focusing on the fields of Art, Technology, and Nature. He is a doctoral student in Visual Arts at UNICAMP where he researches practical-theoretical collaborations between non-living and digital (systems. Master in Arts, Culture, and Languages at UFJF (2019) and Bachelor of Arts and Design / UFJF (2016). Member of ACTlab – Laboratory of Art, Science, and Deviant Technologies and founder-member of KŌDOS collective.
Short papers / Form and Time / decentering sites of art studio pedagogy
Abstract: From the art school’s studio-based format, the authors situate Form and Time as a Studio Presentation course. Scheduled to launch on campus in Fall 2020, the course pivoted to fully remote. Thematic units of Space, Form and Time were explored in synchronous meetings and asynchronous video lectures and micro-workshops.
Studio Presentation courses can engage art students in dispersed, interdisciplinary research-creation networks, through strategies including a diversity of fabrication options, DIY and place-based knowledge and accessibility as approaches to meaning through making.
The authors ask: how can hands-on fabrication skills and health and safety instruction be incorporated into large format studio courses? When is face-to-face, hands-on learning crucial and for whom? How can virtual studios be used for community collaboration and exhibition opportunities, online and in-person?
Form and Time and its collaborators in WebXR foreshadow new modes of art school studio delivery that decenter and critically intersect with studio precedents suddenly disrupted by remote learning during COVID-19.
Biography: Judith Doyle is an artist practicing in cinema and expanded reality. An Associate Professor at OCADU, they are Chair First- Year Art and co-direct the OCADU SMACLab.
Simone Jones is an artist whose works are shown internationally. They are a Professor at OCADU.
Elizabeth Lopez is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose works are shown in Canada and the US.
Short paper / Artistic Residencies as Critical Research: Entangled Methodologies for Future Science
Abstract: This paper is an account of Future Forest Diorama, an artistic research project and residency taking place at the experimental station of Can Balasc. Written from the artists’ point of view, it reflects on the challenges and opportunities that arise from inhabiting scientific environments, and the specific type of situated knowledge such environments afford. It advocates for more systematic accounts of the methods and tools invented on-the-fly by artists during art-science residencies to respond to the growing demand for methods of trans-disciplinary collaboration.
Biography: Carola Moujan (Montevideo, 1969), lives and works in Paris, France. After initial training in Architecture and Fine Arts in Uruguay and the United States, she specialized in Arts and Image Technology and Design in France. Ph.D in design from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (2014), her research-based work explores the entwinement of complex interactive processes between spaces, temporalities, sensitive bodies, affects, materials and code in more than human contexts. Her work has been exhibited in Madrid, Mexico, Lyon, Montevideo, Lisbon, Berlin and La Paz. Main recognitions include the Brouillon d’un Rêve Numérique grant (SCAM, 2009), two special mentions at the fifth Ibero-American Design Biennial (BID_diMAD, 2016), 2nd international call for Lyon City Design (Lyon Design, 2014), 7th international call for EAC Montevideo (Ministry of Culture, Uruguay, 2016), 1stEcotons grant for artistic research (La Escocesa and CREAF, Barcelona, 2021) and the joint Hangar/Casa de Velázquez residency (Hangar Barcelona, 2020).
Agustín Ortiz Herrera (Barcelona, 1970) studied Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona (1998), and filmmaking at The New School University, New York (2003). After a period working as a screenwriter, he returned to artistic practice by completing the Master of Fine Arts at Konstfack College of Arts, Stockholm (2016). His recent projects and exhibitions include La tradició que ens travessa. Gnosis iluminada Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica, 2022, Future Forest Diorama, La Escocesa-CREAF, 2022, Ciencia Fricció, El cercle Simbiont, CCCB, 2021, Altres Temps, The Green Parrot, 2021, Vanitas, Centre d’Art Maristany, 2021, Comité Queer, Barcelona Loop Festival, 2021, Anomenar. Posseir. Crítica de la pràctica taxonómica, Artistic research project selected by La Capella / Barcelona Producció, 19/20, Artificialia: WunderChapel, Barcelona Loop Festival, 2020. In 2021 his work Fungi Fantasy and their friends Crazy Bacteria was acquired by the MACBA collection
Short papers / Crossing Art, Science and Technology for Innovations through Maker Culture and Education
Abstract: The maker culture, flourishing around the world across the last decade in the form of public, corporate and underground maker-spaces or diverse DIY/DIWO workshop programs presents one of the most important trends in experience-based learning, which often takes place not only informally, but also unconsciously, for example through embodied cognition. Upon this background and along several cases of projects, artworks, institutional alliances and initiatives, the article presents an emerging model for experiencing and learning through interdisciplinary collaborations between art and entrepreneurship. These practices are demonstrating new possibilities for disciplinary crossovers permeated by artistic thinking, such that are particularly fruitful for social, but also for technological innovation, which is confirmed by the current DIVA project as treated in the article. Art Thinking proves to be a key novel approach in the innovation cycle that may be integrated into formal education curricula, business practices and community learning alike, which was proven by the recently finished MAST project as discussed in this contribution. A concrete convergence of the above principles and concepts is finally presented through the concept and process of the current project xMobil as an example of blending maker methodologies with the art-thinking based crossover innovation approach.
Biography: Peter Purg, PhD is Associate Professor at both Arts and Humanities, University of Nova Gorica, whose new-media art (thinking) practice ranges from performance to education and interdisciplinary research. He is Dean of the School of Humanities and New Media module lead as well as coordinator of international projects such as MAST, konS or DIVA.
Kristina Pranjić, PhD is Assistant Professor at both Humanities and Arts, working across fields of avantgarde art, semiotics and contemporary aesthetics. She teaches Theory and History of Art and Media and is module leader of Discourses in Practice at the School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica.
Jernej Čuček Gerbec, MA is and editor, writer and artist that works as an expert at University of Nova Gorica and an editor at Koridor – križišča umetnosti, a platform for art criticism that covers film/tv, literature, music, theater and non/contemporary art practices, he is editor of the latter.
Short papers / E-Waste: The Unnatural, Natural Resource | A Case Study on Creative Uses of Obsolete Technology
Abstract: With many issues surrounding our high-tech products including: 1) planned obsolescence, 2) a linear “cradle-to-grave” life cycle, 3) the accumulation of electronic waste (e-waste), and 4) consumer culture, there is potential in finding practical/creative solutions to reusing/repurposing our obsolete technology. These solutions not only benefit the consumer, but also the communities that are affected by the growing e-waste problem. These issues analyzed through a case study where an artist converts a typewriter into a USB printer using the design principles laid out in this paper, including the use of open-source hardware and software as well as incorporating adaptive design for future updates. While it is unfortunate that our massive accumulation of e-waste has turned this material into an unnatural, natural resource that can be foraged, there is potential for projects (both practical and creative).
Biography:
Erik Contreras is an interdisciplinary designer and engineer with a background in mechanical engineering and rapid prototyping. His work involves prolonging the lifespan of consumer electronics and finding alternative uses for post-consumer products. His design philosophy seeks to promote user repair, modification, and reuse for consumer products. As an advocate for the right to repair, he wishes to develop products and prototypes that “welcomes the end-user, inside and out”.
Erik typically uses a hands-on approach towards his work/research and can be found hacking obsolete tech or 3D printing custom parts in his home machine shop. With technology being part of every aspect of life in the Bay Area, there also a vast accumulation of e-waste in the community. With e-waste being readily available, Erik feels the material is an “unnatural, natural resource” when it comes to finding parts and inspiration for his prototypes.
Short papers / The Voice of the Machine Audience
Abstract: Smart devices in the home, like Amazon’s Alexa, and Apple’s Siri, form a non-human but increasingly present audience in our daily life and activities. This hidden audience expresses a certain voice, in the agential sense, by cultivating and shaping how we address it. This is an acousmatic voice in Michel Chion’s sense of it, and is worth thinking about as a rhetorical form, with such media devices shaping and coaxing our behavior, blurring the line between speaker and audience, human and non-human, agent and machine.
Biography: Anthony Stagliano is a scholar of rhetoric and a filmmaker/media artist, whose research concerns creative interventions into technologies of surveillance, biometrics, and control. His monograph on that research is under contract with the University of Alabama Press. His films and media art works have been shown in festivals and galleries around the world. His feature narrative film, Fade, was released theatrically, on DVD, and to streaming platforms.
Short papers / AI Art and the “Transparent Author”
Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies seem novel in an artistic context yet, by exploring certain proposed new terms, I aim to demonstrate that the practice of ‘relinquishment’ of creative activity has its roots in art history. The following questions will be addressed in the paper: can such a ‘relinquishment-technique’ be considered a universal mechanism for artistic inspiration? Can we find something similar in surrealistic techniques? Is the author disappearing or becoming ‘transparent’ when abandonment of creative activity occurs? Does AI-based art assume the transparency of the author and is it possible that artworks can be created by other artworks? The terms ‘linear’, ‘circular’ and ‘closed-loop’ concept transfer will be analysed with regard to interactive artworks.
Biography: Raivo Kelomees,PhD (art history), is an artist, critic and new media researcher. He studied psychology, art history and design in Tartu University and the Academy of Arts in Tallinn. He is senior researcher at the Fine Arts Faculty at the Estonian Academy of Arts and professor at the Pallas University of Applied Sciences. Kelomees is author of Surrealism (Kunst Publishers, 1993) and article collections Screen as a Membrane (Tartu Art College proceedings, 2007) and Social Games in Art Space (EAA, 2013). His doctoral thesis is Postmateriality in Art. Indeterministic Art Practices and Non-Material Art (Dissertationes Academiae Artium Estoniae 3, 2009). Together with Chris Hales he edited the collection of articles Constructing Narrative in Interactive Documentaries (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014).
Short papers / Polyphonic Materiality in Extended Reality
Abstract: Much human-computer interaction design (HCI) research on materiality investigates the ways in which computational qualities become embedded within physical materials, often under the banner of ‘the material turn’. With the development of extended reality (XR) and the emerging metaverse, how might we understand and articulate the qualities and agencies of digital materials as they overlay, embed and replace the physical world? This paper advocates for an ontology of digital materials to understand how they actualise in the world without being tangible, providing a way for XR designers and artists to critically work with them as part of an assemblage. It will introduce an idea of polyphonic materiality, drawing on Anna Lowenhaupt-Tsing’s concept of polyphonic assemblage. It will locate digital materiality within Giles Deleuze’s idea of the virtual and actual, and Karen Barad’s concept of agential realism. This provides a conceptual underpinning to the proposition of polyphonic materiality as a typology for doing XR design, where material properties emerge as various physical and digital processes coalesce or intersect.
Biography: I am an artist living on unceded Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung land in Narrm/Melbourne Australia. I am interested in network culture, working with code, installation and textiles to create interactive surfaces exploring thresholds between the physical and the digital, often extended with augmented reality. My practice tends to the connections between humans and technology, seeking to create sites of respite and resistance that think through alternative agendas for networked technologies. I have exhibited in Australia and abroad, with funding and commissions from a range of organisations, including in 2020 and 2021 from the University of Queensland Art Museum. I am a PhD candidate in Design at RMIT and a lecturer in Interior Design.
Short papers / Laboratorio de luz. More than 30 years of research in art, science and technology in the Spanish panorama
Abstract: In 2022, the Laboratorio de Luz (UPV) will be 32 years old, and it is a good time to reflect, and to share that reflection, on the contributions and positions of the work carried out by this group of researchers and artistic collective that is considered one of the first university, Art and Science nodes on the Spanish scene. Rethinking our work in this presentation framed within the “artist talk” format also implies reviewing the conditions of possibility that existed in the Spanish context 30 years ago and those that exist today for art research-science-technology.
Biography: Laboratorio de Luz is a spanish Medialab focused in Art and technology hosted in the Universitat Politécnica de Valencia founded in 1990.
Short papers / Telewindow: a flexible system for exploring 3d immersive telepresence using commodity depth cameras
Abstract: Video conferencing has become an essential part of everyday life for many people. However, traditional 2D video calls leave much to be desired. Eye-contact, multiple viewpoints, and 3D spatial awareness all make video conferencing much more immersive. We present TeleWindow: a frame with mountable volumetric cameras that attaches to a display for immersive 3D video conferencing. The full system consists of a 3D display and a frame with up to four volumetric cameras. Our system was flexible conceptually as well as physically. We intended our research to be “unfettered” rather than focus and directed, e.g., for anything directly entrepreneurial and commercial: “art as unsupervised research”. In contrast to similar work, our focus was on making an accessible system for exploring immersive teleconferencing so cost of materials and required technical knowledge is kept to a minimum. We present a technical baseline for immersive, easily replicable 3D teleconferencing.
Biography:
David Santiano:
David Santiano is a researcher and technologist that likes to perform scrappy and artsy research to explore possible and impossible avenues in new media and technology.
Cameron Ballard:
Cameron Ballard is currently completing his PhD in computer science at NYU Tandon’s Center for Cybersecurity. His current work focuses on the sociotechnical implications of social media, especially applying data science methods to understand the financial ecosystem behind online disinformation.
Before joining the Center for Cybersecurity, Cameron completed his undergraduate degree at NYU Shanghai, and stayed on as a researcher for the Telewindow project. In addition to his academic pursuits, Cameron co-founded Raditube, a research tool to study disinformation and radicalization on YouTube.
Michael Naimark:
Michael Naimark is an artist, inventor, and scholar in the fields of virtual reality and new media art. He is best known for his work in projection mapping, virtual travel, live global video, and cultural preservation, and often refers to this body of work as “place representation”. Naimark has been awarded 16 patents relating to cameras, display, haptics, and live, and his work has been seen nearly 400 art exhibitions, film festivals, and presentations around the world. He was the 2002 recipient of the World Technology Award for the Arts.
Since 2009, Naimark has served as faculty at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and the MIT Media Lab. In 2015, Naimark was appointed Google’s first-ever “VR resident artist” in their new VR division. Since 2017, Naimark has served as visiting faculty at NYU Shanghai, where he taught VR/AR Fundamentals and directed research on online telepresence.
Short papers / CHIME Design Lab: Community-centred, Collaborative Health Innovation partnered with Medical Education
Abstract: In Canada, healthcare and health professions education, in particular medical education, are grounded in structures of coloniality, oppression, heteropatriarchy and a variety of “-isms” (racism, sexism, ableism, classism). Like in other parts of the world, deep-rooted and enduring health disparities exist for many different groups. Change is needed urgently.
Multi-faceted approaches are required to achieve the required changes at both the upstream level– training new generations of physicians, as well as at mid- and downstream levels– providing equitable access to care and services needed to alleviate current health burdens faced by marginalized populations. To help address this challenge, we have conceived an approach that combines community collaboration, medical education, arts, humanities, and design. CHIME Design Lab aims to be a physical and social space where a wide range of stakeholders–members of marginalized groups, professionals from a variety of domains in and outside healthcare, as well as students and trainees, and other interested members of the general public– can together creatively and safely explore healthcare problems, test potential solutions and propose equitable, just alternatives to the status quo.
Biography: Savita Rani is a physician by training and artist by spirit. She is a Desi woman and a first-generation immigrant settler in Canada. She is a resident physician in Public Health and Preventive Medicine at University of Saskatchewan, and has a Master of Public Health from Queen’s University. Savita is the current Vice-President of the Canadian Association for Health Humanities. She has a special interest in bringing arts and humanities into medical education and public health as tools for practice, teaching, learning and reflection. Her poetry, writing and artwork have been published in international health humanities journals including Ars Medica, Pulse, and Intima: a Journal of Narrative Medicine. Website: https://savitarani.wixsite.com/creative
Pamela Brett-MacLean is an associate professor in Psychiatry at the University of Alberta. She is director of the Arts & Humanities in Health & Medicine (AHHM) program in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.
Patrick von Hauff is a professional designer in health professions education at the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta. He is committed to design as a crucial and universal means of participation in society.
Lori Hanson is an associate professor in Community Health & Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan. Her research and teaching focus on issues related to the political economy of health that arises through community organizing, locally and globally.
Short papers / Online Possibles: Internet Spaces in a Postdigital World
Abstract: When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, artists and institutions moved online while trying to recreate the experience of art and the gallery experience onscreens. For the most part, this shift of attention to the internet as an exhibition space lacked the experimental quality of net art forerunners and their unique explorations of space where gravity is irrelevant and references such as vertical/horizontal, bidimensional and three-dimensional are outdated. This paper explores the notion of Possibles in relation to screen-based art and asks what kind of spaces can be imagined as we move towards a post-pandemic future.
Biography: Erandy Vergara-Vargas (MX) is a Montreal-based curator and scholar. Her main research interests include global art histories, climate responsibility, curatorial studies, equity, internet cultures and widespread bias in algorithms. She earned a MA at Concordia University and a PhD in Art History at McGill University. Recent shows include ISEA2020: Why Sentience? (Printemps numérique, Montreal); Eva and Franco Mattes: What Has Been Seen (Fondation Phi pour l’art contemporain, 2019); Speculative Cultures: A Virtual Reality Art Exhibition, curated with Tina Sauerländer (Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, Parsons School of Design, New York, 2019). Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Sociability of Sleep Project, Université de Montréal, and artistic director of Printemps numérique.
Short papers / Virtual museums: heritage and future of mediated UX?
Abstract: This article intends to carry out an analysis of the factors that have inherited the experiences of face-to-face visits to museums with those that are developed through virtual platforms. This analysis has been developed using a hermeneutical analysis of categories applied by the authors through multimodality with the intention to expand the reflection on this subject, as well as to provide a broader point of view. In addition to this, we have identified how in recent publications other authors have been expressing similar points of view, which allows us to generate a comparative framework. The interest in these study categories is oriented on the potential that museums have in promoting virtual settings, outside of physical spaces that can promote the construction of deep meaning in learning at different levels of training. Furthermore, we carried out a review of the connotations that different virtualized experiences in museums have, and how these can promote different levels of construction of meaning based on what the subject is explained, what they feel or experience during their virtual visit. A classification is then proposed in which the multimodal typologies of virtualization relate to the possibilities of construction of meaning through museums.
Biography: D.A. Restrepo-Quevedo. Professor and researcher at the University of Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano for the Academic Area of Visual and Interactive Design. Director of TadeoLab, Laboratory of Creativity, Innovation and Collaborative Work of UTadeo. Holds studies in Graphic Design, in Multimedia Creation Specialization, Master’s Degree in Interaction Design and User Experience Design, PhD in Design and Creation and PostPhD in Education, Social Sciences and Interculturality. UTadeo’s leading consultant on issues of Cultural Industries, Creative Districts, and Innovation for Productivity for state entities and local governments. His research has several fronts, ranging from the operation of the mind in the learning process to the production of meaning and experience through interaction with cognitive artefacts. He is the author of various articles and papers reflecting, through cognitive science, on the influence of modal forms, creativity, and motivation profiles for the management and transmission of knowledge within communities.
Raquel Caerols Mateo. Holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication and a PhD in Applied Creativity from the Faculty of Fine Arts, both from the Complutense University of Madrid. She is currently a lecturer in the Faculty of Information Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid, in new media. As a researcher, she has been responsible for the project Cyberculture & New Media Art, publicly funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, in the call for the Promotion of Contemporary Art. She has also been a researcher on numerous competitive research projects such as: Creation and studies of the CAAC (Collections and Archives of Contemporary art) of Cuenca as a methodological model for research excellence in Fine Arts; or Title: The electrographic and digital art collections of the MIDE. Management, conservation, restoration and dissemination of its collections; o Spanish Media Archive. He is currently coordinating the creation of the MediaLab Madrid Archive (2002-2006).
Felipe César Londoño López. Dean Faculty Arts and Design. University Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Colombia. Former President Universidad de Caldas. Colombia (2014-2018). Founder and Director of International Image Festival, an event held since 1997, in Manizales, Colombia, integrating art, science and technology (http://festivaldelaimagen.com/en/) and curator of Monographic Show of Media Art and exhibitions of the ImageFest. Felipe was co-founder of the Department of Visual Design, director of Master and PhD in Design & Creation, director of PhD in Design & Creation, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, professor participant of PhD in Multimedia Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Catalunya, Spain, director of the research group DICOVI – Design and visual cognition in virtual environments (A1). He has published several books, including: “Landscapes and new territories. Mapping and interactions in visual and virtual environments”, his doctoral thesis: “Interfaces of Virtual Communities”, the research: “Patterns of Color”, “DIGITAL DESIGN. Methodology for creating interactive projects”, among others.
Short papers / Possi(A)bilities: Augmented Reality experiences of possible motor abilities enabled by a video-projected virtual hand
Abstract: We introduce “Possi(A)bilities,” an Augmented Reality concept and system that presents users sitting at a table with animated visualizations of a virtual hand projected on the tabletop next to the user’s own hand. As a combination of possibilities and abilities, possi(a)bilities focus on the motor abilities of the human hand in the synchrony between the physical and the virtual, and constitute into a medium for examining and reflecting on the nature of diverse abilities that become possible when transcending the physical world and the individual’s agency. Ultimately, possi(a)bilities question assumptions, norms, and accepted definitions of motor ability and skill in the context of hybrid, physical-virtual worlds.
Biography: Radu-Daniel Vatavu is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Suceava, where he directs the MintViz Lab. His research interests include human-computer interaction, ambient intelligence, AR/MR, and accessible computing. Contact him at [email protected].
Short papers / The Weird, the Cute and the Dark: How to Account for Aesthetics When Working on Awareness about Design Patterns
Abstract: This paper presents the design and set up of the robotic media arts installation ‘Accept All’. We discuss how this art piece bears legacy of previous work in both media arts as the academic field of Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI), and touches upon contemporary topics of political awareness, trust and data representation. Accept All covers five different aesthetic design choices for robot design, each contributing to the topic in its own way. The last part of the paper proposes to explore the paradoxical stance that media artists have to adopt when dealing with issues such as dark patterns.
Biography: Guillaume Slizewicz is a designer living in Brussels, Belgium. He is a member of Tropozone, Algolit and Urban Species. He focuses on the surprise created by misused hardware systems, the poetry of algorithms and the contact points between technology and the environment. His practice is about translating and making visible social issues via installations and artworks. His prototyping and creation process involves machine learning, electronics and digital fabrication. While each project is different, they convey interrogations and explorations through aesthetically pleasing and exciting forms, most of the time interactive. In his projects, Guillaume Slizewicz usually collaborates with other artists, researchers and designers to make sure multiple points of view and types of information on the subject at hand are taken into account. In the previous years, he worked on several topics including surveillance technologies, air quality, automatic language processing and the relationship between humans and plants.
Sandy Claes currently holds a faculty position at LUCA School of Arts. In her research work, she focuses on the overlap between media, technology and public space. Previously, she has worked as a lead user researcher at the innovation department of public broadcaster VRT. Sandy received her PhD in Engineering Science (2017) from the KU Leuven university in Belgium with her work on public visualization. Her research work has been published at international, peer reviewed conferences concerning the human factor of interactive technologies and design, such as CHI, NordiCHI and DIS. She served as an Associate Chair for CHI Late Breaking Work (2019) and the full paper track of NordiCHI (2020) and INTERACT (2021). Sandy has a background as a master in audiovisual arts (2005). Her audiovisual work has been awarded on several international film festivals; such as I Castelli Animati in Rome and The international short film festival of Leuven, and has been exhibited at several international venues; such as LABoral, Madrid and Museum M, Leuven. With this mixed background of science, design and arts, Sandy approaches research projects from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint.
