For three years the Korea National University of Arts – short K-Arts – collaborates with Ars Electronica on research and exchange about how the creation of the human-like activity changes the digital and online sphere. In 2022 this exchange focuses on Human Touch through a guest lecture series with Helen Starr, Špela Petrič and Robin McNicholas (Marshmallow Laser Feast).
K-arts about the topic: “Humankind has expanded its domain into the digital world to overcome physical limits through a progression of technology. During the pandemic we began to crave ways to sustain human contact in a world where we communicate through digital media rather than in-person. Digital technology enables combining new digital media and haptically sensing. Such a state of digital post-humanism has helped us envision unprecedented sensations as well as habits interacting and empathizing with other beings. Human Touch is an attitude for humans to coexist with ecology and technology. It refers to the way of thinking that can coexist with non-human beings that used to be recognized as mutually exclusive or dependent on humans. It tries to break down the boundaries that distinguish humans and non-human beings in the global crisis and seek a friendly way of connection in which humans and machines, humans and nature can communicate together in the area of art and science.”
In 2022, the global lecture series around Human Touch will have three content topics around technology, society, and art. It will deal with art as the most human-like way to communicate with various existence in expanded digital environment.
The guest lecture series is moderated by Laura Welzenbach, Head of Ars Electronica Export, Q&A by Prof. Chungyean Cho (Vice President of K-ARTS) with technical support by Ferenc Hirt and Armin Seidl.
Špela Petrič
Lecture: Matters of Play and Passion
Špela Petrič is a Ljubljana and Amsterdam based new media artist who has been trained in the natural sciences and holds a PhD in biology, currently working as a post-doc researcher at the Smart Hybrid Forms Lab at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her artistic practice combines the natural sciences, wet bio media practices, performance, and critically examines the limits of anthropocentrism via multi-species endeavors.
She envisions artistic experiments that enact strange relations to reveal the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of our (bio)technological societies. Her work revolves around the reconstruction and re-appropriation of scientific methodology in the context of cultural phenomena, while working towards an egalitarian and critical discourse between the professional and public spheres.
Petrič received several awards, such as the White Aphroid for outstanding artistic achievement (Slovenia), the Bioart and Design Award (Netherlands), and an Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica (Austria).
Helen Starr
Lecture: Rendering Reality and The Poetics of Touch
Helen Starr is a Afro-Carib cultural activist, curator and producer who moved to the UK from Trinidad in the early 90’s. She founded The Mechatronic Library in 2010, to enable artists and museums to create artworks using new media technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) , Game Engines and 3D Printing. Helen Starr has funded projects at the South London Gallery and the Digital Manufacturing Unit of the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) in London, produced artworks and workshops at Wysing Art Centre in Cambridge and produced and curated for FACT (Foundation of Art and Creative Technology), in Liverpool and QUAD in Derby, among others.
Starr is interested in how Virtual, AI and digital systems no longer simply model physical reality, but also shape the way we behave and act with or without our knowledge and consent. These digital artworks are showcased in thought provoking multimedia exhibitions accompanied by insightful public programmes. Community, healing and learning are the core of Starr’s practice.
The Mechatronic Library brings much needed transparency to this complex and fast-moving arena of new media communication. New media communication are tools native to computer and include websites, email, social media platforms and video gaming. Virtual Reality (VR), with its full immersive capability is the latest form of new media to emerge and may well be the most powerful of them all.
The Mechatronic Library is a social enterprise which is funded by sales of digitally produced artworks and experiences. All artworks are owned by the stakeholders – artists, not-for-profit museums and art galleries and The Mechatronic Library. Profits go back into producing more artworks and exhibitions.
Marshmallow Laser Feast
Lecture: Creative Strategies for Emerging Persistent Storyworlds
Marshmallow Laser Feast is an experiential art collective working in the liminal space between art, technology and the natural world. The collective creates specific visual languages that expand perception and inform our lived experiences. Their expertise has earned them a reputation for creating the seemingly impossible—for producing experiences that push boundaries, redefine expectations and excite audiences worldwide.
Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) creates immersive experiences, expanding perception and exploring our connection with the natural world. Fusing architectural tools, contemporary imaging techniques, and performance with tactile forms, MLF sculpt spaces that lay dormant until animated by curiosity and exploration. Informed as much by playfulness as research, MLF breaks the boundaries to worlds beyond our senses.
www.marshmallowlaserfeast.com docubase.mit.edu/lab/interviews/interview-with-marshmallow-laser-feast
Further Lecturers
Further lectures are held by the following artists and researchers and are moderated by Prof. Kang-min Lee(Director of the Center for Art Convergence, K-ARTS):
So Yeon Leem is a researcher in science and technology studies whose academic interests include human enhancement technology and the body, new material feminism, and science, technology and gender. Her work has appeared solo- and co-authored articles in international journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies, Medical Anthropology and Social Studies of Science as well as books such as Women of No Mystery(2022), Modest Witnesses(2021, co-authored), Posthumanism and the Transformation of Civilization(2017, co-authored), and Living as Cyborgs in the Age of Science and Technology(2014). She currently works as an assistant professor at Dong-A University’s College of General Education, where she is working on a book about plastic surgery cyborgs.
Eunyoung Park is a multidisciplinary artist, designer and researcher who works across art, design and technology. Her works include a toy, a space-building tool, and soft robots. As such, she enjoys working with diverse media and taking playful approaches to projects for making them deliver good stories. Her works often involve with demystifying cutting-edge technologies by opening up the process of making and revealing the interconnectedness of things. After seven years of working and studying between Finland, Germany, Denmark and US, she is continuing her practice back in Seoul.
eunyoungpark.co/artists/