Short papers / The sonic body: creating embodied sonic performances within an extended reality context
Abstract: This paper presents “The Sonic Body”, a research-creation project conducted between May-September 2021 that studied methods of creating embodied sonic performances and installations within an extended reality (XR) context. I explain two prototypes created for the project, outline the strategies I used and rationale behind the design choices, and summarize the results of my research. The prototypes explore contrasting methods of engaging with sound in an embodied way: one employing the use of head-mounted augmented reality (AR) and the other muscle sensors and material interaction. As my methodology relied on a self-reflexive approach, I focus on my personal experience as an artist designing these prototypes. Two research questions guided this project and inform this paper: How can new types of interactive audio affected and enhanced by bodily movement and gesture affect the experience of listening and connection to the environment? How can such interactive listening systems be designed to better encourage this sense of connectedness? Ultimately, this paper showcases “The Sonic Body” project, conveys the findings of the research questions from the research results and offers insight into how AR and muscle sensing technology might be used to create a real-time, embodied sound art installation and performance.
Biography: Maxime Gordon is a Canadian sound and new media artist. In her work Gordon is interested in exploring the boundaries of sound, architectural space and the human body. Through sound art, performance, and installations or a combination of these media she creates immersive art works that offer a looking glass into various intersections of humanity and technology. Gordon’s work has been shown at Monom in Berlin (Germany), the Spatial Sound Institute in Budapest (Hungary), and the OutsideInsideOut residency in Stadt Wehlen (Germany).
Short papers / Mapping the atmospheric in school buildings: Digital art-based participatory inquiry with youth
Abstract: Creative experiments with wearable technologies and speculative engagements with digital sensory data foreground the need of reinventing learning environments to reclaim sensory and somesthetic relationality, while interrogating the passive collection of sensory data by sensors ubiquitously embedded in everyday spaces and learning processes. This paper discusses an arts-based project of mapping the sensory-affective dimensions of school environments in collaboration with a group of participating-students (16-18 year-olds). The mixed media maps offer dynamic digital representations of staff and students’ experiences of the school buildings, shedding light on problematic spaces in the built environment. The paper discusses processes in which digital-sensory devices allowed young people to further their attunement towards previously unconsidered aspects of school atmospheres, while exploring the pliability of their sensory capacity in reconfiguring and reimagining those environments.
Biography: Laura Trafí-Prats is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Health and Education at Manchester Metropolitan University. Laura’s research engages with and responds to children and young people’s sensory, material and atmospheric experiences in a variety of contexts including urban spaces, the natural environment and school buildings. Laura is co-editor of the book Visual Participatory Arts Based Research in the City: Ontology, Aesthetics and Ethics (Routledge, 2022). She is the PI of the ESRC funded project Mapping Spatial Practices and Social Distancing in Smart Schools: Sensory and Digital Ethnographic Methods.
Elizabeth de Freitas is a professor at Adelphi University. Her research explores innovative data methodologies in the social sciences, anthropological and philosophical investigations of digital life, and cultural-material studies of mathematical practices in complex learning environments. Her work has been funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the US National Science Foundation, and the UK Economic and Social Research Council. She is co-Pi (and former PI) of the ESRC funded project Mapping Spatial Practices and Social Distancing in Smart Schools: Sensory and Digital Ethnographic Methods.
Acknowledgements The authors recognize the contributions of RA Isabel McCauley, along with the youth in our partner school, in supporting the ethnographic research process in which this paper is based. They also acknowledge UK’s Education and Social Research Council as main funder of the project.
Short papers / Animated cadavre exquis: a locked-down experience of collaborative filmmaking in education
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic poses challenges for students and faculty in educational contexts that focus on collaborative and creative practice. Courses that involve working in large teams and interacting in the field require new approaches to cope with limitations on in-person instruction. Building on the concept of chained animation, the case study The Invention of Numbers (2021) will be used to discuss how the concept can be adapted for hybrid teaching. In chained animation, students develop a common concept, realize individual parts in small groups, and assemble them into a short film, rather like an omnibus film. The core element is on-location exchange, especially in the animation studio. Covid-19 regulations have placed limits on these kinds of meetings and exchanges. To deal with those limitations, the creative method of cadavre exquis has been applied to the concept of chained animation. Animated cadaver exquis features a systematic form of collaborative filmmaking that requires little or no coordination between teams, making it particularly well-suited to the new classroom situation. This analysis demonstrates how to set up creative processes for large collaborative groups in distance and hybrid teaching and how the concept of chained animation can be adapted using the cadavre exquis method.
Biography: Dr. Juergen Hagler is an academic researcher and curator working at the interface of animation, game, and media art. He studied art education, experimental visual design and cultural studies at the University for Art and Design Linz, Austria. Currently, he is a Professor for Computer Animation and Media Studies and the head of studies of the degree programme Digital Arts at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg Campus. Since 2014 he is the co-head of the research group Playful Interactive Environments with a focus on the investigation of new and natural forms of interaction and the use of playful mechanisms to encourage specific behavioral patterns. He has been involved in the activities of Ars Electronica since 1997 in a series of different functions. Since 2017 he is the director of the Ars Electronica Animation Festival and initiator and organizer of the Expanded Animation Symposium.
Remo RAUSCHER, audiovisual projects in theatre and animated film. Both developing and teaching at various institutions, groups and venues mostly in Austria. As a founder and creator of the group Theater der Mitte he is currently working on contemporary and participatory performance projects in Salzburg, Austria besides a yearly course of ‘Analogue Animation’ at University of Applied Sciences, Upper Austria, Hagenberg Campus.
Short papers / Learning Non-human. Can participatory practices change an Institution?
Abstract: This paper shares learning from an artwork ‘Learning Nonhuman’ produced by a learning team working at FACT an art institution/production centre in Liverpool. [1] Artist Jack Tan worked with an intergenerational group of participants to develop a game that allows people to roleplay as nonhumans and propose policy changes on their behalf. The game was then played by FACT staff members, to inform the writing of a new environmental policy. In this paper, we are presenting our reflections on institutional learning coming from applying arts based learning experiences to the art organisation’s culture.
Biography: Lucía Arias is the Learning Manager at FACT. She oversees a programme of activities, long-term projects and learning resources, created in collaboration with artists. We invite artists to work with participants and produce artworks that present different living experiences and create knowledge. We are particularly interested in designing spaces where young people can be heard. Previously, she led the Education Programme at LABoral Art Centre in Gijón. For 8 years, we worked with young people from schools and non formal education spaces, giving them access to creative technology. They designed solutions, objects and devices to respond to the needs of their communities in a digital technology lab. Her work has been presented at different FabLearn Conferences (2013, 2014 and 2015), Transmediale 2016. She is interested in the exchange between Critical Pedagogy models and Participatory Arts.
Neil Winterburn is the Learning Technologist at FACT. He supports artists to use technology as a space for artistic dialogue and learning. We invite artists to work with participants and produce artworks that present different living experiences and create knowledge. We are particularly interested in designing spaces where young people can be heard. Previously, 2001-2008 he worked as a youthworker at Interchill, a digital youthclub in Liverpool. In 2008 he helped set up artist collective Re-Dock who focused on making art with technology and people in non gallery spaces, cinemas in derelict buildings, public art by canals, digital art in libraries, books and games on art kits. In 2013 he published Child Computer Interaction research on methods for involving teenagers in the participatory design of interactive emotion displays. He is interested in the exchange between artists and young people and between art practices and educational formats.
Short papers / Online collaborative design with students for autobiographical VR stories about Covid-19
Abstract: This research examines opportunities for using virtual reality (VR) as an autobiographical storytelling tool for students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Collaborating remotely with eight university undergraduate students in Canada, we created eight individual 3D nonfiction VR pieces that express the students’ own pandemic experiences. Through a collaborative design process, our findings highlight how VR was used as a meaningful device for telling students’ autobiographical stories about the COVID-19 pandemic: delivering the storyteller’s own feelings, creating a sense of confinement and disconnection, showing environmental details, and expressing inner worlds.
Biography: Sojung Bahng is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker and researcher, and currently works as a postdoctoral fellow in the Bachelor of Media Production and Design at Carleton University in Canada. She will be appointed as an Assistant Professor in Media and Performance Production at Queen’s University, beginning in July 2022. Sojung holds a PhD from SensiLab at Monash University in Australia. She explores cinematic media via digital technologies to reflect aesthetic and narrative experiences in cultural and philosophical contexts.
Victoria McArthur is an Associate Professor in the Bachelor of Media Production and Design program at Carleton University. She received her honours BA in Music from Brock University in 2007, MA in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2010 and PhD in Communication and Culture in 2015 from York University. Victoria minored in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in both of these degrees. From July 2014 – 2018 she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology, where she taught courses on games and HCI.
Short papers / Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos
Abstract: The project “Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” pioneers the development of new methods and digital tools for re-signifying and transforming controversial physical memory sites.
The Francoist monument for the Fallen of the Spanish Civil War near Madrid, built between 1940-1959 partly by forced labour of political prisoners, includes more than 33.000 remains from both conflict sides, removed from mass-graves around the country without the relatives’ knowledge. The official onsite information does not communicate this difficult history; the traces of the prisoner of war-barracks and mass-graves are in no way visible to the visitors.
The project addresses the re-signification of this most controversial Francoist monument. As part of the long-term investigation “Deep Space”, dealing with politics of memory, controversial monuments and heritage in the Digital Age, it focuses on creative processes and digital tools.
Biography: Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar founded Hybrid Space Lab, a Think Tank and Design Lab for Architecture, Urbanism and Digital Culture; a cultural breeding ground, incubating breakthrough concepts, fostering innovation, contributing to positive societal and environmental change.
Professor Elizabeth Sikiaridi has lectured since 1997 on design in the urban landscape at the University Duisburg-Essen and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts OWL. Born in London, grew up in Athens, studied at Ecole d’Architecture de Belleville/Paris and TU Darmstadt (honours diploma), worked at the architectural office Behnisch&Partner and TU Berlin.
Professor Frans Vogelaar founded 1998 the first Department of Hybrid Space worldwide at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Born in Holland, grew up in Zimbabwe and Holland, studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven (honours diploma) and at the Architectural Association School of Architecture London, worked at Studio Alchymia (Mendini, Milan) and at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (Koolhaas, Rotterdam).
Short papers / Below victory: revealing a buried past and present
Abstract: During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a creative and technical team used an emerging geological sensor technology to scan the subterranean landscape under a historic plaza in central France, originally the site of a Roman temple buried since Antiquity. This paper will present the resulting trans-disciplinary project that included artists, programmers, designers, archaeologists, geologists, academics, historians, cultural leaders and government agencies all working together to create a series of media works based on what has been hidden in the heart of Clermont-Ferrand for 2,000 years. Ground Penetrating Radar reveals through echo and its haunting visualizations were core to the foundational data used in the artworks but also its theme and metaphor. With the collected data, the team created a site-specific collage of trompe l’oeil anti-sculpture, virtual experiences, films, prints and performances. Place de la Victoire, a cultural heritage landmark, became the source and site of an inverted public experience for inverted times.
Biography: Scott Hessels (b. 1958) is an American filmmaker, sculptor and media artist based in Hong Kong. His artworks span different media including film, video, online, music, broadcast, print, kinetic sculpture, and performance. His films have shown internationally, and his new media installations have been presented in museum exhibitions focusing on technology as well as those presenting fine arts. His recognitions include patents for developed technologies, references in books and periodicals on new media art, and coverage in cultural media like Wired and Discover. He is currently an associate professor at The School of Creative Media and executive producer of the Extreme Environments Program which organizes art/science expeditions to environmentally significant sites.
Short papers / Reinventing the Colonial Gaze Employing AI: a Case Study
Abstract: This short paper accounts for a case study of artistic research revolving around Cyprus’ colonial past and inspired by present day decolonial affairs. The endeavour pivots on a hybrid AI system, trained on text from colonial handbooks of Cyprus (originally published when Cyprus was still part of the British Empire) and employing a custom image dataset meant to reflect this colonial view of the island. AI then generates new colonial ‘gazes’ of Cyprus upon demand. Output text and imagery is used in a number of physical and digital artefacts and events that are presented herein.
Biography: Marinos Koutsomichalis is an artist, scholar, and creative technologist. He is broadly interested in the materiality of self-generative systems, (post-)digital objecthood, sound, image, data, electronic circuitry, perception, selfhood, landscapes/environments, and the media/ technologies we rely upon to mediate, probe, interact, or otherwise engage with the former. He has exhibited or performed his work extensively and internationally and has held research or teaching positions in Greece, Italy, Norway, and the U.K. He is a Lecturer in Creative Multimedia at the Cyprus University of Technology (Limassol, CY) where he co-directs the Media Arts and Design Research Lab.
Short papers / Evolutionary Strategies in Architecture and Art
Abstract: The project proposes a new strategy for creating evolving architectural structures based on the idea of adaptation to a dynamically changing environment and with the use of advanced machine learning and AI methods. The evolving architecture uses physical and virtual processes that are transformed and assembled into structures based on environmental properties and capabilities. The project investigates a living dynamic system as a complex set of natural and cultural sub-processes in which each of the interacting entities and systems creates complex aggregates. It deals with natural processes, communication flows, information networks, resource distribution, dense noise masses, a large group of agents and their spatial interactions in the environment. By significantly expanding existing research, the project creates a meta-learning model useful for testing various aspects of adaptation to a complex dynamic environment. This refers to the difficulty of designing artificial agents that can intelligently respond to evolving complex processes.
Biography: Robert B. Lisek PhD is an artist, mathematician and composer who focuses on systems, networks and processes (computational, biological, social). He is involved in a number of projects focused on media art, creative storytelling and interactive art. Drawing upon post-conceptual art, software art and meta-media, his work intentionally defies categorization. Lisek is a pioneer of art based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Lisek is also a composer of contemporary music, author of many projects and scores on the intersection of spectral, stochastic, concret music, musica futurista and noise.
Short papers / Debunking the quantified self through artistic data portraits
Abstract: Today the “quantified self” is a technical reality that structures datasets of all kinds of interfaces. These interfaces are created with the goal to establish, develop and transform the relationship with the self, the data and the society. In a “datified” world, data visualization challenges traditional representation systems by opening up a wide world of analytical and graphical opportunities. As user interfaces, data visualizations are artificial devices that carry cultural messages in a wide variety of forms and media. Additionally, data visualizations are never neutral mechanisms of data transmission since they affect the messages, providing a model of the world itself, a logical and ideological scheme. The fascination related with big data and the creation of increasingly sophisticated user interfaces pave the way for the proliferation of diverse mutations in the perception of the world and of ourselves. The false neutrality and transparency of quantitative representation of one’s own self is built on the assumption of a closed and measurable self that perceives itself as an entity that can be calibrated, compared and evaluated using numerical parameters. In this context, our research is focused around the implications and mechanisms of the quantified self and its visualization and also about the role that artworks based on data can play.
Biography: Director of the Arts Degree at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and professor of the Multimedia Degree and the Digital Design and Creation Degree at the same university. She is doing his PhD in the UOC’s Doctoral Program in Network and Information Technologies.
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Degree in Graphic Design, Postgraduate in Visual Culture Studies from the University of Barcelona (UB) and Master in Multimedia Applications from the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). She is lecturer at UOC but she has also taught at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and in various vocational schools in the field of art and graphic design. She also has extensive professional experience as a graphic designer, illustrator and prepress specialist.
Short papers / Decoupling design from the industrial paradigm
Abstract: We suggest that a critical examination of computer-human design, as a field developed under industrial requirements, could be helpful at addressing the problems derived by the industrial development of digital technologies. Since it would seem difficult to conduct current problem-solving logic under the unprecedented yet probable conditions derived from industrialization problems -as energetic and material scarcity-, this examination could also aid in tackling their derived emergent (social and environmental) effects by exploring new situated approaches.
Biography: Raul Nieves (PhD candidate) is a designer/artist researching modes of unveiling, confrontation and dismantlement at the ever-moving technoscientific frontier of capitalism. His work has been featured internationally as talks, exhibits, installations, and performances.
Dr. Enric Mor (PhD) is associate professor at UOC (Open University of Catalonia) where he teaches human-computer interaction, human-centered design and creative coding. He is the director of the master’s degree in Interaction Design and User Experience. His research is focused on technology-enhanced learning, human-computer interaction and design. Currently, he is researching across the fields of media art and interaction design.
Joan Soler-Adillon (PhD) is a Catalan artist and associate professor at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), in Barcelona. He has held previous academic positions at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) and Royal Holloway, University of London (UK). His research and practice revolve around digital interactive media and its manifestation in digital art –particularly interactive installation, an experimental approach to interactive storytelling and documentary, and Virtual Reality.
Short Papers / Bridging traditional and digital crafts: Digital Dynamic Ornaments
Abstract: This study draws parallels between the work of traditional craftsmen and the workflows of digital artists, and acknowledges both of them as cultural actuators and generators of ornamentation. Moreover, the elements of play and visual complexity are considered in the exploration of ornamental forms, as integral practices in both the analogue and digital realm. Play is a natural function, connecting intuition to actions, and specifically in the digital arts, it helps shape different notational systems bound to individual imagination. Visual complexity is explored as an ornamental quality that was forsaken in favor of minimalism and functional design, but nowadays is returning as an integral and desired quality in both traditional and digital ornamentation. It is, as well, a common feature of generative art, a field of digital art, which is interpreted as the augmented continuator of the intellectual and procedural heritage of traditional hand crafting.
Biography: I am a self-employed designer and artist, who has worked as a 2&3D Creative in a variety of design fields: industrial design, architecture, event & UX/UI design. My studies include Architectural Engineering (March) in DUTh, Greece and Computational Methods in Architecture (MSc), in Cardiff University, Wales. The last two years I am a UI Designer for Visual Prototyping and through my artistic project Ludik, I am focused on creative coding and generative art using various motion capture techniques. The idea of play has been a guiding axis in my design practice and academic Theses, as a medium of re-placing communal expression at the center of the design process. Through my multidisciplinary experience I aim to dissolve borders between physical and digital, traditional and modern, technology and art.
Short papers / Resilient terra
Abstract: RESILIENT TERRA is a proposal for a collective curatorial research project looking for alliances. It aims at politicizing the notion of geoengineering by bringing together a variety of artistic practices and interdisciplinary approaches that explore geoengineering within and beyond the neoliberal context. Through a relational methodology, RESILIENT TERRA’s objective is that of engaging the wider audience with concepts of geoengineering and climate justice, in order to create a space for socio-political debate that encourages transformation and speculative thinking on multiple ‘larger’ futures.
Biography: Patrizia Costantin (PhD) is a lecturer and researcher in curating whose work investigates the curatorial as a site for knowledge production and political worldbuilding. She is particularly interested in exploring the role of curating as a relational practice for negotiating with reality, contemporaneity and the technological realm. Costantin holds a PhD in Curatorial Practice (Manchester Metropolitan University, 2019). Her thesis, machines will watch us die: a curatorial study on the contemporaneity of digital decay explored digital decay after the material turn in media studies through a postmedium approach. The project emphasized the multiple materialities and temporalities of digital technology and experimented with curatorial strategies with the aim of making visible digital decay and its contemporaneity within the context of a research exhibition.
She is currently Head of Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art – ViCCA major – and Lecturer in Curating at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture at Aalto University.
Short papers / Cymatics as a tool to create visual cartographies with the ecoacoustics from Delta del Llobregat Natural Park
Abstract: Barcelona, like other large metropolis in the world, has grown by developing unsustainable economic models that have extended its borders to the natural spaces that surround it. In this artistic research project, the acoustical science of Cymatics is used to understand the environmental changes caused by the human action inside of delta of Llobregat, a natural park located only 15 kilometers from the city center on the south side of the city. In the last 30 years, the transformation of the final stretch of the Llobregat river, the enlargement of the cargo port of Barcelona and the expansion of the airport and the industrial zone, have modified the environment of many no-human species specially from birds. All ecosystems have been altered and it is especially evident through noise pollution caused by industrial environments and the sonification caused by the incessant passing of airplanes on their final descent.
Biography: Ferran Lega has a PhD Cum Laude and received the extraordinary doctorate award from the University of Fine Arts of Barcelona, specializing in sound art and the use of acoustic science of cymatics as a tool for artistic expression. Since 2009, he has combining his artistic practice with teaching. In 2019 he started his full-time career as a professor of digital design and creative technologies at the University of Lleida. His artistic works have been exhibited at Botín Foundation, Santander (2009), ATM contemporary, Gijón (2009, 2013), Art Eka, Madrid (2012), Colorida gallery, Lisbon (2013), Tàpies foundation, Barcelona (2013), Tortosa Museum (2016), Lo Pati art centre, Amposta (2016), Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona (2017), CMMAS Mexico (2017), IEI, Lleida (2017, 2019, 2021), Roca Umbert, Granollers (2017), MEM, Bilbao (2019), Bideodromo Bilbaoarte (2020), Sant Andreu Contemporani, Barcelona (2020), CCCB (2021), La capella Arts center, Barcelona (2022), Leucade Gallery, Murcia (2022), among others.
Short papers / Visualizing the Unpredictable Behavior of Wildfire Using an Artificially Intelligent Aesthetic
Abstract: The 21st century sees the rise of wildfires, which radically destabilize the anthropocentric paradigm that place the human at its centre, by manifesting what theorists like Bruno Latour term ‘terrestrial agency’. As a manifold process that encompasses Earth’s ecological systems, we have been co-evolving within these processes, harnessing them for our civilizational progress. Yet, our concomitant refusal to acknowledge nature as an independent agent in which we exist has exacerbated climate change, leading us into what scholar Rick McRae terms the ‘age of violent pyroconvection’ – an age in which life on Earth will be shaped by wildfires and their complex dynamics. It amplifies the autonomous nature of terrestrial agency whose behavior defies human assumptions. These evolving dynamics between the human and the planetary require new aesthetic contexts in which two autonomous yet interrelated agencies mutually transform and disrupt each other.
Existing creative visualization paradigms have struggled to aesthetically engage this relationship, falling short of providing compelling sensorial points of engagement. The paper briefly analyzes exemplary artistic works and proposes a novel aesthetic framework premised on integrating immersive visualization systems and Artificial Intelligence programming. It experimentally explores this architecture in relation to the iFire research project currently in development at The University of New South Wales.
Biography: Prof. Dennis Del Favero is an ARC Laureate Fellow, Chair Professor of Digital Innovation, Executive Director of UNSW’s iCinema Research Centre (iCinema) and a research artist. He has directed numerous large-scale interdisciplinary art projects that explore the practical application of artificially intelligent aesthetics to interactive visualization – exhibited at numerous international galleries, festivals and museums.
Dr Susanne Thurow is an ARC Laureate Postdoctoral Research Fellow, a Deputy Director of iCinema and Leader of its Experimental Aesthetics Research Program. Her interdisciplinary research encompasses Performance Studies and Digital Media, rethinking contemporary arts practice in the light of digital aesthetics.
Dr Grant Stevens is UNSW’s Deputy Head of School for Art and Design and Co-Leader of iCinema’s Interactive Scenarios Research Program. He is an artist and academic whose practice focuses on the relationships between photography, moving images and emerging digital cultures.
Prof. Jason Sharples is an iCinema Deputy Director, Leader of its Fire Simulation Research Program, a mathematician and internationally recognized expert in dynamic and extreme bushfire behavior. He has led several large-scale research initiatives and regularly cooperates on international wildfire projects.
Jane Davidson is a Professor of Creative and Performing Arts at The University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts, and Chair of the Creativity and Wellbeing Hallmark Initiative, which investigates what it means for people to achieve wellbeing and how creativity can be harnessed to achieve this aim.
Short papers / Codex Endogenous: Designing Interactive Self Data Visualization Tool for Trauma Impacted Individuals
Abstract: The Quantified Self is best described by Gary Wolf as “self- knowledge through numbers.” William James’ theory of the consciousness of the self and the study of coping inspires drawings that retell personal narratives. Codex Endogenousis a project that reveals and visualizes the beauty and morphology of a “self” and its environment. Here, “codex” refers to a collection of pages stitched together, and “endogenous” is a term in cognitive neuroscience used to describe phenomena that is spontaneously generated from an individual’s internal state. Every day, quantifiable information about the self is produced and collected like pages in a book. Daily data drawing is a method of journaling with naturally emitted data from the self, creating an oracle into an individual’s brain body connection. This paper evaluates the characteristics of what daily data drawings are, methods of collecting data, and the possibilities of using data collection and visualization as a mindful- ness practice for people who are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Short papers / Boundaries in networked digital societies: Membranes as a new model of boundaries focusing on nonconscious cognition
Abstract: Boundaries have provided humans a frame of understanding and foundation for social structures – like hierarchies, classes, and races. Acknowledging the development of technology has brought significant changes in human life, this paper explores a new model of boundaries that fits into a networked digital society and reexamines the idea of boundaries/borders as a solid wall that separates, segregates, isolates, and disconnects. Instead of a concrete wall, this paper suggests considering membranes as a model for boundaries in the technological era because of their semi-permeable and fluid nature, as well as their active engagements in relations/interactions between heterogeneous bodies. This idea of membranes in a technological society is exemplified in political borders, control mechanisms, and human-nonhuman cognition. Katherine Hayles’s discussions of cognisphere and nonconsciousness illustrate the semi-permeability of the boundaries between human and technological cognition, highlighting their interdependency and continuous inflows/outflows of information on the nonconscious level. The author introduces the process of creating an interactive art project Surrogate Being to demonstrate how the author experienced such a membrane-like boundary between heterogeneous yet interconnected modes of (digital and biological) memories about the same place.
Biography: Su Hyun Nam is based in New York and Seoul as an interdisciplinary media artist and researcher working at the intersection of art, technology, science, and philosophy to investigate relationships with diverse nonhumans. Her work, including experimental video, interactive media, 3D game art, and media performance, has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues from Spain, UAE, Greece, and Singapore to South Korea. She was recently a selected artist by Korean Cultural Center in DC and is currently an artist-in-residence at Harvestworks Media Art Center. Su Hyun Nam earned an M.F.A in Art and Technology Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Media Study from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is an Assistant Professor of Mixed Media in the Department of Contemporary Art at Konkuk University in Seoul, Korea.
Poster / Ephemeral value mappings – staging feedback loops between algorithms and emotion in online trading as an immersive multimedia experience
Abstract: The presented work series is situated in the intersection of immersive formats of the audio-visual art and the emerging research area of immersive analytics. This series is critically motivated by the re-emergent and growing prominence of gambling factors in global economic activities – such as institutional promotion of increasingly complex investment products for masses, crypto-asset trading, online casinos, etc. Political philosopher Michael J. Sandel describes several last decades as a “drift from ‘market economy’ to becoming a ‘market society’”. Algorithmically manipulated financial trading is a prominent arena where algorithms merge with human emotions and value-seeking drives into a global hybrid sensorium. As sociologist Georg Simmel had observed it in already in 1900: “Reality and value as mutually independent categories through which our conceptions become images of the world”. Mapping of the behaviour patterns in trader psychology has been an important aspect of the training in the trading process, besides the implementation and development of various mathematical models. It now appears, that value storage and trading infrastructure increasingly merge with methods of manipulation of human attention and emotions, and are mediated by computer networks, and increasingly – Machine Learning and AI. As an practical effort in artistic research in phenomenology and neuroaesthetics, this work proposes a set of parameters for simulated anisotropy, useful for designing the structure, notation, and physical, mathematical dimensions in the VR interface and environment.
Biography: Jānis Garančs is an artist and immersive media researcher. He has initial training in classical fine arts in Riga, further studies of video and computer art at the KKH, Stockholm, and digital audio-visual media at the KHM (Academy of Media Arts), Cologne. Since 2000 he works primarily with interactive multi-media installations and performances, focusing on stereoscopic imagery and 3D sound, exploring perceptual phenomenology of immersive audiovisual expression. He has contributed to various international media art community events as an artist, presenter in events like Ars Electronica, Transmediale, DEAF, ISEA, Expo 2000 and venues such as BNMI/Banff, V2/Rotterdam, SAT/Montreal, ICA/London, RIXC/Riga. Additionally, he has been involved in several international research projects focusing on interactive TV platforms. He is a co-founder and project consultant at RIXC Centre for New Media Culture.
Poster / Identification, socialization and professionalization of art and design students through a techno-pedagogical model
Abstract: We are working on the construction of a tool and network of e-portfolios [1] based on WordPress that invites students to create their own identity.. That provoke the generation of a network and a community promoting peer learning. With it we promote the creation of a professional portfolio throughout life. With this project we want to find out what impact the integration of open content managers such as WordPress, which are rich in interactive media, has on learning management systems, specifically on Art and Design students. Our objective is to reinforce the idea that an online learning model benefits from being centered and based on the process of identification, socialization and the potential professionalization of the student.
Biography: Quelic Berga-Carreras is a researcher in new media arts, data visualization and interface politics. He works as an artist, as a teacher and as graphic designer.
Laia Blasco-Soplon is the director of the Arts Degree at UOC (Open University of Catalonia) and professor of the Multimedia Degree and the Digital Design and Creation Degree at the same university. Her artistic and academic research focuses on the design, study and criticism of interactive visual tools for experimentation and learning.
Dr. Javier Melenchón holds a BS and an MS in Multimedia Engineerins as well as a BS and MS in Computer Science. He also holds a PhD in “ICT and its management” from the Ramon Llull University in Catalonia. Dr. Javier Melenchón is an associate professor at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and has been the Academic Director of several programs. He currently directs the BA in Digital Design and Creation. His research interests are mainly, but not limited to, digital signal processing, audio, image and video processing, multimodal processing, machine learning, data mining, virtual talking heads and human computer interaction. He has made different publications about these topics in several conference proceedings, book chapters and indexed journals.
Institutional presentation / New Department of Digital Arts and Cinema at the University of Athens
Abstract: The Department of Digital Arts and Cinema of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece is a new department that focusses on the common ground between the hybrid field of film practices and cinema studies, on the one hand and electronic, digital, immersive and interactive arts, on the other. It was founded in 2019. The creation of this new department addresses the need for the provision of quality education, artistic innovation and practice-based research in the multidisciplinary field of interactive arts, working at the intersection between film and cinema studies and digital art in Greece.
The primary aim of the department is to fill a need for audiovisual and film production in Greek higher education by being one of the first departments to bridge the gap between established film-making practices, combined with the use of digital tools for high-quality artistic production. Its innovation lies at the fact that it transcends the boundaries of a traditional film school as it brings forward the interconnection with a wide range of contemporary digital forms of expression and multimedia. In order to appropriately support the above, the department’s infrastructure includes five educational laboratories focusing on supporting the following creative activities: Multimedia technologies lab, Film-direction and audiovisual production, Film and video editing, Sound recording and editing, Digital Art and installations, Virtual and extended reality laboratory, Ubiquitous, physical computing and 3D printing.
The curriculum provides students with both a theoretical grounding and a practical skill set pertaining to the above-mentioned fields. The two main corollaries of the curriculum are cinema studies and digital arts; a key identifying characteristic of the department is the interplay between these two basic pillars in an attempt to provide a holistic coverage of this emerging area.
Biography: Dimitris Charitos (1965) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Media Studies and the Head of the Department of Digital Arts and Cinema, of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens where he teaches human-machine communication, interactive design, digital art, virtual environment design and visual communication. He studied Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens, and C.A.A.D. at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow). He holds a PhD in interactive and virtual environment design. As a researcher or coordinator, he has participated in more than 15 research projects (funded by Greek and European programs) on the subjects of virtual reality, interactive design, locative media, mediated/hybrid cities and digital art. He has more than 100 publications in books, journals and conference proceedings. Since 1983, his artistic practice includes electronic music (1983-1993), audiovisual and interactive installations and virtual environments (1997- to the present). He has participated in 15 exhibitions in Greece, the UK and Cyprus. More info at: The Spatial Media Research Group URL: http://spatialmedia.ntlab.gr
Institutional presentation / Producing, Presenting and publishing with V2_
Abstract: In this institutional presentation by V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media we will present our Lab’s interdisciplinary practice with a focus on art and media technology. It will cover our three core activities – the production, presentation and publication of research at the interface of art, technology and society, as well as highlight five pillars to our success: 1.) an emphasis on experiment as opposed to end result; 2.) the support of practices instead of mere single projects; 3.) the integration of theory with practice; 4.) our care for archiving activities; 5.) and our vast international network.
Furthermore, the presentation will highlight our thematic approach based on the recent example To Mind is to Care, a long term research project into the notion of “Caring for”. This interdisciplinary study of care covered care of people, other life forms, and technology and resulted in the book To Mind Is To Care, which included contributions by Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Sjoerd van Tuinen, Michael Marder, Arjo Klamer, Driessens & Verstappen, Frank Pasquale, Ellen Dissanayake, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, Pieter Lemmens, Jeannette Pols, Bernard Stiegler, and Frederiek Bennema, a group exhibition carrying the same title featuring four new productions by artists Ana María Gómez López, Driessens & Verstappen, Nathalie Gebert and WE MAKE CARPETS and the curatorial research Art and Care: Reflections on the To Mind Is To Care Exhibition.
Biography: Florian Weiglis curator at V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media. As curator and researcher he is interested in art and contemporary technology reflecting on society, in collaboration with artists in the development of critical dialogue, artistic reflection and practice-oriented research. Curatorial projects at V2_ he did include the live experiment series 3×3 he initiated, and amongst others the group exhibitions Latent Spectators (2019, UNArt Center, Shanghai, co-curated with Iris Long), To Mind Is To Care (2020) and Reasonable Doubt (2021, co-curated with Vincent van Velsen); solo projects and exhibitions Jonas Lund’s Operation Earnest Voice (2018), Philip Vermeulen’s The Physical Rythm Machine (2017 at Ars Electronica, 2018 at V2_) and Johannes Langkamp’s solo exhibition Sun Tracing (2019). He is also author of the publications 3×3 Live experimenteren(2020, V2_Publishing with Jochem Kootstra) and Art and Care (2021, V2_ written with Dora Vrhoci).
Arie Altena is archive editor at V2_ and the author of Wat is community art? (2016) and 40 Years of V2_ (2022).
Abstract: Over the last 20 years, Hexagram has played a seminal role in the recognition of practice-based art and design research in Canada and abroad, as well as in promoting knowledge-sharing between artistic and scientific disciplines. Founded in 2001, Hexagram supports research-creation projects and foster collaborations amongst its members from eight Québec research institutions, as well as with local and international partners from academic, cultural and creative sectors. To celebrate this milestone, in September 2021 Hexagram initiated an ambitious season programming on the theme EMERGENCE/Y, which launched in the framework of Ars Electronica 2021. This research-creation (RC) programme of activities will run until June 2022. Hexagram presents the highlights and the sequel to EMERGENCE/Y, to which Network members as well as international partners are invited to contribute.
Biography: Manuelle Freire is Professeure associée – UQAM and general coordinator of Hexagram – International network of research-creation in arts, cultures and technologies. She holds a PhD in Arts Education from Concordia University and currently works on research-creation and curriculum development in arts and technologies, examines interdisciplinary and intersectorial collaborative creative practices, and practice-based learning in art and design.
Sofian Audry is an artist, scholar, Professor of Interactive Media within the School of Media at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) and Co-Director of the Hexagram Network for Research-Creation in Art, Culture and Technology. Their work explores the behavior of hybrid agents at the frontier of art, artificial intelligence, and artificial life, through artworks and writings. Audry’s book Art in the Age of Machine Learning examines machine learning art and its practice in art and music (MIT Press, 2021). Their artistic practice branches through multiple forms including robotics, installations, bio-art, and electronic literature.
Chris Salter is an artist, Professor of Immersive Arts and Director of the Immersive Arts Space at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) as well as Co-Director of the Hexagram Network (until August 2022). He is also Professor Emeritus, Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University. He studied philosophy, economics, theatre and computer music at Emory and Stanford Universities. His artistic work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Barbican Centre, Berliner Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen, ZKM, Musée d’art Contemporain, EXIT Festival and Place des Arts-Montreal, among many others. He is the author of Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance (2010) Alien Agency: Experimental Encounters with Art in the Making (2015). and the just released Sensing Machines (2002) all published by MIT Press.
Short paper / “Extended Listening: Towards non-humans interpretation of the sound environment through AI systems”
Abstract: Technology has allowed extended human capabilities, amplifying the sense of hearing toward the sonic perception of different physical layers of our environment, such as electromagnetic fields, ultrasonic/subsonic sounds, underwater sounds, long-distance sounds, animal spectrum, etc., generating as a consequence new symbols, new languages and new cultures. In this sense, the main question in this paper is related to how can we transcend the current use of AI as a methodology to recreate or even create sounds, images, music, texts and move toward the development of models that could spawn a language created by machines. Questions like that, provide the philosophical context to move forward to generate models that could lead the processing of sound towards complex and unpredictable results, allowing the development of methodologies to create non-human language involved in a technological ecosystem.
Biography: He is a sound artist and electronic media artist. He has a degree in music from the University of Valparaíso, Chile and a Master in Electronic Arts from the National University of Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is currently pursuing his doctorate at DXARTS, University of Washington, Seattle, United States (Digital Arts and Experimental media). His research has been orientated on the relationship between the human and machine, and how technologies and devices act as an interface that extends our human abilities, allowing the amplification of human perception, transforming, changing, or degrading the information that comes from the environment, providing new interpretations or meaning of the world. The last two years his work has been focused on machine learning, NLP, and machine listening applied to robotic and sound installations.
Institutional presentation / What is Research-based Design Practice? A Collective Inquiry through A Graduate Seminar
Abstract:What is Research-based Design Practice? This graduate seminar provides a framework for research-based design, defines a structure to carry out Design practice, and offers ways of understanding giving and receiving critical feedback on practice-based projects. As a class, we come together to make collective contributions to answer this question through Case Study presentations. Students conduct careful research on an artist or designer’s creative work that helps address this question. Presented at the conference is a collection of this inquiry to exchange with other universities and institutions who are endeavored with a similar question.
Biography: Biographies for students Niloufar Abdolmaleki, Hafsa Akter, Diana Araiza Soto, Cristina Gomez, Valentyna Hrushkevych, Justin Marsh, Fatema Mostafa, Alejandra Ruiz, Pachia Vang, Ofelia Pulido, Marcy Wacker, Edward Whelan, Iris Xie, Rova Yilmaz can be found on the UC Davis website: https://arts.ucdavis.edu/design-graduate-students
Jiayi Young is an Associate Professor of Design at the University of California, Davis.
Institutional presentation / Oneirocracy, Pandemic and Cyborg Dreams
Abstract: With the sewing of theoretical fragments as a starting point, we have structured a small framework for a “network of unconsciouses”. A conceptual provocation that articulates human, nature and technology, promoting the idea of the unconscious as a complex environment, in constant change. An intuitive, transversal, multitemporal and multispecific communication that goes beyond objectiveness. An unconscious which does not exist exclusively within the human, but also in the invisible fabric between things. With the “Pandemic Dreams Archive”, multiple series and different oneiric models were analyzed through graphs and interactive maps, allowing our investigation of dreams according to certain patterns. The semantic co-incidences allowed us to make associations between different dreams, and observe the relational fields between these oneiric manifestations. We have also created a bot called MacUnA (Machinic Unconscious Algorithm), a robot developed with NLP (Natural Language Processing), a subarea of computer science and artificial intelligence that deals with linguistics and interactions between computer and human language. MacUnA remixes the dreams’ archived narratives and creates derivative dreams. Its language is oneiric, bringing us closer to speculations of what could be the future of machinic unconsciouses and cyborg dreams algorithms.
Biography: Fabiane M. Borges – PhD in Clinical Psychology (PUC/SP). She works in the area of Space Art and Culture at INPE / Brazil. She has been developing transdisciplinary projects between Clinical Psychology and Art and Technology since 2010.
Lívia Diniz – Artist, project designer and networker, she develops collaborative and transdisciplinary initiatives related to childhood, living arts, dreams and technology. In Rio de Janeiro, she co-directed carnival parades and samba schools for children and differently abled people. She has been researching and developing experimental learning methodologies in 15 countries while collaborating with festivals, schools, universities, artististic residencies, museums, and maker spaces.
Rafael Frazão – visual artist and videomaker, Brazilian based in Barcelona, works for more than 10 years with audiovisual language in different projects. With his production company in São Paulo he has done many documentary films and hypermedia projects, mainly around the intersection between art, technology and human rights. His artistic production uses experimental video and new media to deal with themes around extra-human cosmopolitics, multi-species studies and the philosophy of the image. He constantly collaborates with projects in performing arts, workshops and artistic practices sharing. He is currently a resident artist at La Escocesa, creation factory, in Barcelona.
Tiago F. Pimentel – Dilettante anthropologist, programmer, hacker, multimedia artist, researcher of digital networks and activist of causes such as freedom and privacy on the network. He was part of the National Coordination team of the Casa Brasil Project, joined Casa de Cultura Digital and co-created CryptoRave, the largest open meeting on cryptography and security in the world. He is the General Director of Associação Actantes – Direct Action for Freedom, Privacy and Network Diversity.
Institutional presentation / Leonardo activates creativity to push the boundaries of today and unleash the possibilities of tomorrow
Abstract: The global challenges and existential threats of our time require collaboration and cross-fertilization across the domains of art, science and technology. Leonardo fosters collaborative exploration by facilitating interdisciplinary projects and by documenting and disseminating information about hybrid creative practice and scholarship. Through its programs, publications, and partnerships, Leonardo offers the creative strategies most needed to face complex problems that overwhelm conventional problem-solving and transcend siloed disciplines. By applying a creativity lens driven by art, science and technology, we can see and set a new global agenda to humanize digital culture, deepen digital trust, inspire creative enterprise and advance sustainable development. This talk presents an overview of Leonardo, the International Society of Art, Science, and Technology, our legacy of impact, and our vision to ReImagine Everything in pursuit of a more vibrant, just, and regenerative world.
Biography: Diana Ayton-Shenker is CEO, Leonardo/ISAST, ASU Professor & Executive Director of Leonardo-ASU Initiative, author of 4 books (including A New Global Agenda), and co-creator with William T. Ayton of large-scale A.R. public art installations (including New Babel, their NYC 10-story-tall sculpture, and New World City which received 2112 Foundation’s 2020 Visionary Award, and was the 1st A.R. art published by MITPress, and Leonardo). As Fast Forward Fund founder, Diana was honored by President Clinton, named #1 of “25 Leading Women Changing the World” (Good Business NY), and featured in “31 Inspiring Women in Nonprofit Management” (UNC). She was inaugural Nazarian Social Innovator in Residence (Wharton), Global Catalyst Senior Fellow (The New School), and Senior Fellow Venture Philanthropy (Bard College), and worked with Human Rights Watch, P.E.N, Mercy Corps, and the United Nations. Diana holds an LLM (University of Essex Law School) and BA (University of Pennsylvania).
Institutional presentation / Montreal Digital Spring, Our Future
Abstract: Montreal Digital Spring is a non-profit organisation whose primary mission is to boost digital intelligence through various activities including a yearly conference, an exhibition, networking events, and a series of workshops targeting the general public, digital creativity companies and organizations and the youth.
Biography: Erandy Vergara-Vargas (MX) is a Montreal-based curator and scholar. Her main research interests include global art histories, climate responsibility, curatorial studies, equity, internet cultures and widespread bias in algorithms. She earned a MA at Concordia University and a PhD in Art History at McGill University. Recent shows include ISEA2020: Why Sentience? (Printemps numérique, Montreal); Eva and Franco Mattes: What Has Been Seen (Fondation Phi pour l’art contemporain, 2019); Speculative Cultures: A Virtual Reality Art Exhibition, curated with Tina Sauerländer (Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, Parsons School of Design, New York, 2019). Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Sociability of Sleep Project, Université de Montréal, and artistic director of Printemps numérique.
Abstract: This institutional presentation focuses on the ACM SIGGRAPH History Archive and how it evolved from the ACM SIGGRAPH Art Show Archive. This massive project involved a rethinking of the information architecture as well as programming the interface and adding new functionality. Thousands of new entries were added, along with images, abstracts, and additional information. After a year of hard work by a group of volunteers and student workers, we have made tremendous progress but much more still needs to be done. When completed, this new archive will encapsulate the evolution of a fringe research endeavor to a visually rich technology integral to our daily lives.
Biography: Bonnie Mitchell is a digital artist, animator, archivist as well as a professor at Bowling Green State University in Digital Arts, Ohio, USA. Mitchell’s artworks explore spatial and experiential relationships to our physical, social, cultural and psychological environment through interaction and physical immersion. Her creative work includes interactive installation art, environmental data visualization art, experimental visual music animation, net-art, and new media art archive development. Mitchell is the co-director of the SIGGRAPH History and ISEA Symposium online Archives and also a member of the organizing team of the Summit on New Media Art Archiving (first held in 2021 online and again in 2022 in Barcelona). She is also a member of the ISEA International Advisory Committee, the ACM SIGGRAPH History and Digital Arts Committees and is the SIGGRAPH 2023 History Chair in charge of the 50th conference celebration.
Jan Searleman (California, USA) taught Computer Science at Clarkson University for 37 years, retired in 2015, and since retirement has been an Adjunct Research Professor at Clarkson. Her research areas are Virtual Environments, Human-Computer Interaction, and Artificial Intelligence. A senior member of the ACM, Jan is also on both the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Art Committee (DAC) and the ACM SIGGRAPH History Committee. Jan and Bonnie Mitchell coordinated the DAC Online Exhibition “The Earth, Our Home: Art, Technology and Critical Action”. She co-moderated SPARKS talks (Short Presentations of Artworks and Research for the Kindred Spirit) for DAC on “Robotics, Electronics, and Artificial Intelligence” with Hye Yeon Nam, and “Data: Visual Perception, Interpretation and Truth” with Everardo Reyes. Jan co-directs, along with Bonnie Mitchell, the ACM SIGGRAPH History Archive. She also co-directs the ISEA Symposium Archive with Bonnie Mitchell, Wim van der Plas and Terry C.W. Wong.
Institutional presentation / ISEA Symposium Archives: Progress and Teamwork
Abstract: This institutional presentation focuses on how the ISEA Archive team was able to develop a comprehensive, robust archive of thousands of ISEA items, despite minimal funding and support. The archives were created and are still being developed by a large number of volunteers, students, interns and grant-funded assistants. Over the past few years, a huge amount of information has been added to the archives along with images and PDFs of the papers, publications and other artefacts. There have also been significant improvements in the functionality through the efforts of our volunteer programmers. This massive endeavor has been spearheaded by the four co-directors who are also volunteers. These invaluable archives are used by researchers, artists, educators, students, and the general public. It would not be possible without the dedicated efforts of all the volunteers and contributors involved.
Biography: Bonnie Mitchell (Ohio, USA) is a digital artist, animator, archivist as well as a professor of Digital Arts at Bowling Green State University. Mitchell’s artworks explore spatial and experiential relationships to our physical, social, cultural and psychological environment through interaction and physical immersion. Her creative work includes interactive installation art, environmental data visualization art, experimental visual music animation, net-art, and new media art archive development. Mitchell is the co-director of the SIGGRAPH History and ISEA Symposium online Archives and also a member of the organizing team of the Summit on New Media Art Archiving (first held in 2021 online and again in 2022 in Barcelona). She is also a member of the ISEA International Advisory Committee, the ACM SIGGRAPH History and Digital Arts Committees and is the SIGGRAPH 2023 History Chair in charge of the 50th conference celebration.
Jan Searleman (California, USA) taught Computer Science at Clarkson University for 37 years, retired in 2015, and since retirement has been an Adjunct Research Professor at Clarkson. Her research areas are Virtual Environments, Human-Computer Interaction, and Artificial Intelligence. A senior member of the ACM, Jan is also on both the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Art Committee (DAC) and the ACM SIGGRAPH History Committee. Jan and Bonnie Mitchell coordinated the DAC Online Exhibition “The Earth, Our Home: Art, Technology and Critical Action”. She co-moderated SPARKS talks (Short Presentations of Artworks and Research for the Kindred Spirit) for DAC on “Robotics, Electronics, and Artificial Intelligence” with Hye Yeon Nam, and “Data: Visual Perception, Interpretation and Truth” with Everardo Reyes. Jan co-directs, along with Bonnie Mitchell, the ACM SIGGRAPH History Archive. She also co-directs the ISEA Symposium Archive with Bonnie Mitchell, Wim van der Plas and Terry C.W. Wong.
Wim van der Plas (Netherlands) studied Social & Cultural Sciences at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He was director of the Foundation for Creative Computer Applications (SCCA, Rotterdam), R&D staff of the Utrecht School of Arts, managing director of the Institute for Computer Animation (SCAN, Groningen), and worked for 3 different departments of the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. He is co-founder of ISEA, organised the first, second and seventh ISEA symposium and served as ISEA HQ and on the ISEA board since its founding. Currently he is co-director of the ISEA symposium archives and member as well as honorary chair of the ISEA International Advisory Committee. In 2018 he received a Leonardo Pioneer Award.
Terry C. W. Wong has a bachelor’s degree from the Applied Science Department of the University of British Columbia and a Master’s degree in Fine Art at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Currently, he is working on his graduate degree in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University. He is doing his research study on connecting new media art archiving worldwide. Terry is also an archivist and co-organizer for the ISEA Archives. He was also on the organizing team of ISEA2016 in Hong Kong.
Panel / Possibilities of the Virtual in Digital Space; Rethinking Bodies, Cognition, and Values in Metaverse
Abstract: Digital technology has duplicated, extended, and/or juxtaposed our existences and interactions, transposing a large portion of our life from material to immaterial. These panels investigate diverse possibilities in the entanglement of physical and digital worlds and interrogate meanings of bodies, cognition/perception, autonomy, and social relations in the era of coevolution with technology. Through their art and research practices, the panels acknowledge the virtual – not actualized reality, which is often evoked by various forms of technologies – ranging from computer graphics, digital information, wireless communication to artificial intelligence to virtual reality. By exploring emerging concepts and alternative visual experiences in the digital era, this panel discussion demonstrates critical and diverse perspectives on possible beings we cultivate together with nonhumans – technology.
Biography:Su Hyun Nam is based in New York and Seoul as an interdisciplinary media artist and researcher working at the intersection of art, technology, science, and philosophy to investigate relationships with diverse nonhumans. Her work, including experimental video, interactive media, 3D game art, and media performance, has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues from Spain, UAE, Greece, and Singapore to South Korea. She was recently a selected artist by Korean Cultural Center in DC and is currently an artist-in-residence at Harvestworks Media Art Center. Su Hyun Nam earned an M.F.A in Art and Technology Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Media Study from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is an Assistant Professor of Mixed Media in the Department of Contemporary Art at Konkuk University in Seoul, Korea.
Sanglim Han explores disembodied, fragmented, and interstitial spaces and moments in virtual 3D creation with autonomous computational systems. Her works have been presented internationally at various venues and festivals from Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Latvia, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, and Ukraine to the USA. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MFA from the University of California Los Angeles, where she worked as a researcher at the Art Sci Center.
Jason Eppink creates experiences and interventions that emphasize participation, mischief, surprise, wonder, and generosity that are staged in both public and online spaces and that take the form of games, pranks, street art, and playful online services and hoaxes for non-consenting audiences. His work has found international acclaim and been presented by such esteemed institutions as the Venice Architecture Biennale and New York City’s New Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s also all available online for free. In his previous role as Curator of Digital Media at Museum of the Moving Image in New York City, he founded and administered multiple art commissioning programs and organized events and exhibitions about play, participation, and vernacular culture.
Alex M. Lee is an artist who utilizes 3D animation, video game engines, XR, machine learning and the potential of simulation technologies in order to investigate contemporary modes of representation, artifice and technical images – culling from concepts within science, science fiction, physics, philosophy, and modernity. He received his BFA (2005) and MFA (2009) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Lee was raised in the USA and is Assistant Professor of Animation and XR at Arizona State University Herberger Institute of Art & Design and Mesa City MIX Center. Lee has exhibited internationally in North America, Europe and Asia. Selected exhibitions include: Trinity Square Video, Toronto, ON; Mio Photo, Osaka, Japan; Daegu Art Factory, Daegu, Korea; Eyebeam: Center for Art & Technology, New York, NY; LEV Festival, Madrid, Spain; New Images XR Fair, Paris, France; Elektra Festival, Montreal, Canada.
Yvette Granata is Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of Film, Television,and Media and the Digital Studies Institute. She creates immersive installations, interactive environments, video art, VR films, and hypothetical technological systems. She writes about media theory, digital visual culture, critical computation, and philosophy and art. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan, an MA from University of Amsterdam, and a Phd from SUNY Buffalo. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Sixty Eight Art Institute in Copenhagen, the Ann Arbor FIlm Festival, Viz Lab for Visual Culture Athens, Huford Center for the Arts, Toronto New Wave Festival, Harvard Carpenter Center for the Arts, and The Eye Film Institute in Amsterdam, among others. She currently lives in Detroit.
Panel / Art and technology at school. Resources for a critical integration of new media art practices in the school context
Abstract: The integration of artistic practices that connect art and technology in the context of compulsory education is a complex issue that highlights the need to activate school practices in connection with the changing and technologised reality of contemporary society from a critical and generative approach. This panel introduces a selection of projects promoted by the Red PLANEA Arte y Escuela developed in schools in Spain’s regions of Andalucia, Madrid and Valencia. Introducing different methodologies and specific techniques, these projects address the critical analysis of information and communication technologies, both from their creative and facilitating dimension of new spaces of thought and interdisciplinary intervention as well as in terms of the analysis of their effects on the forms of relationship and experiences in contemporary society. Through different contributions this panel explores the potential of these projects as replicable strategies for other educational contexts and also introduces ANIDA, a Journal specialised in educational resources which, in its volume n2, focuses on these issues by compiling artistic and educational resources related to today’s technologies.
Biography: PLANEA Red de arte y escuela. A network of educational centres, cultural agents and institutions that are committed to using artistic practices in public schools in a transversal way, located in the territories and with a vocation for generalisation and permanence. The network has a period of five years to prototype, evaluate and compile learning on the ways and means of producing significant changes in schools, in education departments and in their closest ecosystem, through artistic practices. PLANEA Red de arte y escuela is promoted by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation and develops its work at a territorial level through the mediation of Pedagogias Invisibles in the Region of Madrid, Máster PERMEA in the Valencian territory and ZEMOS98 in Andalucia.
Panel / The Creation of the Medialab Madrid Archive: Preserving the Memory of Transdiciplinary Media Art Practices
Abstract: The creation of the MediaLab Madrid Archive arises from the need to contribute to the preservation of transdisciplinary media art practices and the shaping of the new narratives related to an extended media archeology, in the context of the project Medialab Madrid as a model of transversal laboratory: art, science, technology, society + sustainability for the digital agenda (H2019/HUM-5740 (MediaLab-CM) within the call for Social Sciences and Humanities (2019) of the Community of Madrid co-financed with the European Social Fund. The proposal is conceived as a panel discussion with the participation of four researchers who are involved in and experts on the subject, structured along different axes of discussion focused on the challenges of cultural innovation as of twenty years ago and its preservation and dissemination in an open, dynamic and relational archive structure, able to convey the relationships among biological, social, technological and cultural systems, and proposing an extension and enrichment to the consensus terminologies of media art.
Biography: Karin Ohlenschläger. Artistic director of LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijon, (2016-2021), historian and curator who has focused on media art, science and digital culture. She has chaired the Banquet Foundation of Art, Science, Technology and Society (1998-2006) and has co-founded and co-directed MediaLab Madrid (2002/2006). Her exhibition projects and publications include When the butterflies of the soul flutter their wings…, Art, Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and D3US EX M4CH1NA. Art and Artificial Intelligence (cat. Etopia/ LABoral Art Center, 2022); Eco visionaries (cat. Hatje Cantz, 2018); Art and Artificial Life. VIDA 1999/2012 (cat. Espacio Telefonica, Madrid, 2012); Ecomedia: Ecological Strategies in Today’s Art, (Hatje Cantz Verlag) or the trilogy banquet_nodos and networks (cat. SEACEX y Edición Turner, Madrid, 2009); Art and educational innovation in the digital age (cat. Laboral Centro de Arte, 2018) among many others.
Raquel Caerols Mateo holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication and a PhD in Applied Creativity from the Faculty of Fine Arts, both from the Complutense University of Madrid. She is currently a lecturer in the Faculty of Information Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid, in the area of new media. As a researcher, she has been responsible for the project Cyberculture & New Media Art, publicly funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, in the call for the Promotion of Contemporary Art. She has also been a researcher on numerous competitive research projects such as: Creation and studies of the CAAC (Collections and Archives of Contemporary art) of Cuenca as a methodological model for research excellence in Fine Arts; or Title: The electrographic and digital art collections of the MIDE. Management, conservation, restoration and dissemination of its collections; o Spanish Media Archive. He is currently coordinating the creation of the MediaLab Madrid Archive (2002-2006).
Beatriz Escribano Belmar. Lecturer at the Fine Arts Degree and the Master’s Degree in Teacher Training for Compulsory Secondary Education at the University of Salamanca, she researches mainly on Historical Media Art, Media Archeology and Art Education and Innovation. Bachelor of Fine Arts (2011) by the UCLM, she has a Research Master’s Degree in Multimedia and Visual Arts by the UPV (2012) and obtained her PhD in 2017 with a Doctoral Thesis focused on historical Media Art, electrography and Copy Art. After being beneficiary of a FPI Spanish research contract by JCCM (2014-2017), she was a postdoctoral researcher analyzing the Spanish contributions to Media Art. She has curated some exhibitions, collaborated in various R+D+i projects and done different research stays in the Department for Image Science (Danube University, Austria), in the Digital Media Lab (University of Bremen, Germany), in the CITU-Paragraphe (Université Paris 8, France) and the Winchester School of Art (UK), among others, and is author of different publications.
Panel / Art Intelligence
Abstract: While the advances in artificial intelligence in recent years have been astonishing, we are still quite far from the inception of an mechanical intellect that could perform like the human mind. The human qualities which are most challenging to replicate are exactly the ones related to art production and reception: metaphors, analogies, misbehavior, embodiment, contemplation. Will the route to an artificial general intelligence necessarily call at the realm of art? Can we think of a particular type of intelligencerelated to art that has not yet been obtained by machines?
Biography: Bruno Caldas Vianna lives in Barcelona. He is pursuing a doctorate from the Uniarts in Helsinki, Finland, in visual arts and artificial intelligence. He has a degree in Film from Universidade Federal Flumiense in Rio de Janeiro, and a master’s degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He creates visual narratives in innovative and traditional supports, having done short and feature films, live cinema, augmented reality, mobile apps and installations. He was a resident in Hangar, Barcelona, in 2008; in Laboral, Gijón, with the Vida production award winner project Ionic Satellite Fountain; In Quebec’s La Chambre Blanche and London’s Battlesea Arts Centre, among others. Between 2011 and 2016, he ran Nuvem, a rural space dedicated to art and technology in Brazil. From 2012 and 2018 he taught at Oi Kabum, a school for art in technology in Rio de Janeiro. He is part of the autonomous communications collective Coolab.
Panel / Art and possible relations in nature
Abstract: This panel brings three different projects to discuss possible relations of art and nature. We plan to present, think over, and bring about questions on how artists are dealing with climate change issues and how we can create new possibilities of living in balance with nature. Art projects of sensing the sea, of creating narratives of a salty lagoon and of rethinking ecologies of hops are introduced as a starting point of the discussion.
Biography: Karla Brunet is an artist, researcher, and a professor at IHAC-UFBA, in Salvador, Brazil.
Clara Boj is an artist, researcher, and a professor at Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, Spain
Diego Díaz is an artist, researcher, and a professor at Universitat Jaume I, Castellò de la Plana, Spain
Susana Cámara Leret is an artist and independent researcher.
Abstract: How far into others/ beyond ‘you’ can your body extend in the hybrid worlds we inhabit? What web-based conditions can provide a coalescing of varying practice and languages? What happens when they do? This workshop proposes three interrelated exercises to explore the involvement of the sensing body in machine-breathing-drawing-moving gestural entanglements from a critical and feminist standpoint that will culminate in a collective exhibition:
1)Kinesthesia: participants engage in corporeal explorations of stillness and movement to bring new forms of being in our bodies. Kinesthetic empathy can engage in and with another’s movement or sensorial experience of movement (Sklar). We will practice with performances by the Catalan artist Fina Miralles 2)Surrealists’ exquisite corpse: participants will draw parts of bodies, one by one without seeing the parts of the whole they will become part of. This will enable already collective or in-between fragmented states, playing with the possibility of entangling unconscious processes. 3)Mediated-Internet Body: participants will explore collective embodied compositions created through the collective mediated body. We will attempt this with a variety of gestural elements based on the previous 2 exercises and consider what we do and where we look while researching (note taking, shifting in our seats, managing browser tabs, etc.), using Zoom play: faux green screen, layering screenshot, etc.
This techno-body-experience workshop invokes series of minor gestures (Manning, 2016): gestures of care, of centering, body, self, hand drawing and playful engagement. It follows Sara Ahmed-ian lines such that each practice hones in on digital interaction and subsequently changes the affective response to each other—a re-orienting of our bodies. She points out: “when we follow specific lines, some things become reachable and others remain or even become out of reach” (2006, p.14). We co-compose a Bretch like-performance with multiple entry points of affective resonances and tonalities.
Biography: We are a feminist collective originally formed to support the drafting and defending of research-creation doctoral theses at Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology (Concordia University, Montreal). The collective includes researchers, artists, makers, and educators who gather to write, think and play to help ideas flow between bodies and pages, experiences and analytics.
Dr. Celia Vara is a psychologist, professor and artist. She implements research-creation methodologies drawing from kinesthesia to explore corporeality.
Florencia Marchetti is a multimedia ethnographer and documentarian. Her research investigates the affective resonances of violent pasts in everyday lives through an atmospheric lens.
Katja Philip is a Montreal based artist, designer, researcher and writer. Inspired by mindfulness and consciousness practices, and dada, she creates mixed media works and installations.
Dr. Magdalena Olszanowski is a Polish-born artist, writer, and faculty in Cinema and Media Arts. Her dissertation is a feminist analysis of young women’s 1990s web practices.
Workshop / Radio Play: Live Participatory Worldbuilding with GPT-3
Abstract: With recent advancements in machine learning techniques, researchers have demonstrated remarkable achievements in text synthesis, understanding, and generation. This hands-on workshop introduces a state-of-the-art transformer model (GPT-3) through an interactive event culminating in a live radio show and internet transmission. Participants will gain experience with Open AI’s GPT-3 as members of an AI writers’ room. We will discuss issues of liveness and serendipity; possibilities for human/non-human co-authorship; and relate computational processes to human language, perception, and ultimately how AI can be a tool for creativity and co-creation.
We are not just interested in what it means to co-author or rather collectivize or share authorship beyond the single human author but rather what the ingredients of liveness, audience participation, live sound scoring, working with actors or performers in the context of AI (GPT-3). It is important to note that the language model in this event has been primarily trained on English. What does that mean in a place like Barcelona where Catalan is always adjacent to Castellano? We will relate this to work in Barcelona that has explored GPT-3 such as Barcelona Super Computer Center’s explorations of Catalan question answering (see their recent paper here) and AIMCAT, the Catalan team who recently created an AI song.
The day-long workshop begins with a brief introduction to large language models and generative text; then proceeds through a series of AI writers rooms, gaining experience with prompt authorship and interaction with GPT-3. We will build towards human rehearsals of AI-generated text, culminating in a live radio show performance for both an in-person audience (30-40) and streamed to a large online audience. This final performance will be porous, inviting audience participation and involvement in shaping the development of the human/non-human radio drama.
Biography: Our interests range from speculative design to nomadic radio, collective storytelling, live-action-role-play, sonic environments, machine imagination and streaming public space. Patrick Coleman, Jinku Kim, Ash Eliza Smith, Robert Twomey and Radio EE: Agustina Woodgate, Hernan Woodgate and Stephanie Sherman.
Institutional presentation / European Media Art Plattform Expanded
Abstract: The European Media Art Platform (EMAP) was established in 2018 with the support of Creative Europe. 11 leading European media art organizations and festivals formed the platform to support media artists within a two months intercultural residency production ranging from media installations, virtual reality, robotics, AI and Bio Art, amongst others, to present and promote their works in group shows and as well to the 80 partner organizations which support and collaborate with EMAP to showcase the EMAP productions. Selected via open calls, the art projects deal with the most urgent challenges of our time, including climate change, environmental degradation, social inequalities, inclusion or digital surveillance. Artists bring these issues to the public and develop alternative ideas.
Continuing and developing their 2018 successfully established brand which builds upon the legacy of the European Media Artists in Residence Exchange established 1995, werkleitz and its members seek to expand both the platform and its activities to host and produce more artists, and to also create a major international platform to promote the artists’ productions and to foster knowledge transfer between artists and institutions, not only from Europe but across the world. 15 renowned institutions will host 45 media art residencies for new innovative collaborative productions in the field of art, digital media, technology, and science from 2022 until 2024. In addition, 30 mobility grants will be awarded to partner institutions aiming to present an EMAP work and 14 capacity building workshops will be offered by the members online.
Next to the challenge of artistic production with cutting edge technologies EMAP/EMARE is based on intercultural knowledge transfer which involves experts and specialists of diverse disciplines and the access to the facilities, labs and studios of the host organization. There is a special focus on art & science projects which reflect upon the effects of digital technologies on humans and nature. The works tour different members festivals and are promoted to museums, galleries, festivals and other institutions worldwide.
Biography: Peter Zorn works as producer, media researcher and media art curator and expert in Werkleitz and Halle (Saale). In 1993 he founded the Werkleitz Association, the Centre for Media Art Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. In 1995 he initiated and since then manages the European Artists in Residence Exchange (EMARE) which has expanded and is hosted since 2018 by the European Media Art Platform (EMAP), managed several EU funded projects and programs, is co-director of the Werkleitz Biennale / Werkleitz Festival and since 2011 director of Werkleitz award winning Professional Media Master Class.
Institutional presentation / TEKS – Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre
Abstract: This institutional presentation introduces TEKS – Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre – a non-profit organization founded in Trondheim, Norway in 2002. TEKS’s main activities include a) Meta.Morf – Trondheim international biennale for art and technology; b) TEKS.studio – a space for exhibitions, concerts, performances, seminars, lectures, and workshops; c) TEKS.press – a platform for publishing books, exhibition catalogs, and other publications; d) Norwegian Media Art Library – a collection of printed publications that cover the Norwegian media art field; e) and FAEN Academy – a pilot project supporting the development of new artworks by young female artists working with experimental art in Norway.
Biography: Zane Cerpina [LV/NO] is an interdisciplinary female author, curator, artist, and designer. Cerpina lives in Oslo and currently works as project manager/curator at TEKS (Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre) and editor at EE: Experimental Emerging Art Journal. From 2015 – 2019 she worked as creative manager at PNEK (Production Network for Electronic Art, Norway). Cerpina is the author of the The Anthropocene Cookbook: Recipes and Opportunities for Future Catastrophes, co-written with Stahl Stenslie and forthcoming at MIT Press, October 2022. Her extensive body of works also include curating and producing Meta.Morf 2022: Ecophilia; FAEN (Female Artistic Experiments Norway); The Dangerous Futures Conference 2018; Oslo Flaneur Festival 2016, and The Anthropocene Kitchen event series (2016-). Cerpina has initiated and been part of several important archival and research projects such as The Norwegian Media Art Library and is one of the editors for the Book of Electronic Arts Norway.
Institutional presentation / C-CATS – centre for creative arts and technologies at the university of Surrey
Abstract: The Centre for Creative Arts and Technologies (C-CATS) is an interdisciplinary research and production initiative grounded in the media of moving images and related artistic forms. We embrace film, animation, visual effects, games, interactivity, live performance, immersion, digital theatre and virtual production in all their current and future guises; without forgetting all the artistic and cultural forebears upon which all these modes of expression were built. C-CATS combines creative expression with technological innovation: a ‘no barriers’ approach through which we can both make great work and facilitate the future of making great work.
Biography: on Weinbren is Programme Director for Film, Animation and Digital Arts at the University of Surrey, and Founding Director of the Centre for Creative Arts and Technologies. Jon previously setup and ran the Games Department at the UK’s National Film and Television School, and brings many years of experience as a filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and director with credits in film, television, animation, VFX, games, commercials, promos and digital arts projects. Jon’s current practice research includes emotion portrayal in autonomous virtual actors, virtual production, machine-learning assisted film production, digital performance, and various other areas where different live, recorded and synthetised media forms collide and coalesce.
Institutional presentation / Manifestations – art, tech & fun festival
Abstract: Manifestations is a yearly Art & Technology festival in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. During the Dutch Design Week in October (350.000 visitors), we present 50-100 innovative and talented artists that develop accessible installations and artworks for a broad audience. All the artwork is about a more human technology – a lot of the work and projects we present are later in large international museums or festivals. At Manifestations we offer interactive artworks for events or festivals. We work with more than 5.000 international artists that create art using technology. We focus the spotlight on art and technology with a human dimension: sometimes confrontational and other times the perfect match, but always critical, playful, recognizable and awe-inspiring. Think of robot acts, performances with electronic music, exoskeletons, e-fashion art, data & privacy installations, artworks that integrate AI, sustainability, hackers, crypto nails, food printing and more.
The festival also reaches a non-art audience to prevent preaching to its own choir.
Other participants of the festival which will also present at ISEA are: Maartje Dijkstra, Jip van Leeuwenstein, Tim Dekkers, Daniëlle Ooms, more.
Biography: Viola van Alphen is an activist, writer, and former director of multimedia event GOGBOT, which was awarded as the Most Innovative Event of the Netherlands. She is now the creative director of Manifestations, an annual Art & Tech festival in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, with 35000+ visitors. With themes like Will the Future Design Us?, Internet-of-Women-Things, Superpower-to-the-People, Technology-as-Your-Perfect-Boyfriend, Monsters–Free-the-Byte, the festival addresses issues that create controversy and encourage the visitors to be more actively engaged in technology and the role they want technology to have and to not have in the future. Over 500 articles written about me and my work in the last 10 years • Co-developed the Atompunk theme with best-selling sci-fi author Bruce Sterling • Mentioned as trendwatcher and innovator • Delivered over 40 invited presentations at universities, museums, and businesses around the world within the last 10 years. Chosen in 2006 as Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
Abstract: A forgotten transformer station in Jena called TRAFO is workspace, event space, and exhibition space for „Künstlerische Tatsachen“. Here, a new innovation laboratory for contemporary art forms and media of the city of Jena is created. From June to September 2022, up to six international artists will work in pairs with scientists from local institutes on a joint research question. The starting point of the collaboration is the processual nature of the disciplines of art and science, which are often perceived as contrary: artistic practice as well as explorative basic research are characterized by experimentation and freed from the immediate demand to produce results that are close to application. Both require a high degree of abstraction and creativity. Based on this, the residency is designed as basic artistic research. It is aimed at artists who are engaged in the method as well as at Thuringian scientists who are open to an exchange with art and a disclosure of their research processes. Through the joint research process, the participants will explore the synergies of the disciplines, learn from each other, gain new perspectives on their work, and ultimately transform their findings into a work of art. „Künstlerische Tatsachen“ consists of a research phase in the institutes’ laboratories in July, a production phase in the studios starting in August, and an exhibition in October at TRAFO. An accompanying program with podiums with international guests from the Arts & Science scene, concerts and a participation format will open the discourse across generations for interested citizens from Jena and the surrounding area of central germany. Within the framework of the residency, the laboratory becomes the studio and the studio becomes the laboratory, so that the processual nature of both disciplines can be experienced by the participating artists, scientists and the public.
Biography: Born in Jena. Has been part of the re:publica program team since 2018 and was responsible for the rpCampus, among other things. He studied philosophy and cross-disciplinary strategy at the University of Leipzig and at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He is also the founder of Œuvre e.V. and schau e.V. and is involved in numerous artistic projects at the interfaces between art and activism as well as Arts & Science. He ist the project manager of „Künstlerische Tatsachen“.
Institutional presentation / Funding at the intersection of art, science and technology
Abstract: The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia has launched a four-year focus on arts, science and technology. The foundation sees great potential in transdisciplinary fields such as electronic art, bioart, tech art or new media art and is devoting special attention and funding to projects at the crossroads of disciplines. For that purpose, different initiatives and collaborations with scientific institutions such as CERN or the Swiss Polar Institute provide opportunities for artists and cultural practitioners to engage with transdisciplinarity or deepen their existing artistic practice. From 2021-2024, Pro Helvetia wishes to contribute to the exploration of social processes and the development of future prototyping.
Biography: Seraina Rohrer is the Head of Innovation & Society Sector since 2020 and member of the Executive Committee of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. She studied communication, film studies and computer science at the University of Zurich. For her PhD she was a visiting scholar at UCLA in California. For several years, she lived in Mexico and the USA, where she worked as a curator and an independent journalist. Her publications include the monograph «La India María: Mexploitation and the films of María Elena Velasco». From 2011 to 2019 she directed the Solothurn Film Festival, one of Switzerland’s largest cultural events, attracting around 70’000 spectators. From 2003 to 2009 she headed the press office of the international Locarno Film Festival.
Institutional presentation / Introducing the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community
Abstract: The ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community organizes juried online exhibitions of digital arts, and collaborates on arts-related events and exhibitions at the annual SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia conferences, as well as year-round. Our diverse, multi-generational community includes members from academic art and media programs, the professional media arts and game worlds, and scientists interested in the intersection of art and computation. We celebrate digital art history and encourage art-science partnerships at all levels. We also partner with the SIGGRAPH History Committee and ISEA on the development of digital art history archives.
Our most recent online exhibitions were entitled “The Earth, Our Home: Art, Technology and Critical Action” and “Digital Power: Activism, Advocacy, and the Influence of Women Online. We host a monthly presentation and discussion series, SPARKS: Short Presentations of Artworks & Research for the Kindred Spirit to introduce exhibitions and explore a wide range of topics. Introduced in the time of COVID, SPARKS will continue even as the world opens up again.
2021-2022 topics have included/will include:
-Screen Worlds: Net Art & Online Communities -Immersion, Interactivity, and Altered Realities -Environmental Issues, Sustainability, Climate Change -Robotics, Electronics and Artificial Intelligence -Art, Science and the Invisible World We Live In -Music in Social VR: Education, Installation, Conferences, and Performance -Creative Coding: Generative / Algorithmic Art and the Exploration of Authorship and Authenticity -Data: Visual Perception, Interpretation, and Truth -Within the Frame: Continuum of the Still Image -Conversations with Stelarc -Artists’ Games: Critical and Creative Approaches in New Media Art -Decolonial Media Art Beyond 530 Years: the future-past vs. coloniality -Experimental and Expanded Animation: Exploring Artistic Possibilities -Rediscovering and Reimagining Culture: Digital Art Practice in Asia Later in the year we plan to hold sessions around the Art and the Metaverse, Pioneers of Digital Art, and others.
Biography: Victoria Szabo is Chair of the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community. She is also a Research Professor of Visual and Media Studies at Duke University, USA.
Institutional presentation / Kulturtanken – Arts for Young Audiences Norway
Abstract:Arts for Young Audiences aims to support projects exploring how digital technologies can be used to i) distribute a portfolio of digital artistic projects to all Norwegian pupils, ii) develop explorative art works that utilize the digital languages and interests of young audiences, and iii) use mobile media and smartphones to present digital arts in new areas and arenas. For this purpose we have built our own, well equipped Digital Art Lab and development facility.
Biography: Stahl Stenslie (NO) artist, curator and researcher, specializing in experimental art, embodied experiences and disruptive technologies. His research and practice focus on the art of the recently possible – such as panhaptic communication, somatic sound and holophonic soundspaces; disruptive design for emerging technologies. He has been exhibiting and lecturing at major international events (ISEA, DEAF, Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH) and moderated symposiums like Ars Electronica (Next Sex), ArcArt and Oslo Lux. As a publisher he is the editor of EE – Experimental Emerging Art magazine www.eejournal.no, he has written numerous scientific articles and co-founded The Journal of Somaesthetics https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/JOS His PhD on Touch and Technologies: https://virtualtouch.wordpress.com Former professor in new media at The Academy of Media Arts, Cologne; The Oslo National Academy of The Arts; at Aalborg University (DK). Currently head of R&D at Arts for Young Audiences Norway (www.kulturtanken.no)
Institutional presentation / The Mixed and Augmented Reality Art Organisation: An Overview of Ten Years Since Our Launch at ISEA 2013
Abstract: This presentation will provide an overview of the previous ten years of operation for martart.org, or The Mixed and Augmented Reality Art Organisation, as we were originally launched as, as ISEA Sydney in 2013. Since our launch by the myself, Paul Thomas and Ross Harley marart.org has seen several conceptual transitions and a sound body of outputs, including exhibitions and symposiums in Adelaide, Munich, London, Fukuoka, Merida and Hertfordshire, exhibiting an evolving format that has progressed from defining augmentation and materiality through interface, body and archival politics and approaches, to fashion, privacy, ownership and identity, all in the context of mixed reality discourse. This presentation will showcase these outcomes and discuss how the organization has developed, our current status quo and future directions.
Biography: This is an open group for researchers dealing with mixed reality art focusing on augmentation aesthetics. It has a specific (conceptual) focus on convergent realities as art mediums and the theoretical discourses that surround this field. Founded in 2013 and launched at ISEA Sydney, we are the world’s first Arts organistaion dedicated to Arts-based research and practice that uses the aesthetics of augmentation to explore and engage with the world and interface the public with the prominent issues of our time. Most recently we have positioned our focus on the Augmentation of Ecological Aesthetics for the Post-Anthropocenic Era.
Institutional presentation / TeleAgriculture: A Crowd/Cloud Data Network for Creative Cultivation and Engagement in Agricultural Practices Through Art
Abstract: TeleAgriCulture is a community platform, providing a crowd/cloud data exchange network for information, stories, Art and innovation. Modular sensing kits are offered and are adaptable to most geographic locations and ecological conditions, providing real time sensory data that can be used to monitor and optimise conditions or for artistic production and scientific inquiry. This presentation will provide an overview of the TeleAgriCulture platform, its conceptual and organizational development and the artists’ works that have so far been produced, along with current and future projects.
Biography: Julian Stadon is an artist, designer, curator, researcher, and educator. His nomadic practice-based research interfaces art, bio-digital entanglements, identity, embodied interactivity, food ecologies, sustainability, culture and society. His PhD examines Post-Biological Identity and Augmentation Aesthetics through the Data Body Trader project, his establishment of The Mixed and Augmented Reality Art Organisation and the iterative processes, outcomes and conclusions resulting from those endeavours. Stadon has presented and his work and been academically active for nearly twenty years across five continents and currently teaches on the Interface Cultures program at Kunstuniversität Linz. He also runs an experimental agriculture project TeleAgriCulture and often works with Stadtwerkstatt, V2_, Donautics and Schwemmland.
Institutional presentation / A Path To Constructing A Diverse Future in Digital Media Arts
Abstract: Underrepresented minorities (URMs) interested in digital art and visual computing as career paths face unique challenges that can redirect their futures away from design. These challenges can be social, economic, or cultural and have historically led to a lack of diversity in the digital arts industry. Our institutions aim to get a better understanding of these challenges. We then hope to design solutions from the resulting research to create a pipeline that diversifies the future of art and technology. Our goal is to build roadmaps for URM middle-school students who wish to pursue art and technology in Higher Education and help overcome challenges that can hinder their ambitions.
This project stems from an ongoing collaborative research project between the Digital Media Arts Program at Prairie View A&M University and the Department of Visualization at Texas A&M University with industry guidance from Gearbox Software and funding from the Simons Foudation’s Science Sandbox. The project’s primary focus is increasing enrollment in high school courses that lead to students being college ready, with a long-term goal on career readiness for digital world building, game development and other visual computing disciplines, for this project. This project aims to understand and build tools to address cultural and socio-economic barriers faced by minority students that wish to pursue the combination of art and technology as a career choice. The research data gathered from this study will be used to improve curricula and address issues that cause friction in pursuing digital art and visual computing careers.
Biography:Hira Roberts is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media Arts at PVAMU. She has developed the courses for interactive media and game development offered at her institution. She has an undergraduate degree in Architecture and a graduate degree in digital art. She has a variety of skills ranging from 3D modeling, procedural world building, video game development, interactive installations, mixed reality and immersive art. Her projects incorporate emerging technologies combined with installations, projections, and virtual worlds along with traditional forms of art. Thematically, her work questions the transglobal binary expectations of women and questions the impact and influence of culture immigrant women in the United States.
Tracey L. Moore is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media Arts at PVAMU. She has a Bachelor of Art in Advertising Art and a Master of Fine Art in Studio art with a Concentration in Graphic Communications. Her research interests include merging graphic design and ethnographic principles for historic preservation.
Tim Mclaughlin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Visualization at Texas A&M University and has experience in the visual effects industry. His research interests include the use of 3D computer graphics in design, entertainment, and education.
Institutional presentation / EUR ArTeC in digital art and hydrological ecosystems
Abstract: The École universitaire de recherche (EUR) ArTeC is a consortium of fourteen French institutions including universities, grandes écoles, museums, and archives. Ar-TeC was established in 2018 at the initiative of universi-ties Paris 8, Nanterre, and Paris Lumière with the inten-tion to consolidate a long-term project on art and science for education and research. In this presentation we high-light some milestones over the last three years of devel-opment. Moreover, special attention will be given to the importance of ArTeC in the development of art-science and humanities-technologies projects. One of the pro-jects that will be showcased is HOM – Hydrology of Me-dia which aims at establishing connections at the cross-ing-boundaries between several disciplines and practices. We also discuss the role of ArTeC as an organizing part-ner of ISEA 2023 ,that will take place in Paris, France.
Biography: Everardo Reyes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Science at Université Paris 8 where he directs the MA/MSc in Digital Humanities. His main research interests are digital culture, information design, cultural analytics, and media art. He serves as the representative of ArTeC and Paris 8 in the organizing committee of ISEA 2023 in Paris.
Andres Burbano is a media history scholar and media artist, he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Design at Uni-versidad de los Andes, in Bogota, Colombia. Burbano holds a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California Santa Barbara. He is visiting professor at the Dan-ube University in Krems, Austria, and is currently visiting researcher at the University of Applied Sciences at Potsdam, Germany.
Institutional presentation / The ARTENSO_LAB: an incubator of digital cultural mediations
Abstract: ARTENSO is a center for the transfer of innovative social practices affiliated with Cégep de Saint-Laurent based in Montreal (Quebec, Canada). Its mission is to promote the general interests and specific issues related to research and innovation in art and social engagement in the field of cultural mediation. In fall 2021, the LAB_ARTENSO Incubator starts its activity to support teams/projects wishing to explore the connections between cultural mediation, digital devices, and collaborative processes. Selected through a call for projects, the proposals come from artists, mediators, and representatives of organizations wanting to find an innovative response to issues involved in relationships between the cultural field and the social field. The theme for this first year is geolocation, mapping and storytelling through the use of interactive and participatory positioning and mapping technologies. The selected projects are diverse, but all speak of links between culture, city and citizenship. ARTENSO is extending the incubation and support project in digital cultural mediation with a research aimed at documenting collaborative practices at the heart of the cohorts. While digital culture approaches (living labs, hackatons, creative sprints) are increasingly getting attention for their democratizing force in the field of cultural mediation, in Quebec, few studies have investigated them.
This presentation aims to share the characteristics and effects of cultural Labs based on the model of the ARTENSO center. We are strongly interested in sharing learnings on how to support novel processes of carrying out digital cultural projects. The presentation falls into the theme of “Educations and societies” by asking questions about contemporary ways of learning and transmission in a complex, open and interdisciplinary world.
Institutional presentation / Crossing over from digital practices to media arts and into social innovation: School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica (SI)
Abstract: The University of Nova Gorica School of Arts is a young and dynamic art school, offering interdisciplinary study programs in Digital Arts and Practices (BA) and its follow-up – Master of Arts in Media Arts and Practices, through the Modules of Animation, Film, Photography, New Media, Scenographic spaces and Art-Science-Technology, with a focus on Contemporary Art Practice. To foster students’ development as independent creators, researchers, and agents of change, the school pursues a personal approach and an advanced attitude toward interdisciplinary cooperation as well as artistic research, in particular in combining the arts with other disciplines within and beyond academia.
In recent years, the school has led major EU-supported projects such as:
MASTmodule.eu – Master Module in Art, Science and Technology; IDEATE.me – Interdisciplinary Transformations in Education ADRIART.net – Advancing Interactions in Art Teaching.
Besides such pedagogy and curriculum development projects, they have been fostering international alliances and advancing interdisciplinary research in projects such as:
DIVA – Art:Biz Innovation Ecosystems; KONS – Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art; TV Free Europe – 1,5 million Steps over the Borders; EmindS – Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurial Mindsets; HiLoVv – Hidden Lives of Venice on Video; PAIC – Participatory Art for Invisible Communities; and have founded ADRIART.CE, a growing network of art academies from Central and South Eastern Europe.
Biography: Kristina Pranjić, PhD is Assistant Professor at both Humanities and Arts, working across fields of avantgarde art, semiotics and contemporary aesthetics. She teaches Theory and History of Art and Media and is module leader of Discourses in Practice at the School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica.
pETER Purg, PhD is Associate Professor at both Arts and Humanities, University of Nova Gorica, whose new-media art (thinking) practice ranges from performance to education and interdisciplinary research. He is Dean of the School of Humanities and New Media module lead as well as coordinator of international projects such as MAST, konS or DIVA.
Institutional presentation / FILE FESTIVAL – Archive implementation
Abstract: The presentation is about the implementation process of the digital archive of FILE – Electronic Language International Festival. The digital archive of FILE festival is being carried out according to a defined semantic and data modelling, including the input of data information for the years 2015 to 2019, aiming at its organization in the Tainacan digital repository. The talk will also point out the practical developments arising from the FILE ALIVE online meetings, held in March 2021, and more specifically what emerged from the session entitled “Archive as an Institution”, in which an alliance of partners was effected between the team ISEA (International Electronic Art Symposium), ACM SIGGRAPH (Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) and FILE; with the common objective of seeking interconnection between the digital archives of each organization.
Biography: Specialized in new media, contemporary art and digital culture, Paula Perissinotto is Co- organizer and Co- curator of FILE, Electronic Language International Festival, a non-profit cultural organization that promotes and encourages aesthetic and cultural productions related to the new poetics of contemporary culture. At the festival she is responsible for the selection of works, international relations and also calls for project management carried out in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba and Porto Alegre. In 2020, started as a doctoral student at the University of São Paulo, School of Communications and Arts | ECA, in Visual Poetics. Member of the Revalidates Research Group licensed by CNPq, led by Profa. Dr. Silvia Laurentiz who in turn, is formally affiliated with the School of Communications and Arts and the Department of Visual Arts, ECA / USP.
Dalton Martins work with research on the interface between computer science and information science, focusing specifically on data science and websemantics/open data linked applications for digital collections development and data analysis of memory insti-tutions’ collections. Currently coordinates the Tainacan project, in partnership with the Brazilian Institute of Museums.
Institutional presentation / 27 years of artistic exploration – merging pixel, particles and people – MAD emergent art center
Abstract: In the early days of Multimedia MAD emergent art center was bringing the new media platforms to the city of Eindhoven and Dutch creative industry to foster new artistic practice, connecting to networks in society and reaching out to a broad public.
In 2000 MAD emergent art center transformed into a new phase: the name changed to MAD emergent art center. Collaborators are artists, designers, technologists, working as freelancer, volunteer, partner, together with interns and students.
Pioneering into new possibilities and exploring technologies is showing a track of fast changing perspectives and realities. Now in 2022 we see the term Digital Culture settled in academic, policy and economic realms.
MAD emergent art center has been catching up with sequential development of cultural implementations of technology, by creating ever new approaches. MAD ways of working shows a number of different activities.
Along the way we have seen paradigms change: from pure artistic autonomy to relevance for society; from technology focus to human esthetics; from economic niche to crucial ingredient in innovation. Having an optimistic view on the future we believe we can make a difference, and will imagine things no man has seen before.
New horizons unfold as we progress in time, unlocking metaverses, dreaming of quantum leaps, imagining AI enabled sustainable societies, where humans are key to a new balance between nature and artificial realities.
Next up is our focus on the urban ecosystems where the big issues of our times become apparent and urgent. Artists and scientists are on the forefront of new solutions and systemic change. We need to support and facilitate their research and operation.
Biography: Born and raised in the South of the Netherlands, Paré (66) studied visual communication at Design Academy Eindhoven. After working as allround designer in the industry, in 1990 graphic design studio Grafico de Poost was founded. Working in the first wave of desktop publishing and multimedia, the development of the CD-i at Philips Electronics led to collaboration and pioneering into interactive media design. Soon the need was felt to involve artists and designers in further exploration of the new media and digital technologies. This was the starting point for the 1995 foundation of MAD emergent art center, with co-founders Wim van der Plas, Leo Bakx, Dirk Boon. Now Paré is experienced designer of models and manifestations that are innovative and advanced in technology, information, networking. Consultant for implementation of high tech to experience/product solutions. Established: Stadslab Eindhoven MAD emergent art center Spin offs MAD: – Open Data platform Eindhoven – Eindhoven Maker Faire – Manifestations festival – Albert van Abbehuis (AvA) Science Hack Day Eindhoven Mindhoven Image Radio festival Grafico de Poost, concept design publishing
Institutional presentation / Creating digital & thinking about Frontiers
Abstract: TOPO was founded in Montreal (Canada) in 1993. The centre grew out of the will of its founding members to develop a structure for the organization of collective and multidisciplinary projects, a will that very soon expanded to explore a digital new era for the artists.
TOPO’s creative, circulation, training, and mediation activities contribute to the development of its disciplinary field, at the crossroads of the visual arts, literature, and digital media. The centre guides, supports, and produces interactive projects, receives artists in residence, and offers specialized workshops. Its dissemination component explores innovative modes of presentation for digital artworks through exhibitions, performances, publications, and circulation on the web and in local, national, and international networks.
A member of the creative hub and exhibition space Pied Carré, in Montreal (Canada), the centre occupies a multifunctional production space open to the community and has an exhibition showcase on the ground floor of the building, in the Mile-End neighbourhood of Montreal. From 2019 to 2022, TOPO proposed a thematic program around “Frontier”, with exhibitions, workshops, performances, artist presentations and a printed publication with a digital version to enhance the user experience.
Anchored in humanity’s history, this subject combines many questions brought up by the artist-centre which are as much political and social as physical and technological.
Seven authors have been invited to express a deeper reflection about borders by writing theoritical esays, three of them about the exhibitions and web projects, and four others about different meanings and approaches to the notion of border. This presentation will also address the strategies adopted by this artist-run centre to cross over physical exhibitions towards online dissemination. TOPO is a pioneer in web art and its director aims to bridge the past with the present times.
Biography: Michel Lefebvre is General Director of TOPO, an art center dedicated to creation, production and dissemination of new media projects at the crossroads of visual arts, literature and digital narrativity. The centre celebrates in 2022 more than 20 years of presence on the web which started with the web-radio fiction LIQUIDATION, a photonovel created with photographer Eva Quintas. The photonovel was also produced on a CD-ROM as a random fiction using a generative engine. Since then he has pursued the exploration of digital writings with TOPO, which has created and produced numerous interactive projects with artists of different disciplines. Michel Lefebvre started in the 80’s his artistic career as a poet, author and cultural organizer.
Institutional presentation / CYLAND MediaArtLab
Abstract: Founded in 2007, CYLAND is a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding the intersection of Art :: Tech through an annual international festival, visual exhibitions, sound art, video art, and educational programming. CYLAND brings together artists, curators, technologists, educators, and thinkers to create innovative projects around the world CYLAND houses the largest archive of Eastern European video art online, organizes exhibits around the world, and is the force behind CYFEST. CYFEST has been held at world-renowned art institutions, including The State Hermitage Museum (Youth Educational Centre), Made in NY Media Center by IFP, National Arts Club (New York), Dartington Trust (UK), Ca’ Foscari University – Venice Biennale, Tate Modern (UK), the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, the Sergey Kuryokhin Modern Art Center, St. Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design (Museum of Applied Arts), Borey Gallery, the Gallery of Experimental Sound (the Museum of Sound) and Creative Space TKACHI. In September 2020, CYLAND Media Art Lab has become the official representative of The Leonardo / LASER Talks. CYLAND was cofounded by Marina Koldobskaya and Anna Frants. cyland.org | facebook @cyland.mediaartlab | Instagram @cylandlab
Biography: Anna Frants is an internationally renowned New Media artist and curator who co-founded CYLAND Media Art Lab. CYLAND is one of the most active New Media art nonprofit organizations, and houses the largest archive of Eastern European video art online. CYLAND collaborates with museums, galleries, universities, information resources, research facilities and other media labs. In September 2020, CYLAND Media Art Lab has become the official representative of The Leonardo / LASER Talks. As Co-Founder of CYLAND Media Art Lab (cyland.org), Frants organizes exhibitions at top art and technology institutions around the world; as a curator and artist, Frants is an important voice in the cultural dialogue surrounding experimental and new media art. Frants has contributed to symposiums and panels for universities, festivals. Her works are exhibited worldwide. http://annafrants.net/
Natalia Kolodzei, an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, is a curator and art historian. Ms. Kolodzei is Executive Director of the Kolodzei Art Foundation (a US-based 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public foundation established in 1991), and, along with Tatiana Kolodzei, owner of the Kolodzei Collection of Eastern European Art, containing over 7,000 artworks (paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photography, kinetic and digital art) by over 300 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Ms. Kolodzei has curated over eighty art exhibitions in the US, Europe and Russia. She is an author and editor of multiple publications and organized and contributed to symposiums and panel discussions for universities and museums worldwide, including co-chair Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) CYLAND Talks. In 2010 she was a member of Culture Sub-Working Group under the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. http://www.kolodzeiart.org/
Institutional presentation / Data, AI and Design in Sustainability
Abstract: This presentation will introduce an educational program called “Data+AI+Design” that includes a series of workshops and guest speaker lectures in the intersection between art, design, technology, and sustainability. The topics specifically include the use of artificial intelligence (AI), data analysis, data visualization, interaction design, and interactive media technology to address the issues and solutions in sustainability. Many internationally recognized scholars, artists, designers, and researchers participated in the events. Students had chances to learn how AI impacts the design and what they can make out of the current AI technologies for design solutions for sustainability in many approaches.
Biography: Yoon Chung Han is an interaction designer, multimedia artist, and researcher. Her researches include data visualization, biometric data visualization and sonification, a new interface for musical expression, and multimodal sensory user experience design. Her recent research focus was on multimodal interactions using body data, in particular on creating a personalized experience in media arts using biometric data visualization and sonification. Her works have been presented in many international exhibitions, conferences, and academic journals such as ACM SIGGRAPH, Japan media arts festival, ZKM, NIME, ISEA, IEEE VIS, ACM CHI, and Leonardo Art Journal. She holds a Ph.D. at the Media Arts and Technology, UC Santa Barbara, and currently is an Assistant Professor in Graphic Design at the Department of Design in the San Jose State University.
Institutional presentation / Mixed Reality and Visualization – Designing Multisensual Experiences Using the Whole Body
Abstract: MIREVI is an acronym for Mixed Reality and Visualization and describes the main areas of our interdisciplinary research team. As part of the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf, Germany, we focus on human-computer interaction to improve various parts of life. With members of our “Kunst und Kultur Brigade” (art and culture brigade) we specifically look at collaborations with artists and cultural institutions and work on very different levels in the context of dance, performance, digital media and participation.
Biography: Christian Geiger leads MIREVI Lab, which researches in the field of VR/AR/MR and Human-Technology Interaction, Robotics, Digital Health and Intelligent Systems. One focus of the work is on motion-based interfaces and the use of digital technologies in art and cultural contexts. In particular, non-technical aspects of user experience and social and ethical implications are considered.
Performance artist and choreographer Charlotte Triebus researches with her ensemble New Human Body Society and MIREVI (Mixed Reality & Visualization, www.mirevi.de), University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf at the interface between dance, art and technology. She combines artistic practice and theoretical research, specifically asking about the acting body, agency and queer identity relations.
Ivana Družetić-Vogel is part of the MIREVI team at the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf since 2018 where she manages several projects at the intersection of art, culture and Mixed Reality technologies. She graduated in Cultural Studies (BA) and holds an MA in Cultural Anthropology and Museum Studies.
Institutional presentation / Science Visualization Lab of the University of Applied Arts Vienna
Abstract: The common understanding of modern scientific research becomes more and more difficult as activities are carried out in size and time ranges we cannot perceive with the naked eye. The key to understanding as well as creative new research ideas is often a visualization of these hidden processes. The Science Visualization Lab at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria specializes in making invisible scientific phenomena visible and disseminating this visual information in various ways.
Biography: Martina R. Fröschl studied media technique and media design and wrote her thesis about computer-animated scientific visualizations of tomographic scanned microscopic organic entities. The depiction of realities and biological phenomena has ever since driven her creations. She contributed to various documentary and fictional productions for TV and cinema as visual effects and CG-artist. Her recent computer animations are based on scientific imaging data in collaboration with imaging experts and biologists. Currently, she is a senior researcher at the Science Visualization Lab of the University of Applied Arts Vienna at the Department of Digital Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and chairwomen of the PIXELvienna Society.
Institutional presentation / Bajo el Olivo (International Creative Artist Residency)
Abstract: The creative arts residency, “Bajo el Olivo” is an emerging platform designed to foster the theoretical and creative ways that a radical entanglement is intra-connected with a situated perspective—one that flourishes as a transversal site for artistic events and research, building resilience in ecological continuity, community building and storytelling. Most importantly, bringing other forms of life into light to suggest that we have become ‘post-human’, since our mode of being is dependent on complex entanglements with animals, ecosystems, and technology.
The creative resident protagonists, visitors who are mapping the terrain with other multi-species (human and non-human in nature) are the collaborators. In this context, they are contributing to the artistic, philosophical, methodological, and sociocultural matter that takes place in a transformative site for creative practice. This method of thinking suggests that (re)working the relational thought of working with other(s) in performative field work, can produce unexpected ruptures in dominant thinking about nature and culture. Besides being non-human, ‘creatures’ can be regarded as parts of society that move past questions of representation and abide with us in multi-species worlds.
Biography: Juliana España Keller, PhD, is a Canadian, Swiss, British sound performance and electronic artist presently living and working remotely in Alhaurín el Grande (Malaga), (Andalusia) Spain. Juliana takes a lead in producing multi/trans/interdisciplinary works to a listening public. Her ‘Sonic Public Kitchen’ works have been exhibited in site-specific spaces globally and contribute to participatory practices in feminist materialist and posthuman theory. Juliana completed her practice-led PhD doctoral research at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia (2020) and currently teaches remotely as a Professor/Lecturer in the Studio Arts Program of Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Juliana owns and directs “Bajo El Olivo” International Creative Arts Residency in the heart of the province of Malaga, Andalusia, Spain. This artist retreat sustains and develops a collaborative deep ecology dedicated to a platform of transdisciplinary art practices, Ecophilosophy and social community engagement.
Institutional presentation / Art-science cooperations at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies
Abstract: The Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam (Germany) conducts research with the goal of understanding, advancing, and guiding processes of societal change towards sustainable development. Our researchers collaborate with diverse actors from science, policymaking and public administration as well as arts to develop a common understanding of sustainability challenges and generate potential solutions. Artists can work at the Institute for a year as part of the Fellow Program or get in touch with the platform “Art-Science Cooperations for Sustainability” if they are interested in a collaboration with researchers in a specific project. At the IASS we also conduct research with the goal of understanding the role and transformative potential of art in societal change.
Biography: Teresa Erbach studied psychology, philosophy, and literature in Munich Germany, Toulouse, and Berlin, and worked freelance in artistic and scientific contexts for three years after graduation. From 2020 to 2021, she was a project leader at the social research institute Mauss Research before joining the IASS in June 2021 as a research associate in the project Narratives and Images of Sustainability.
Institutional presentation / Balance-Unbalance. Ecology and Citizenship
Abstract: We are living in a world reaching a critical point. The equilibrium between a healthy environment, the energy our society needs to maintain or improve its usual lifestyle, and the world’s interconnected economies have recently passed from a delicate balance to a new reality, where unbalance seems to be the rule. Traditional disaster management approaches are not enough to deal with the current problems and the rising risks. New forms of collaboration are needed to inspire people and organizations to link knowledge with action.
Artists could inspire new explorations and contribute with innovative perspectives and critical thinking to actively participate in solving some of our major challenges, such as the spiraling environmental crisis. We need to develop creative ways to facilitate a paradigm shift toward a sustainable tomorrow. Creative thinking, innovative tools, and transdisciplinary actions could produce perceptual, intellectual and pragmatic changes. One of the initiatives that aim to use the media arts as a catalyst, with the intent of generating a deeper awareness and creating lasting intellectual working partnerships to face the many facets of the environmental crisis, is: The Balance-Unbalance international project, which explores [art, science, technology] intersections between nature and society.
In this context of global threats: Can the [media] arts and artists help? Everyone has a role in the construction of the future, artists, too. We must search, investigate, reflect, and act. We can create, and we can also invite others to analyze, engage, envision and act. It is not possible to wait longer or to delegate personal responsibilities. By bringing people from very different sectors of our society to think together and facilitate multi and transdisciplinary collaborative project developments, Balance-Unbalance and its associated initiatives are turning feasible to connect artistic creation and tangible tools for change. Balance-Unbalance has been contributing to making social transformation happen.
Biography: Dr. Dal Farra is professor of electronic arts and music at Concordia University, Canada, and director of the electronic arts center CEIARTE-UNTREF, Argentina. He is Founder of the international symposia Balance-Unbalance (BunB) and Understanding Visual Music (UVM). Dal Farra has been director of Hexagram in Canada, coordinator of the Multimedia Communication national program of the Federal Ministry of Education in Argentina, senior consultant of the Amauta New Media Art Centre of Cusco in Peru, and researcher of UNESCO, France, for its project Digi-Arts. He designed university and high school programs in art-science. Ricardo created the Latin American Electroacoustic Music Collection hosted by the Daniel Langlois Foundation, Canada. He is a board member of ISEA International, and of Leonardo (MIT Press), Organised Sound (Cambridge Press), and Artnodes (UOC) editorial boards. With a Ph.D. in Arts, Dal Farra is a composer and artist specialized in transdisciplinary actions with science and emergent technologies.
Institutional presentation / Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Abstract: Since June 2021, the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia (UPV) has a Vice-rectorate for Art, Science, Technology and Society responsible for creating a participatory and socially responsible community. The programming of its activities is aimed to comprehensively train students through transdisciplinary programs, associative, sports, volunteer activities, etc., related to the Sustainable Development Goals, based on the principles of equality, diversity and social inclusion. Among the functions of this vice-rectorate’s office are promoting a participatory culture, preserving heritage, promoting open science, fostering University Social Responsibility (RSU), favoring solidarity and social commitment, guaranteeing equality and diversity, integrating people with functional diversity, support permanent education and encourage graduates to continue their links with the UPV.
Biography: Salomé Cuesta. Vice-rector for Art, Science, Technology and Society (UPV) and María José Martínez de Pisón. Director Cultural Action Area (UPV). Since 1990, the Group Light Laboratory, located in the Faculty of Fine Arts in Valencia, has functioned as a meeting, study and research space for aesthetic and expressive principles linked to the light-image. Currently, the components of the laboratory belong to different departments and their participation varies depending on the proposals that are being developed: working between the collective and the individual, between university research and artistic activity, between the production of projects and the dissemination of texts, as an area open to those who want to develop their work under this interdisciplinary structure.
Institutional presentation / FeLT – Futures of Living Technologies
Abstract: This entails how we sense life in the environment, in other beings and ourselves in an existence being constantly enhanced by technology. Questioning this situation, evokes a sense of the uncanny and a fear of being dominated by the machine, but also reveals possibilities of becoming, creation of new forms and behaviors. Could we develop aliveness and create a more balanced existence? Can we enhance our senses and communication abilities to become beings that are more adept at co-existence?
The core of FeLT is to investigate such ambiguous questions by artistic means in proximity to computer science research. State-of-the-art scientific research provides inventories of living systems and their functions: intelligence, evolution, reasoning and learning. This is made available as an artistic material that is discursive and performative, rather than representational.
Through residencies and workshops, we will develop a body of works to present, reflect and share artistic examples and experiments. By entering a transdiciplinary discourse from an artistic point of view, we will learn more about the transdiciplinary as a way to navigate in complex, layered realms of sensuous experience and knowledge.
Questions and speculations that are not addressed or fully developed otherwise, can emerge through employing artistic methods. We will join together artistic methods and aesthetics from bio art and techno ecologies with contemporary perspectives on sensory experience and materiality in artistic production and research.
Inspired both by artistic works and contemporary, theoretical and scientific perspectives on technology, ecology and aesthetics, we will develop a transdiciplinary working environment driven by artistic research.
Biography: Kristin Bergaust is educated at the University of Oslo and at National Academy of Fine Art in Oslo. She works as an artist, researcher and educator. She is a professor at the Faculty of Technology, Art and Design in OsloMet, Oslo since 2008. She was formerly professor and head of Intermedia at Trondheim Academy of Fine Arts, NTNU (2001-2008) and artistic director of Atelier Nord media lab for artists (1997 to 2001). Kristin is one of the pioneers of the self-organized early media art scene in Norway from the early 1990-ies. Her feminist, trans-cultural and relational perspectives on contemporary conditions are investigated through performative and technological strategies, sometimes also fed by cultural history or other narratives. Experiments with the communicative and the sensory are inherent both in research and art.
Institutional presentation / What has heritage to say in locally productive and globally connected city?
Abstract: Most European cities, large and small, face the challenge of transforming industrial heritage sites. Industrial areas, once hotspots of infrastructure, workers, knowledge, and innovation, have often been abandoned, reduced or relocated due to urban changes, and a shift towards a global extractive economic model. As a consequence, not only historical buildings are being demolished, but neighborhoods are losing elements of their cultural identity and traditions. The importance of preserving aspects of the local identity combined with the necessity of developing a more resilient and sustainable productive model requires innovative strategies for sustainable urban regeneration. Within the CENTRINNO Horizon 2020 European Project, Fab Lab Barcelona explores an alternative urban regeneration of Poblenou’s neighborhood in Barcelona as a creative, locally productive, and inclusive hub. The strategies tested by the local team, connected with the Fab City approach for globally connected and locally productive cities and regions, propose a new urban, economic, social and industrial model that fosters local sustainable production and cross-collaboration with stakeholders and existing initiatives in Poblenou. Maker skills, industrial heritage, manufacturing practices and circular principles are being combined to test a collaborative and inclusive local economy model.
Biography: Milena Juarez (female) is a Brazilian environmental engineer with a master’s in Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability and specialization in Urban and Industrial Ecology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. With a large experience in research, Milena has been actively involved in various interdisciplinary research projects in the field of circular economy, resilient cities, co-creation, and sustainable food. She currently coordinates the Barcelona pilot for CENTRINNO EU project at IAAC and works as an action researcher for the REFLOW and FOODSHIFT EU projects. As one of the responsible for community engagement at Fab Lab Barcelona, Milena supports the local activities at the Fab City Hub, a co-creation distributed space to design the future for urban self-sufficiency.
Pablo Muñoz Unceta (male) works as a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona. He works in EU funded projects on productive cities and circular economy. His background is in architecture, planning and urban design and he holds a MSc in the European post-master of urbanism at TU Delft. He has professional experience in Latin American and Europe in different projects and institutions, having worked on topics such as participatory planning, circular economy, social housing and urban regeneration. He has worked for the Municipality of Lima, the World Bank or the Metropolitan Housing Observatory of Barcelona. As researcher, he has been involved in projects with PUCP university in Lima, TU Delft, or Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. Pablo collaborates with offices in Rotterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, and Brussels in projects at the intersection of sustainability, spatial analysis, and urban and housing policies.
Institutional presentation / AI4FUTURE
Abstract: Can Artificial Intelligence be a creative tool for better understanding the social changes we are facing? Through a two-years journey – ending in September 2022 – an international network of urban labs is exploring what artists, computer scientists and young activists can do when they work together. Co-funded by the Creative Europe programme, AI4Future is contributing to improve the knowledge on new possible meanings of Mobility after the emergence of the Covid. This is, in fact, is the first social challenge chosen by the partners: Mobility in its various meanings, that is mobility across national borders, green & sustainable transportation, mobility in a phygital world or connected to gender equality issues. Each partner is shaping with its community a corner of “local” history in order to investigate different perspectives on the issue.
The young activists have been involved since the beginning for the design of the whole journey. Four statements, one for each hosting cultural center, have been produced with them during dedicated workshops: they represent the challenges they are advocating for with their associations.
Four artists among the ninety candidates have been selected for answering these challenges. Chunju Yu, Nino Basilashvili, Bernat Cuní and Luca Pozzi are working in residencies in Rotterdam, Cagliari, Barcelona and Milan. They are developing AI-based works, cooperating with young activists on their local mission. At the end of the residency period the AI-based works will be presented to the local community. With this approach, art and new technologies become ways to help dialogue and consciousness, creating relations, empathy and wonder.
The exhibit in Barcelona, hosted by Espronceda during ISEA, will be used to test the prototypes made so far. The final artworks will be presented in September in Milan, together with scientists and humanists, for an attempt to redefine the concept of mobility in the post-covid era.
Biography: Artistic director of Sineglossa. After an MA in Analytical Philosophy at the University of Bologna and a master in performing arts, he directed shows represented worldwide until 2014, when he founded Sineglossa, a research center and cultural enterprise. He deals with creating phygital ecosystems in which artists, scientists, entrepreneurs and public administrations cooperate to produce economic and social development. Multimedia designer in the ADI Design Index, artistic director of art+b=love(?) Festival, scientific director of the book series Nonturismo/Ediciclo – Itas Award/ best guide to Mountain 2020 -, AI4Future scientific coordinator, art&science advisor for several museums and private organisations. He is a contributor for online and offline magazines of contemporary art, urban regeneration and cultural economy.
Institutional presentation / Alterscience research project: the new political subjects of knowledge
Abstract: The limitations of scientific thought, restricted to rigid paradigms, prevent new proposals from being conceived, devised, or absorbed.
Alterscience designates a confluence of philosophical perspectives, aesthetic, spiritual, moral, and physical; it combines emerging theories, such as ecology, feminism, decolonialism, class struggle, negritude, anti-racism, and anti-speciesism, resituating the science in a process of theoretical, experimental, philosophical, moral and paradigmatic reconstruction, breaking with its ideological territories and unquestionable epistemologies.
It aims at an investigative stance open to a different knowledge construct, with continuous reflection, sociopolitical engagement and consequential pedagogical practices. It institutes a paradigmatic revision, intending to interweave logic, philosophy and spiritual traditions, current and potential modes of intelligence.
Alterscience is proposed as a science that respects life implying the acceptance that living beings, whether human or non-human, are sacred and therefore have inalienable rights. This vision creates an inevitable confrontation with the foundations of the dominant science, historically governed by positivism, determinism and technological rationalism and mechanisms of colonization and control that allowed the subjugation of a multitude of beings, the manipulation of animals, plants, and the planet itself.
This behavioral logic of exploitation of life, implicitly validated by science, is insidiously extended to the treatment of human beings, tacitly considered as machines, devoid of sacredness, without rights to life, dignity, respect, and therefore available to be controlled, experimented, exploited and exhausted. The proposal stimulates a broad reflection on Sciences and Alterciences, for identify new topics of knowledge, alternative objectives, modalities or methods of knowing; to unveil other objects and dimensions; to experiment with different languages, agencies, instruments, modalities; to conceive multi- and inter- visualities and dimensionalities; to examine new forms for knowledge legitimation, to implement non-proprietary processes of information dissemination, application and transformation; to absorb additional subjects of knowledge and to reach and augment the beneficiaries of science.
Biography: Artur Matuck is teacher at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, since 1984. He has a been a scholar, writer, artist, mediasopher, lecturing worldwide on Literary Theory, Media History, Digital Writing and Science Studies. He is an artivist for animal rights and liberation, for society’s unrestricted access to information, software, technology and medications. The Alterscience, a present research, project purports a Science based on compassion and planetary consciousness.
Daniela Ernst is Biologist, Master in Science Teaching, Postgraduate in Biotechnology. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Postgraduate Program in Humanities, Rights and Other Legitimacies/PPGHDL/Diversitas, USP.
Adriana Bobilho is Psychologist, Art therapist, and women’s group facilitator. Member of the Interdisciplinary Group of Studies: Alterscience and Intercomunication – Diversitas FFLCH/U.
Antônio Rodrigues is Visual Artist and Researcher, PhD candidate at the Interunits Program in Aesthetics and Art History – PGEHA – USP.
Institutional presentation / From Landscape to Laboratory
Abstract: Bioart Society is a Helsinki-based art association developing, producing and facilitating activities around art and natural sciences with an emphasis on biology, ecology and life sciences. It runs SOLU Space, an artistic laboratory and platform for art, science and society, and Ars Bioarctica, a residency program with focus on the sub-arctic environment. The conceptual framework of the work of the Bioart Society is guided by the idea of hybrid ecologies and aims to develop, test, and evaluate artistic practices able to address the current environmental challenges. Hybrid ecologies are a thought vehicle to talk about the intentional and unintentional transformation of our planet through human activity. They address the convergence of our environment with technology. A hybrid ecology consists of naturally evolved actors but also of those which are human-made and -caused. These include technologies, like robots, software, AI, networks, and infrastructure, but increasingly also genetically engineered plants, animals, and bacteria, as well as sites of extraction, pollution, and waste. The new biological actors specifically blur the boundary between the traditional binary of natural and artificial as they are biological in material but technological in nature. From this, it becomes clear that the environment which contemporary environmental art needs to address has radically shifted from its original understanding. What is contemporary environmental art in a time where the biological becomes a question of technology, engineering, and commodification? What kind of artistic engagement and practices can contribute, among others, as a force and vector for transformation to address and act towards the increasing pressure human activity is putting on the planet and on the quality of life of contemporary and future beings? With a diverse program of workshops, work-labs, field laboratories, artwork productions, residencies, and exhibitions the Bioart Society aims to unravel artistic questions about the contemporary biological condition.
Biography: Erich Berger is a curator, cultural worker and artist with over 25 years of experience of working with transdisciplinary projects within art, science and technology. Since 2009 he directs the Bioart Society in Helsinki/Finland, an artist association fostering transdisciplinary work between art and science with a focus on biology, ecology and life sciences. Prior to that he worked among other venues as chief curator for Laboral Centro De Arte in Gijon/Spain (2007-09), as content developer and producer for Atelier Nord (2004-06) in Oslo/Norway and as researcher at the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz/Austria (1996-99). With the Bioart Society Berger has successfully developed, managed, produced and participated in several multi year projects like HYBRID MATTERs (Nordic Culture Fund) or Changing Weathers, Techno Ecologies and SYNENERGE (EU Culture and FP7). In 2017 the Bioart Society under the direction of Berger received the Finnish State Prize for Interdisciplinary Art.
Institutional presentation / UNESCO Creative Cities of Media Arts – City to City initiative
Abstract: There are now 22 UNESCO Creative Cities of Media Arts, the first having been designated in 2013. The Media Arts Network adopted a plan to collaborate over the achievement of a number of objectives relating to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. A joint commissioning project was proposed in 2019 as a way for media artists to explore creative practice in all the cities in the Network.
The inaugural City to City program involved nine cities and ten artists, and an exhibition of the five digital artworks was launched in December 2020. Despite the challenges resulting from the COVID pandemic, the project was held to have been successful and the decision was made to run the project again in 2021 with appropriate modifications.
We conclude that we succeeded in developing an innovative approach to artistic collaboration, that we provided much needed employment during a difficult period, that the resulting exhibition drew the participating cities closer together, permitting the growth of bi- and multilateral relationships.
Biography: Chris Bailey is Emeritus Professor of Cultural History at Leeds Beckett University and Visisting Professor at York St. John University. He served on the committee of Computers and the History of Art (CHArt), editing and carrying out research on digital visual culture. He has been active in regional arts development since the 1970s. He helped form the Guild of Media Arts in York in 2015, served as its first Master and is currently its Clerk. He represents the Guild as the Focal Point of York UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts.
Institutional presentation / Connected Bodies II. New processes of creation and diffusion of non-face-to-face identity artistic practices
Abstract: Artistic research project on self-representation, the body and identity construction, focused on the analysis of new processes of non-face-to-face (online) creation and diffusion. The main objectives are:
1. The identification and characterization, through the analysis of the current Ibero-American artistic panorama, of those artistic practices -photography and audiovisual- based on the self-representation of the individual that use non-presentiality in their creation and/or diffusion process. 2. The creation of a Research Platform on Art and Online IDentity DatArt-ID configured as a device for research, dissemination and transfer of knowledge with free access that allows reflection and debate on the processes of non-face-to-face creation and diffusion of Ibero-American identity artistic practices. 3. The production of artistic work as a result of research. 4. The dissemination and transfer of results through the publication of scientific articles; as well as participation in international exhibitions and congresses disseminating the results of the research carried out.
The impact of the project will manifest itself at different levels: as a research tool for the typological analysis of artistic creation and its forms of diffusion in non-attendance; as an instrument for diffusion research results; as a non-face-to-face creation and diffusion platform, since its use will be promoted as a place from which to carry out creative experimentations that explore the axes and discourses of this research; as a communication network between researchers in the area, facilitating the tools that allow the development of meetings, debates and communicative experiences that highlight the cognitive and sensory connection between bodies mediated by technology; as a learning device by activating experiences and seminars in relation to its contents.
Biography: Laura Baigorri: Senior Lecturer in Media Art. Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona. She combines her teaching and research experience with criticism and curation. Main exhibitions: Multiverso (2016-2019) BBVA Foundation Madrid; CTRL+[SELF]: Intimacy, Extimacy and Control in the Age of the Self’s Overexposure (2016), Studio XX Montreal, and Videoarde. Critical video in Latin America and the Caribbean (AECID Instituto Cervantes). She has published: Video in Latin America: A critical history (AECID & Brumaria, 2008).
Pedro Ortuño: Professor in Media Art, Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Murcia. His recent research deals with issues of memory, gender, video art, and transmedia art. He has exhibited his art works in Center ZKM (Karlsruhe); Gasworks (London); Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid); PhotoEspaña (Madrid). He has curated Off-Bolliwood (Reina Sofía National Museum, 2009). He has published La imagen pensativa: ensayo visual y prácticas contemporáneas en el estado español (Brumaria 2018).
Panel / Islands of the Day Before: Artistic Exploration in Post-Anthropocenic Food Ecologies
Abstract: This panel will explore historical and contemporary engagements of Art that address our relationships with food and the systems that relate to these. In a wide sprawling discourse that intersects augmentation and ecological aesthetics with Art+Science practice, this panel will present a discussion around the plethora of artist’s work that creates cross-bindings and transdisciplinary approaches between the different topics of post-agriculture, post-growth and molecular cooking. The discussion aims to create new thoughts on food systems through artistic research that addresses topics of scale and scope in the Post-Anthropocenic era, micro to macro sub-connectivities in ecological systems, post-nature ideologies, microbial and fungal remedies and molecular transitions in human and non-human bodily encounters.
Biography: Julian Stadon is an artist, designer, curator, researcher, and educator. His nomadic practice-based research interfaces art, bio-digital entanglements, identity, embodied interactivity, food ecologies, sustainability, culture and society. His PhD examines Post-Biological Identity and Augmentation Aesthetics through the Data Body Trader project, his establishment of The Mixed and Augmented Reality Art Organisation and the iterative processes, outcomes and conclusions resulting from those endeavours. Stadon has presented and his work and been academically active for nearly twenty years across five continents and currently teaches on the Interface Cultures program at Kunstuniversität Linz. He also runs an experimental agriculture project TeleAgriCulture and often works with Stadtwerkstatt, V2_, Donautics and Schwemmland.
This panel is supported by MAX (Makers’ eXchange) project, a pilotpolicy project co-funded by the European Union.http://makersxchange.eu/
MAX project aims to define and test policies and actions supporting the mobility and exchanges of experience between the cultural and creative industries, creative hubs, maker-spaces, fab-labs and formal and non-formal learning and skills development systems in a cross-sectoral way and embed makers’ mobility schemes for skills development and inclusion into mainstream CCIs support programmes, policies and ecosystems across Europe.
Performance / The Room Above
Abstract: The Room Above is an electroacoustic piece developed during an art residency in Genoa in the second pandemic lockdown. The central element of the composition is an organ situated in the church above the residence. The work was conceived in the moment without a written score, and after long walks in the surrounding nature. The church contains an intrinsic architectural sonic spatial identity. The recordings of the organ and its reverberations in the architectural space were then sampled and reworked. The addition of the sonic spaces, those initially recorded, those of the future concert venues, and those present in the mental imagery of the listener during the concert, shall lead to a sonic moiré, a polyphony of spaces. The conceptual idea of the sonic moiré is an auditory perception of several layers of space and comparable to that which emerges visually from Marcel Duchamp’s rotoreliefs. Such perception exists between the work and the spectator, and here between the work and the listener. The sonic moiré changes according to the typologies of each concert venue, and its ultimate goal is to produce an illusion of cinematic experience for the mind of the listener. The artistic research process combines our experience in the sonic arts and our scientific expertise in the cognitive neuroscience of perception to explore the mutual interactions between visual and auditory stimulations for the mental elaboration of illusory or hallucinatory precepts. The objective is to accompany the audience to reach a state of dedicated listening, leading to a focused attention to the experienced sensations and perceptions, in order to magnify mental imageries. To leave room for such ‘auralization’, visuals should thus not entirely capture the attention of the audience. We explore ways to merge or alternate the stimuli and specifically address the role of rituals for this goal.
Biography:Luca Forcucci, artist, scholar and guest professor, observes perceptive properties of the first person experience through large scale installations, compositions, video, photography and writing. The research investigates mental imagery of sonic architectures. The works were held at Ars Electronica Linz, Biennale del Mediterraneo Palermo, Museo Reina Sofia Madrid, Centro Hélio Oiticica Rio de Janeiro, The Lab San Francisco, Rockbund Museum Shanghai, MAXXI Rome, or Akademie der Künste Berlin. His plateform UBQTLAB.ORG develops art and science encounters.
Bruno Herbelin is senior researcher in virtual reality and cognitive neuroscience in the laboratory of Prof. O. Blanke at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He was deputy director of the EPFL Center for Neuroprosthetics (2012-2019), and Assistant Professor at the Medialogy Department of Aalborg University, Denmark (2005-2009). He obtained his PhD at EPFL School of Computer and Communications in 2005 for his research work on virtual reality exposure therapy.
Abstract: A two-part performance for voice, electroacoustic music, and sonified physiological markers of affect (heartbeat, skin conductance, and respiration). Using guided meditation, hypnosis, and Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), Gee triggers physiological response in listeners wearing DIY biofeedback hardware, transforming physiological signals into synthesized sound. Through psychosomatic contexts of group listening, Gee composes music to enact phenomenological positions that are post-subjective, leaky, and affective, drawing upon feminist epistemologies to emphasize the transductive and non-reductive qualities of sound. The goal: to connect our bodies and minds to perspectives normally beyond human representation, being both witness to measurement, and being within the measurement.
Using second person to speak “directly” to the audience, Gee composes affective experience as grounds for composing biofeedback music, speaking directly to the unconscious mind of the listener while speculating a non-humanist intimacy on grounds of experimental physics. In part one, Gee worked with queer playwright Jena McLean to translate Tara Rodgers’ feminist epistemology of sound to induce transductive thought, drawing associations between sound waves, oceanic waves, and femininity. Through Rodgers’ work she references logics of non-linear time, contingency, and alternative relations to noise and sound, eventually hinting at a departure from the human in the last line by invoking Catherine Keller’s queer theology: “We are drops of an oceanic impersonality. We arch like waves: Like porpoises.”
In part two, Gee invites audience members to don wearable, non-invasive biosensors, to become sensitive and sensible to their affective physiologies as waves of sound. Using clicks and synthesized tones, the respiration, heartbeats and skin conductance of the audience are sonified in real time, offering a window into the emotional engagement of listeners. This second section is inspired by the way that information is shared (and created) in quantum systems, and is created in collaboration with cyberpunk author Andrew Wenaus.
Biography: Erin Gee is an artist and composer based in TIO’TIA:KE – MONTREAL. Through her work, Gee hybridizes new media, art-science and performance practice, using feminist epistemologies to foreground unconscious and affect-driven experience. Inspired by the human voice as a conceptual object, she likens the vibration of vocal folds to electricity and data across systems, or vibrations across matter. She is a DIY expert in affective biofeedback, using sensors to implicate the body of the listener as part of her cybernetic systems in place. Her vocal compositions, networked performance, ASMR, VR, AI and robotics have been shown internationally. Erin Gee is currently a doctoral student in the music department of the Université de Montréal, studying with Dr Nicolas Bernier and Dr Jonathan Sterne (McGill University) on the topic of feminist frameworks for biofeedback music. Gee’s research is generously supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Performance / ICE IS WATER IS ICE IS
Abstract: In considering various questions embodying the possible, we find resonance. “How to fight climate crisis and global warming?” Performance of this work serves as a time-based contemplation. It provides a space to consider how to slow, stabilize, or even reverse the effects of human behavior on climate conditions and the consequences. As the work represents shifting states of water and the language we use to name natural phenomena, we are asked to consider the interdependence of our actions to the conditions of nature as nature ourselves. How might we relate with nature in order to transform our world so as to support continuance of its inhabitability? In relation to the witnessed realities of climate change, foregrounding “the possible unfinished real in front of us” as distinct from fostering ingrained doubt or disbelief, the work encourages the perception of current environmental challenges through rigorously focused consciousness, awareness, and iconography. Put more directly: if we don’t change we will perish; if we don’t pay attention, we’re doomed!
Considering our current circumstances,the possibleoffers an opportunity to cultivate an understanding of data-driven scientific approaches only if we sensitize ourselves to the consequences. Forced human migration, plant and animal displacement, extinction, and cultural collapse are realities we face. Data and persuasive writing may inspire intellectual engagement and artistic production, or else, at the other end of the spectrum, bring into question what many (most?) witness and experience to be normative.
The creation and performance of this work foregrounds both aesthetic and lived observation with an openness to experiential understanding. It attempts to untether us from strictly data-driven arguments, from stubborn political and contrarian opining, from self-defeating impossibility thinking, to a positive possible we can embrace.
Biography:Ken Steen’s music and sound art are recognized internationally for their authentic vitality, remarkable range, and distinctive personal vision. Whether acoustic, electronic or some multimedia combination, Steen’s multifarious works feature sumptuous textures of gradual yet unpredictable evolution.
Gene Gort is a visual artist, video producer, and media programmer. Primarily working in moving image media, he incorporates video, digital imaging, and sound in installations, fixed media and new media performances.
Megumi Masaki has been active as a pianist, multimedia artist, educator, conductor and curator. Her innovative performances have earned her a reputation as a leading interpreter of new music and multimedia works. Megumi specializes in exploring how sound, image, text and movement can be integrated and interactive in multimedia works.
Together, they create and perform as multimedia chamber ensemble: Slingshot Trio, with featured performances in such diverse locations as Reykjavík, Iceland; Brandon, Manitoba, Canada; Belfast, Northern Ireland; and NYC, USA.
Poster / From the Mothers’ Movement to Cradlr: An Interaction Design for Refugee Children
Abstract: This poster presents the rationale, implementation, social and cultural influences, and historical background of Cradlr: An Interaction Design for Refugee Children, a human-centered digital network concept designed to keep displaced children—the most vulnerable group who doesn’t have cell phones—connected with their families, resources, and heritage. Inspired by the Mothers’ Movement in China—a women’s movement rescued and educated 30,000 refugee children—and European countries during World War II, this project goes beyond the realm of digital product design in an attempt to find a humanitarian solution for a complex social challenge. It envisions a global network preserving a collective memory that might help displaced children to overcome many adversities and receive more love and brighter futures.
Biography: Jing Zhou is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, researcher, and professor in the US. Her work has been shown and collected internationally including: Triennale Design Museum, Milan; British Computer Society, London; Asian Cultural Center, Manhattan; SIGGRAPH Art Gallery; ISEA; IEEE GEM; CAA; Ars Electronica .ART Global Gallery; Les Abattoirs Museum, France; Royal Institution of Australia; Danish Poster Museum; Golden Turtle Festival, Russia; Athens Digital Art Festival, Greece; Taksim Republic Art Gallery, Istanbul; FILE, Sao Paulo; Korean Visual Information Design Assn.; Goethe Institute Alexandria, Egypt; Yale University; Aalto University Design Factory, Finland; public collection of the WRO Media Art Center, Poland; Waikato Museum, New Zealand; Moravian Gallery in Brno, Czech Republic; and Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco. Jing received the Creative Work Award of the 2020 Design Incubation Communication Design Educators Awards, the UX Design Award of the 2021 Peru Design Biennial, and many more in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Demo / Three Stage Drawing Transfer
Abstract: This work creates a visual-mental-physical circuit between a generative adversarial network (GAN), a co-robotic arm, and a five-year-old child. From training images to the latent space of a GAN, to a live human interpreter, it establishes multiple translational stages between human and non-human actors playing out through the medium of drawing.
The title refers to Dennis Oppenheim’s 1971 performance ‘Two Stage Transfer Drawing’, a direct inspiration for this work. In that piece, Oppenheim staged a photographic performance with his son, reconceiving drawing as a form of intimate, embodied, inter-generational touch-based communication. I have added additional stages to the exchange: from the host of absent children contributing training images to the blackbox neural network (GAN); through the robotic arm drawing with the child; to my son’s eyes where they are seen, named, and rendered through his own hand and imagination.
The neural network at the center of this artwork is a StyleGAN2 architecture trained on a collection of over 7,000 children’s drawings gathered by Rhoda Kellogg. As visual subject matter, these “early graphic expressions” recall Claude Debuffet’s Art Brut (1948) or raw art. I am interested in children’s art not just for being outside of convention and learned expression, but for how it shows drawing and graphical expression in its moments of development. Perhaps a better reference for this endeavor are the Surrealists, who also sought to escape the personal bounds of language and subjectivity through sleep deprivation, mind-altering substances, and games of chance and collaboration.
These questions of where we seek the other; where we grant agency, autonomy and intelligence; and why we might wish to escape our own subjectivities speak to the design and use of emergent AI. Experimental interactions between humans and non-humans have the potential to produce mutual revelation, this project is one model for that.
Biography: Robert Twomey is an artist and engineer exploring poetic intersections of human and machine perception, particularly how emerging technologies transform sites of intimate life. He has presented his work at SIGGRAPH (Best Paper Award), CVPR, ISEA, NeurIPS, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the California Arts Council, Microsoft, Amazon, NVIDIA, and HP. Twomey received his BS from Yale with majors in Art and Biomedical Engineering, his MFA in Visual Arts from UC San Diego, and his Ph.D. in Digital Arts and Experimental Media from the University of Washington.He is an Assistant Professor of Emerging Media Arts with the Johnny Carson Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and an Artist in Residence with the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego.
Demo / Resurrecting data as a phenomenological and spatial object
Abstract: There is often an epistemic disconnect between the steps of field studies, laboratory analysis, and data communication in scientific and academic studies. This project addresses this disconnect by creating a sculpture that reveals environmental data as a spectrum and references the environment where it was recorded. Planes is a proposed artwork that displays data from a specific ecological study. The design is for a sculpture that depicts hydrogeochemical data as color on laser-etched panels. An LED and microcontroller system illuminate these fins. The artists’ aesthetic is a response to previously ineffective two-dimensional graphs that held information but failed to communicate on a broad level. Planes intends to reunite the data with the spatial world and connect it with the phenomenological. Rather than the language of mathematical symbolism, this work explores what is possible when information is presented using color. As a sculptural piece, this work goes beyond the world where most data representation resides and innovates the way data is communicated, creating a space for experimentation and variability. This method provides a more meaningful way to communicate the results of a specific scientific study and acts as an exploration of conceptualization methods that can apply to other issues.
Biography:Thomas Asmuth is a transdisciplinary artist and an Associate Professor of digital and experimental media at the University of West Florida. Asmuth collaborates with artists and scientists on issues of water quality. His work manifests as art/science installations and novel designs for water testing equipment. Asmuth’s awards include a Florida Humanities Council grant and a Florida Research Fellowship. Asmuth’s work has appeared at the Southeastern College Art Conference, Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Balance UnBalance, Laguna Art Museum, Montalvo Arts Center, and the Tang Teaching Museum.
Domani Turner-Ward is an undergraduate student studying studio art and biology at the University of West Florida. Their work explores ecological issues and the relationship between humanity and environment. Turner-Ward focuses on interdisciplinary possibilities in their ongoing undergraduate research and plans to pursue a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an MFA focusing on experimental art.
Poster / 1001 Nights – An Open-domain Narrative Game Using Text Generation Model
Abstract: To immerse everyday storytelling into real-life contexts in digital interactions, we created a game that turns entities in a story into digital assets that have functional roles. Taking the classic folklore as inspiration, we created 1001 Nights, a co-creative, mix-initiative storytelling game using an existing AI creative writing system. In this game, Shahrzad (driven by the player) needs to tell stories through a dialogue interface, while the King (driven by the AI model) will continue the player’s story in turn. Text from the story is utilised in actual game mechanisms, so that weapon keywords in the game like “sword” or “shield” will turn into equipment that can be used for battle. The game aims to facilitate player engagement and creative interactions through “invading language”, which points to the text that will change the reality in game.
Biography: Yuqian Sun is a Chinese AI artist and researcher. She’s currently a doctoral student at Royal College of Art. Inspired by conversations between virtual characters in video games, she produces works that steer with curiosity. Her main art projects focused on AI chatbots, which explore the narrative and intimacy in human-AI interaction.
Chang Hee Lee is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Design in School of Engineering and Director of Affective Systems and Cognition lab at KAIST. Chang is interested in finding new meanings for interaction to explore novel methods of communication between human and machine.
Ali Asadipour is the academic lead of Computer Science Research Centre, Royal College of Art. Ali worked in leading research groups in the field of computer science, engineering, social sciences and digital health and wellbeing.
Demo / Delicious Memories
Abstract: “Delicious Memories” is an intergenerational storytelling workshop and media art installation that brings together older and younger New Yorkers to tell and connect stories utilizing craft and interactive technology. The installation and the performance stitches delicious stories together into a sonic multi-sensory communal tablecloth.
The project draws on lived experiences through sensorial prompts about “delicious memories,” those highly somatic and multi-modal experiences that are deeply embedded in our bodies. The experience of physically crafting creates a connection that activates and sustains dialogues between generations. While the project employs traditional craft techniques, it integrates them into contemporary digital technologies.
During a series of workshops held from May through the end of June 2021, we met over zoom to develop, share and stitch our stories together in a circle (a zoom grid). The handwork of crafting while storytelling provides an embodied mode of personal and collective creation to spark memory and nurture social wellness. The embroidery materials included cotton and conductive thread combined with other metallic objects that are stitched onto fabric by the participants. These materials integrate conductive components that connect to small microprocessors. The surfaces invite intimate tactile interactions by listeners who, when they run their fingers over the varied textures of embroidery, hear the participants’ recorded audio stories via a bluetooth speakers placed on the communal tablecloth.
The experience of listening is augmented by tactility and the communal connection of sitting together at the table touching the embroidery sensors to play the audio stories. On the table, the visitors interact with the embroidered tablecloth that acts as touch and proximity sensors that amplify individual stories. In addition to the general public and the participants themselves “performing” the stories tactilely, we envision a group of trained and untrained performers who can perform the table to a live audience.
Biography: Seamless Stories is the bi-coastal collaborative team of Laura Nova and Kristine Diekman. They design highly somatic and multi-modal experiences that are deeply embedded in the creation and public reception of the stories.
Laura Nova is an artist, educator and activist who lives and works on New York’s Lower East Side, creating festive, absurdist spectacles that unite generations and diverse communities. The first Public Artist in Residence to be embedded in New York City’s Department for the Aging, Nova brings expertise and empathy to her projects and actions, designing each element to enhance social wellness and decrease social isolation. www.lauranova.com
Kristine Diekman is a media artist and educator working in documentary and experimental film, new media, sound studies and community-based media. Her recent media projects focus on water scarcity and environmental justice. She facilitates international workshops in digital storytelling and physical computing that lead participants through writing, craft, computing, and sound production to create interactive tactile audio interfaces to tell their stories. http://www.kristinediekman.net
Demo / Petal Antenna: An Knitted Textile EMF Sensor
Abstract: This demo presents a single knitted textile cone (i.e. a petal) of the electronic sculpture-installation work by the authors entitled Flower Antenna, exhibited in Spring 2021 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City (MOMA). The work operates as a large receiving antenna that senses electromagnetic fields in the gallery space. Using a logarithmic amplifier circuit, electromagnetic fields are converted to sonic expressions heard in the installation space, revealing the site-specific electromagnetic atmosphere of the gallery. The demo presents textile antenna samples and EMF-sensing circuits designed throughout the development of the work.
Biography:Erin Lewis is a Ph.D. candidate in Textile Interaction Design at The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås. Her research explores the interactive space between structural textile design and electromagnetic fields. She employs artistic methods and designs custom electronic tools to explore the aesthetic and expressional possibilities of the phenomena in relation to textile designs. She has recently published her licentiate thesis entitled ‘Radiant Textiles: A Framework for Designing with Electromagnetic Phenomena’. Prior to her studies in Sweden, Erin was a researcher and instructor of wearable technologies in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. She previously held the position of Education Manager at Canada’s leading new media art gallery, Inter/Access, in Toronto.
Felecia Davis’ work in computational textiles questions how we live and she re-imagines how we might use textiles in our daily lives and in architecture. Davis is interested in developing computational methods and design in relation to specific bodies in specific places engaging specific social, cultural and political constructions. Davis is an Associate Professor at the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing in the School of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University and is the director of SOFTLAB@PSU. She completed her PhD in Design Computation at MIT. Davis’ work in architecture connects art, science, engineering and design and was featured by PBS in the Women in Science Profiles series. Davis’ work was part of the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Reconstruction: Blackness and Architecture in America. She is a founding member of the Black Reconstruction Collective a not-for-profit group of Black architects, scholars and artists supporting design work about the Black diaspora.
Farzaneh Oghazian started her Ph.D. in 2018 as part of the Design Computing cluster at Penn State University. Her research focuses on developing computational methods to enhance the implementation of knits as a material for architectural design. Behavior, form-finding process and predicting the shape of knitted textiles are central to her research. She uses machine learning methods for the reverse form-finding process in architectural knitted textile structures. Farzaneh is currently a research assistant in the SOFTLAB@PSU at the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing in the School of Architecture, doing research on large-scale application of the knitted textiles under supervision of Dr. Felecia Davis.
Berfin Evrim is a current Ph.D. in Environmental Design student at the University of Calgary. She graduated with Integrated Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Science in Architecture (Design Computing) from Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on digital fabrication, computational design, and lightweight smart materials. Currently, she studies the combination of 3D printing and knitting fabrication methods to design adaptive building skins. She utilizes simulation techniques to understand the structural behavior and environmental performance of the knitted vertical element.
Demo / Totem teller as digital archaeology
Abstract: Totem Teller is a digital game exploring folk tales categorised ATU 327: The Children and the Ogre, and ATU 450: Brother and Sister and their variants. It demonstrates a digital archaeological process using poetry, glitch aesthetics, processed art and gameplay including exploration, discovery, dialogue, removal of digital grime and experimental composition. The player will act as archaeologist in uncovering elements, contemplating their meaning, and then in understanding the meaning they’ve created, understand the role of inspiration, stories and more about themselves.
Biography: Alexander Swords has 20 years experience working with stories, creators and their audiences. He’s currently wielding this experience as a writer and narrative designer on Totem Teller and Anytown: Garage Sale Monsters, and is the creator of the Forest Paths Method for Narrative Design. The Method is a structuralist approach to understanding story in an approachable and collaborative way, and is being used internationally by developers, researchers and educators in games and screenwriting. Prior to this he’s worked for independent game developers in Berlin, AAA in Sweden and has worked as an independent artist, arts manager and audience development expert. Advising government, arts organisations and educators, he’s an advocate for diverse stories and their writers, understanding the transformational power of story and helping creators explore the narrative potential of any medium. He holds a Master of Arts (Arts Management) from RMIT, Bachelor of Film and Television Production from Griffith University, Bachelor of Business from Queensland University of Technology and an Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media from Open Channel.
Benjamin Kerslake is a creative director, independent game maker and transmedia artist. He has over 15 years of professional practice encompassing art direction, illustration, animation, software development, user experience and project management. He has led both large and small creative teams, and currently runs his own micro-studio.
Jerry Verhoeven spent his youth around video games and online. Playing and exploring in the digital realm as it unfolded. This resulted in pursuing a formal education in video game creation. Specifically as a Technical Artist – a cross-domain discipline within the video game industry. Here he was able to develop his skills both as an artist, designer and programmer. This led to an internship in Shanghai, where he worked on multiple video game projects and later moved to a large outsourcing company to pursue more large video game co-productions. Jerry currently pursues his passion for video game creation and creative synergy while working through a variety of collaborations with other developers. He has also created various small games, engaged in freelance work, been a guest-lecturer at universities, explored poetry and abstract digital art creation and has released his own multi-platform puzzle game: Kavel.
Demo / Recycle or Die: A Virtual Reality Application to Encourage Positive Behavior
Abstract: On average Americans throw away seven pounds of trash a day causing the US to make up 30% of the trash in the world. By educating individuals on the ways to properly recycle we can reduce this amount. We present the VR game Recycle or Die where users are forced to recycle. In this game we provide various recyclable and nonrecyclable materials accompanied with information on how to properly recycle these materials. User study results indicate that the game is enjoyable and informs on various items that can and cannot be recycled.
Biography: Brittany Garcia-Pi is a Ph.D. student in the Architecture Department majoring in Human Computer Interaction. Her research centers around the design and user experience of Virtual Reality applications for educational training and collaboration. Soowan Chun is a recent Master of Science graduate from the Visualization Department. Her work centers on user experience and interaction design in virtual environments. Dr. Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo is an Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Applied Creativity in the Department of visualization. Her research interests lie in aesthetics of experience, immersive experience, materiality and wearable computing.
Poster / General Project of El Bosque
Abstract: “El Bosque: the development of an immersive environment in Visual Reality. An artistic approximation to environmental awareness” starts from a wide artistic perspective of research in Ecology and Virtual Reality. With an inter- and trans-disciplinary approach, the aim is to give an experience in Virtual Reality as an artistic practice while demystifying progress from an eco-feminist viewpoint. The main objective is to develop a theoretical-practical project in an immersive environment while generating empathy for terrestrial ecosystems and non-human factors. Viewing El Bosque as a threshold from which to reˇect on the dichotomy between culture and nature, rede.ning the relationship between the environment and society. At the same time re-thinking the forces of nature as non-inert acting forces, as proposed by Bruno Latour in the Theory of the Actor Network, understood as a set of shared methodological principles and not so much as a theory in itself. We therefore want to respond to the questions: What kind of future awaits us and our forests? What will be our role in the system of the Earth? And especially, How can we integrate non-human factors in historical narratives? Starting from theoretical reˇections removed from apocalyptic positions, we look into the concepts of artists such as Nathan Shafer, Stephanie Dinkins, Koert van Mensvoort, Dominique González-Foerster, Jakob Kudsk Steensen or Daniel Steegman; and scientists and thinkers like Suzanne Simard, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Felix Guattari, Timothy Morton, Byung-Chul Han, Andreas Malm and Rosi Braidotti. We propose the value of interdisciplinary actions and the art-science-technology relationship with society. VR technique and technology as a tool and context enables us use strategies combining experiments, research and creativity. The challenge is to create a VR experience to consider questions on how to improve people’s lives, stabilize the climate and protect the natural world.
Biography: El Bosque, a multidisciplinary group made up of researchers from the Faculty of Fine Arts (Department of Sculpture and Department of Drawing) and the Higher Technical School of Geodesic, Cartographic and Topographic Engineering (Department of Cartographic Engineering Geodesy and Photogrammetry), Polytechnic University of Valencia. Researchers: Dolores Furió Vita, M. Ángeles López Izquierdo, Laura Silvestre García, Fernando Buchón Moragues, Jorge Padín Devesa, Cristina Fito Micó, Mar Aragó Miñana, Victoria Febrer.
Poster / Generating Condolences: Coding Grief During Covid-19
Abstract: There is a long-standing expectation for feminine sentimentality in Western culture. Women have been the family historians and curators, saving objects and images to later be passed down as the family archive. This expectation extends into cultural practices surrounding mourning and death. Often in times of mourning women are the primary archivists and creators of memorial and sentimental objects for the family after the death of a loved one. In this paper I try to reconcile the traditional role of mourning ritual – language and iconography with generative computing art making in the time of Covid-19.
Biography:Janna Ahrndt received her MFA in Electronic and Time-Based Art from Purdue University. She is part of a wave of new media artists rejecting the notion that craft and technology are directly opposed. Her work explores how deconstructing everyday technologies, or even making them for yourself can be used to question larger oppressive systems and create a space for participatory political action. Her activist and social art practice blur the lines between the materiality of craft and the digital realm of new media technologies to create socio-political interventions.
Abstract: My artwork explores our perception of the landscape by drawing attention to the relativity of our memories of the natural world. In the Moving Mountains series, I use projection to map fields of colored light onto paintings from the Untitled Marine Vistas series to change our perception of the landscape and draw attention to the relativity of color, using material and media as metaphors, proxies, and surrogates to explore issues of permanence and impermanence. Structured and iterated combinations of paint and projected light allow me to explore our relationship to representations of place and position. I use digital video projection as a source for colored light, which through its interaction with the elements on the canvas, the environment of the gallery, and the passage of time, changes the image perceived by the viewer. Manipulating the light which illuminates the paintings allows for the combinations produced by the programmed sequence I’ve created, by the intervention of viewers in the space, and the change of conditions in the environment of their display. Landmasses move not only along the x axis of the canvas, but also spanning time and three-dimensional space, emerging from traditional points of painted perspective within the canvas, and from pinpoint sources of digital projection. My work explores the borders between the real and the imagined, the physical and the perceived. Separating what is within from what is without, what is physically accessible from that which exists only within memory or imagination, serve as a point of departure for considering the role of not just the act of painting and the act of remembering, but the sea, the desert, the wind, the salt, the earth, and the light in this process—the way that the non-human elements exert their existence and connect us to history, time, and geography.
Biography: Victoria Febrer was born in New York to Spanish parents and divides her time between New York and Valencia, Spain. Since graduating from the Cooper Union, where she received a full merit scholarship, her artwork has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the U.S., Spain, Italy, Belgium, Ireland, and Japan. Her artwork explores our perception of the landscape by drawing attention to the relativity of our memories of the natural world, using painting, collage, and projection as metaphors, proxies and surrogates to explore issues of permanence and impermanence. Most of her work is developed within the studio walls and is grounded in a sense of longing dependent on frequent excursions to the mountains and the sea. Her sketchbook is a constant companion as she stops to take field notes when hiking, climbing, skiing, or sailing.
Poster / E-Waste: The Unnatural, Natural Resource | A Case Study on Creative Uses of Obsolete Technology
Abstract: With many issues surrounding our high-tech products including: 1) planned obsolescence, 2) a linear “cradle-to-grave” life cycle, 3) the accumulation of electronic waste (e-waste), and 4) consumer culture, there is potential of finding practical/creative solutions to reusing/repurposing our obsolete technology. These solutions not only benefit the consumer, but also the communities that are affected by the growing e-waste problem. These issues analyzed through a case study where an artist converts a typewriter into a USB printer using the design principles laid out in this poster, including the use of open-source hardware and software as well as incorporating adaptive design for future updates. While it is unfortunate that our massive accumulation of e-waste has turned this material into an unnatural, natural resource that can be foraged, there is potential for projects (both practical and creative).
Biography: Erik Contreras is an interdisciplinary designer and engineer with a background in mechanical engineering and rapid prototyping. His work involves prolonging the lifespan of consumer electronics and finding alternative uses for post-consumer products. His design philosophy seeks to promote user repair, modification, and reuse for consumer products. As an advocate for the right to repair, he wishes to develop products and prototypes that “welcomes the end-user, inside and out”. Erik typically uses a hands-on approach towards his work/research and can be found hacking obsolete tech or 3D printing custom parts in his home machine shop. With technology being part of every aspect of life in the Bay Area, there also a vast accumulation of e-waste in the community. With e-waste being readily available, Erik feels the material is an “unnatural, natural resource” when it comes to finding parts and inspiration for his prototypes.
Workshop / Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos
Abstract: The workshop focusses on developing concepts for prototypes for an AR app, contextualizing and supporting the resignification of the controversial Francoist monument Valle de los Caídos.
The Francoist monument for the Fallen of the Spanish Civil War near Madrid, built between 1940-1959 partly by forced labour of political prisoners, includes more than 33.000 remains from both conflict sides, removed from mass-graves around the country without the relatives’ knowledge. The official onsite information does not communicate this difficult history; the traces of the prisoner of war-barracks and mass-graves are in no way visible to the visitors.
The onsite presentation of its history with the help of an AR application would make Valle des los Caídos a tangible testimony of Francoism, breaking its totalitarian narrative, transforming it into a polyphonic memorial, supporting its transformation – and an example for the resignification of controversial monuments in the Digital Age.
‘Augmenting’ physical memory sites into polyphonic spaces is an important challenge. The project is a case-study for the reinterpretation and transformation of historically loaded, controversial physical memory sites with digital tools. Witnessing a surge of iconoclastic actions against monuments glorifying controversial, exploitative, and unresolved history worldwide, it is urgent to develop inclusive tools and methods to reckon with testimonies of controversial past and its unresolved wounds.
Digital tools are especially relevant for the resignification of large-scale physical memory sites – in a landscape-scale (Valle des los Caídos) and in an urban-scale. The project opens paths for the inclusive re-reading of larger territories (for example, under a post-colonial perspective).
Such an AR application would be of great relevance for the resignification process of Valle de los Caídos. It can also inform the processing of other contested memory sites internationally and be relevant to the discourse on inclusive (memory) spaces and the need for inclusive heritage and memory-making.
Biography: Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar founded Hybrid Space Lab, a Think Tank and Design Lab for Architecture, Urbanism and Digital Culture; a cultural breeding ground, incubating breakthrough concepts, fostering innovation, contributing to positive societal and environmental change.
Professor Elizabeth Sikiaridi has lectured since 1997 on design in the urban landscape at the University Duisburg-Essen and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts OWL. Born in London, grew up in Athens, studied at Ecole d’Architecture de Belleville/Paris and TU Darmstadt (honours diploma), worked at the architectural office Behnisch&Partner and TU Berlin.
Professor Frans Vogelaar founded 1998 the first Department of Hybrid Space worldwide at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Born in Holland, grew up in Zimbabwe and Holland, studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven (honours diploma) and at the Architectural Association School of Architecture London, worked at Studio Alchymia (Mendini, Milan) and at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (Koolhaas, Rotterdam).
Workshop / Creating Spontaneous and Mobile Immersive spaces using FLOSS
Abstract: This workshop is aimed at artists, designers, content creators and other creatives who are interested in creating immersive spaces using low-cost and lightweight equipment.
We will be using off-the-shelf hardware and open-source software to create interactive and immersive experiences, from scratch, in impromptu spaces.
We will present the tools and the process for deploying immersive experiences: characterizing the available space, setting up projection mapping, calibrating video projectors and sound equipment, setting up cameras for real-time pose tracking and estimation, and employing a software pipeline to glue all components together.
The workshop is based on using free/libre open-source software as much as possible, democratizing what’s possible to do with computer vision, computer graphics and spatialized audio technologies that are still marginalized and on the fringes of creative activities. We will be exploring production pipelines that illustrate the use of software developed by the Metalab in tandem with existing tools that have been seeing wider adoption in recent years. For clarity, we present the proposed toolset in two groups: software developed by the Metalab and third-party software.
Sharing and accessibility are brought by the use of technologies which are easy to obtain. In addition to cameras, videoprojectors and audio speakers, the workshop makes use of free software as well as low-cost hardware. Some of the software is already well known in the community (Godot, Chataigne), whereas our own software is not as much but it addresses use cases which are either not possible with other software or involve costly solutions.
Biography: Founded in 2002, Metalab is the research laboratory of the Society for Arts and Technology [SAT]. Metalab’s mission is twofold: to stimulate the emergence of innovative immersive experiences and to make their design accessible to artists and creators of immersion through an ecosystem of free software that addresses problems that are not easily solved by existing tools. The software (and recently hardware) developed at the Metalab is often used with other existing technologies to facilitate the mixing of video mapping, 3D audio, telepresence and interaction.
Emmanuel Durand holds a doctorate in computer graphics from Arts et Métiers ParisTech (2013). He has an interest in everything related to 3D, photography and space.
Michał Seta is a composer, improviser and researcher in digital arts. Practitioner of transdisciplinary, transcalar, and integrative magic, he incants Metalab software in collective and improvised harmony.
Workshop / AutonomX – Light and sound with complex dynamical systems
Abstract:autonomX – Light and sound with complex dynamical systems is a workshop that proposes to experiment with life-like computer processes to generate dynamic, emergent, and self-organizing patterns and express them through light and sound. The workshop offers participants to engage with autonomX, a new open-source application developed by lab Xmodal based at Concordia University in Montreal that can create life-like behaviors in media in an intuitive way. Through practical manipulation, the workshop focuses on generating and experiencing the felt sensations (Gendlin 2010) and vitality effects (Stern 2010) that emerge from temporally dynamic digital processes. In a sensory ethnography fashion (Howes 1991) oriented toward sharing the sensible (Laplantine 2015), the workshop will bring together software manipulation, artistic creation, ethnographic observation, and group discussion to engage with the effects of those digital processes on our human senses. The workshop will be centered around the software autonomX that allows for intuitive artistic creation with complex dynamical systems such as neural networks and cellular automata.
autonomX – Light and sound with complex dynamical systems is structured around a series of experiments exploring the relation between machine expression and human perception. During 3 sessions of 1.5h each, participants are invited to manipulate, observe, describe and discuss their experience with three different dynamical processes (Spiking Neuron Network, Cellular Automata, Game of Life). Those processes produce actions expressed in light and sound that can generate striking audiovisual experiences. Each session of the workshop thus intertwines Artificial Life presentation, creative experimentation, ethnographic observation, and group discussion. The day will start with a 1h introduction to the topic and methodology of the workshop, and end with a common 30min discussion.
Biography: Alexandre Saunier is a multimedia artist and PhD Candidate at Concordia University. His research addresses the intersection between artistic creation with light, autonomous systems, and sensory perception. His artistic work is regularly presented in international festival such as Mutek, Bcn_Llum, Impakt, and Festival de la Imagen.
Chris Salter is an artist, full professor of computation arts at Concordia University in Montreal and Co-Director of the Hexagram network for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technology, also in Montreal. His work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale and Barbican Centre among many others. He is the author of Entangled (MIT Press, 2010) and Alien Agency (MITP, 2015). His new book Sensing Machines will appear from MIT Press in March 2022.
Workshop – “Ars Combinatoria” and the emergence of Metatextuality
Abstract: This workshop traces the evolution of ‘Ars Combinatoria’ from the perspective of its cultural histories manifested in various visual arts, music, writing, and design combinatory systems.
Syllabaries and the alphabet are systems designed to synthesize written propositions, but the first text that can be considered as using combinatorial principles was the I-Ching with its binary-based language.
In the 13th century, Ramon Lull produced a series of concentric movable wheels considered to be the first textual sentential machines. Lull was read by Giordano Bruno, in the 16th century, and both were later read by Leibniz, inspiring his Dissertatio de Arte Combinatoria. The ancient pattern poetry, the literary methods of Mallarmé, the typographic works of Tristan Tzara, the puns and language games of Lewis Carrol, the portmanteau words of James Joyce, the potential literature of the French group Oulipo, or the cut-ups of William Burroughs, can trace a literary history of Ars Combinatoria. Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee have developed generative processes for their creative and teaching strategies. Klee’s pedagogical notebooks provide designed diagrams on visual combinatorial principles.
All those historical procedures have been re-conceived as elements of an evolutive process since the emergence of the computer as a semiotic machine, able to recombine signs through mathematical algorithms. This computational writing methodology proposes creative dialogues between the manifested linguistic structures and the possible modifications they can introduce through algorithms specially designed to work as machinic, digital, and/or net-based authors.
The interconnection between the meta-authored text and the resulting work could be analyzed through a form of genealogy. How does the original project resurface visually and/or conceptually in the final product? The meta-discourse may reappear as an index, but sometimes it is wholly precluded. Then, the outcome does not reveal its genetic diagram which could remain secret, lost, or inaccessible.
Biography: Since the seventies, Artur Matuck has been a writer, artist, and scholar, researching and teaching New Media, Art History, and Philosophy of Science. As a Fulbright scholar, he completed a Master’s in Journalism at the University of Iowa (1978) and an MFA at UC San Diego (1981). He started teaching, in Brazil, at the University of São Paulo (1984). He conceived the Reflux Project (1991-92), interconnecting Carnegie Mellon University, the São Paulo Biennial, and participating artists from all over the world. He founded the Colabor Center for Digital Languages and conducted the International Acta Media Symposium at USP (2003-2016). In the US, he was invited to teach a graduate seminar on ‘Ars Combinatoria’ at Virginia Commonwealth University (2009). Later, at USP, he launched the Alterscience Research Project (2020). Professor Matuck has been continuously involved with Media Theory, Cultural and Science Studies, Contemporary Arts and Performance in Brazil, USA, Canada, France, and Spain.
Jeane Cooper is a multidisciplinary researcher and educator currently teaching Graphic Design at the University of North Georgia, USA. She holds an MFA in Graphic Design and an MA in Art History from Louisiana State University. At present, she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Postgraduate Interunit Program in Aesthetics and Art History at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Her research interests involve cultural analytics, computational writing, information visualization, new media arts, and web-based art and writing. She is presently a member of the Research Group on Alterscience and Intercommunication affiliated with the University of São Paulo.
Abstract: In this workshop, participants will be introduced to open-source tools and coding strategies as means of creating original media assemblages with weather data. Temperature, humidity, CO2, noise and barometric pressure records will be used as the basic material for the creation of sound, image and 3d objects.
We will begin by exploring the sensing technologies that create environmental data archives. This will be followed by an investigation of generative creative approaches to visualization, sonification and overall perceptualization of our direct environment. Finally, we will prototype creative systems that can act as interfaces with past and present climate data.
Although the methodology used could be applied to different data type, this workshop will focus specifically on the transformation of environmental information. A list of tools and code snippets will be provided to all participants so we can co-create systems that uses weather data as material for speculative interfaces with nature.
What is the sound of 38 °C? Is this the shape of CO2 levels? How can humidity variations be expressed through frequency? Could we build monuments out of climatic point cloud metrics? Beyond big data and climate collapse, we will look at how weather data perceptualization offers methods of making the climate visible, audible and tangible.
Biography: Vincent Charlebois is an interdisciplinary artist born in 1986 in Montreal. His research-based practice constitutes an assemblage of disciplines such as performance, text and media art. His work takes form through technological interfaces with nature and human-machine interactions in the context of dematerialized exchanges. His projects explore the perceptualization of ecosystems through environmental data and the poetic and political potential of the archive. He holds a BFA in Intermedia/Cyberarts from Concordia University and a Master’s in Ecological Buildings and Biocities from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. He fabricated future forests in Canada for a dozen seasons and currently lives in Montreal.
Full Paper / The tapestry: Past and possibility in the history of magic
Abstract: This paper presents The Tapestry, a mapping of the history of magic. It describes a system that lets users create lifelines and map them using GoogleEarth. Each lifeline, or thread, is laid over the globe, showing the trace of the person’s historical travels, locations, and activities. By successively laying these threads over one another, users can see points of intersection, suggesting historic interactions and influence. It is hoped that such graphic presentation and users’ pattern recognition will lead to discovery of previously unsuspected influences in magic’s historical development.
Short Bio: Peter Anders is an architect, educator, and information design theorist. He has published widely on the architecture of cyberspace and is the author of “Envisioning Cyberspace”, published by McGraw Hill, which presents design principles for on-line spatial environments.Anders received his degrees from the University of Michigan (B.S.1976) and Columbia University (M.A.1982) and the University of Plymouth Planetary Collegium (Ph.D. 2004). He was a principal in an architectural firm in New York City which designed facilities for the production of photovoltaic panels. He has received numerous design awards for his work and has taught graduate level design studios and computer-aided design at universities including the New Jersey Institute of Technology, University of Detroit-Mercy, and the University of Michigan. He is a former board member and chair of ISEA International foundation. He is also principal of Kayvala PLC, a design practice specializing in architecture and media/information environments.
Full Paper / Dynamic paintings: real-time interactive artworks in web
Abstract: In this work, we present an approach to creating dynamic paintings that can be re-rendered interactively in real-time on the web. Using this approach, any existing painting can be turned into an interactive web-based dynamic artwork. Our interactive system provides most global illumination effects such as reflection, refraction, shadow, and subsurface scattering by processing images. In our system, the scene is defined only by a set of images. These include (1) A shape image, (2) two diffuse images, (3) one background image, (4) one foreground image, and (5) one transparency image. A shape image is either a normal map or height. Two diffuse images are usually hand-painted. They are interpolated using illumination information. The transparency image is used to define the transparent and reflective regions that can reflect the foreground image and refract the background image, both of which are also hand-drawn. This framework that mainly uses hand-drawn images provides qualitatively convincing painterly global illumination effects such as reflection and refraction. We also include parameters to provide additional artistic controls. For instance, using our piece-wise linear Fresnel function it is possible to control the ratio of reflection and refraction. This system is a result of a long line of research contributions. On the other hand, the art-directed Fresnel function that provides physically plausible compositing of reflection and refraction with artistic control is completely new. The art-directed warping equations that provide qualitatively convincing refraction and reflection effects with linearized artistic control are also new. You can try our web-based system for real-time interactive dynamic paintings at http://mock3d.tamu.edu/. This work is the result of several thesis and capstone projects by Anusha Shanker, Yinan Xiong, Ani Barseghyan, and Motahareh Fard that span almost five years.
Biography: The main author, Dr. Ergun Akleman, is a Professor in the Departments of Visualization & Computer Science and Engineering in Texas A&M University since 1995. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1992. He is also a professional cartoonist who published more than 500 cartoons. He has a bi-monthly corner called Computing through Time in the Flagship magazine of IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Computer. He has illustrated and written several children’s books. He had more than 150 publications in leading journals and conferences in wide variety of disciplines from computer graphics, computer-aided design, and mathematics to art, architecture and social sciences. Almost 100 students received graduate degrees under his direct supervision. Most of his former students now work in companies such as PIXAR, Disney, DreamWorks, Digital Domain, Google, Amazon and Facebook.
Demos
CCCB Vestíbul inferior Teatre
Preliminary Program
June 13th
Session 1: from 11 am to 12 pm Session 2: from 2 pm to 3 pm
The ISEA Symposia: Learning from the Past; Looking at the Future
CCCB TEATRE
Moderator: Jill Scott
The ISEA International Advisory Committee is organising an open discussion at ISEA2022 that invites the audience to reflect on ISEA’s past and help define its future. The ISEA symposium has been held in 19 countries around the world since 1988.
A lot has changed in that time and we now find ourselves in a post-pandemic environment where dissemination of information and community engagement has changed radically. The structure of the ISEA organisation has also changed in the past 34 years and is continuing to change. The ISEA community as a whole is very diverse. At any ISEA symposium you will find attendees that helped define ISEA in the late 1980s as well as new comers. You will meet artists, scientists, researchers, curators, technologists, students and educators, as well as culturally diverse attendees from nearly every continent. The voice of the larger ISEA community is incredibly important in helping the organisation pave a dynamic and effective path forward.
This Roundtable will ask attendees to:
Reflect on their experiences at the ISEA symposia throughout the years: What works well, what needs improvement?
Suggest ideas for the future of the organization and symposium
The ISEA International Advisory Committee (IIAC) is a formal body within the ISEA International organisation, along with the ISEA HQ (ISEA International secretariat) and the ISEA Symposium Archives. The IIAC consists of persons who have extensive experience with ISEA and their mission is to advise the ISEA International board.
Institutional presentations
Preliminary Program
CCCB AUDITORI
June 13th
11:30 – Medialabs, research and practices Moderator: Alba Colombo
