Arts for All: Aalto University-Wide Art Studies
Aalto University (FI)

The University-Wide Art Studies (UWAS) programme at Aalto University offers all students, irrespective of discipline, the chance to explore and study art and design-based practices and processes. This is a vehicle for the wider ambition of the institution to encourage the formation of transdisciplinary communities of teachers, students and researchers, with a view to tackling global challenges in imaginative and meaningful ways. There is an understanding that art and design should be considered to have a deeper purpose than the simply aesthetic: creativity can help society to be renewed.

STEAM Approaches at Technische Universität Dresden
Technische Universität Dresden (DE)

The Technische Universität Dresden presents a number of approaches that employ concepts closely connected to STEAM and are transferred into/developed for teaching.

Aalto Biofilia: A journey into the biological arts
Aalto University (FI)

Biofilia is a technical facility at Aalto University for studies in the biological arts as a fast-emerging area of interest that fits succinctly with STEAM approaches in artistic practice. It adopts transdisciplinary knowledge sharing to research and curriculum development to explore the intersection between biosciences, engineering and the arts. 

STEAM Fellows in Conversation
Steve Harding (UK)

Meet Dr Steve Harding, coordinator of BCU’s STEAM Fellows Programme, as he talks with Mark Brill (Art, Design, Media), Kusminder Chahal (Business, Law, Social Sciences) and Tychonas Michailidis (Computing, Engineering, Built Environment) about their transdisciplinary projects and how they will help to stimulate engagement across the University.

Oh My, What Now?
David Gillette (US)

Dr David Gillette from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo delivers the keynote presentation for First BCU International STEAM Conference on future-focused storytelling, interactive design and sustainable futures. Dr Gillette is founder and Co-Director of the Liberal Arts and Engineering Programme at Cal Poly.

Thinking Deeper with STEAM
Rehan Bhana (UK)

Explore connections between academia and industry, learning about our PhD Hub and how STEAM thinking can help businesses tackle challenges through developing deeper perspectives, with Rehan Bhana, Associate Professor at BCU.

Extending Reality: Introducing the Past, Present and Future of Immersive Media
Adam Paigge (UK)

Join STEAMhouse Extended Reality Technician Adam Paigge in his talk about XR, how this can support STEAM collaboration and the ways in which STEAMhouse is leading such approaches in the West Midlands.

Building Interdisciplinary Communities
Deborah Hustic (HR)

Hear from Deborah Hustic, Artistic Director at Radiona makerspace in Zagreb, Croatia, as she outlines her work in STEAM, making and creative investigation.

First BCU International STEAM Conference
STEAMhouse, Birmingham City University (UK)

Aimed at all those curious about cross-disciplinary thinking, researchers, innovators, industrial leaders, artists, scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians and those not bounded by their sectors, joined the First BCU International STEAM Conference in July 2020.

STEAMhouse: Make to Innovate
Clayton Shaw (UK), James Hannam (UK)

In this presentation from the First BCU International STEAM Conference you will learn about STEAMhouse, BCU’s centre for collaborative innovation, through an introductory talk from Programme Manager Clayton Shaw and Prototyping & Operations Manager James Hannam.

Rethinking alive as material
Rūta Spelskytė (LT)

The toolkit is designed to rethink alive as material. To think of the ways we can use nature, create tools out of it, imagine or train plant and animal features, construct their development in the future, and on the other hand – how to take a moment to stop and just appreciate it.

The Birth of Venus
Brigita Kasperaitė (DE/LT)

While in the past electroconvulsive therapy was used in very questionable ways, we can admit one thing, the reality is questionable in itself. And while the artist Brigita Kasperaitė explores the natural and synthetic ways of electrical discharges and how they might affect the surroundings, she is also interested in knowing and experiencing that electricity is everywhere - as well as our bodies.

Multi-eyed creature navigating and traversing the grove
PhAMA/ FAMM department at Vilnius Academy of Arts (LT)

AE Garden Vilnius Mozilla Hub hosts directed multiangle and XR Live Experience of the Garden where around 10 live events and usual grove life are happening in numerous spaces inside and outside and dozen cameras are directed by humans, animals and plants. You can navigate through busy culture events or find your calm spot to enjoy the life of nature.

Experiencing lives
Mindaugas Gapševičius (DE/LT), Brigita Kasperaitė (DE/LT), Rūta Spelskytė (LT), Auksė Gaižauskaitė (LT)

The artist talk raises the question of collaboration between different species. It will start with a presentation of three projects: two toolkits for experimenting with living organisms and a conversation about microorganisms and their hosts. The artist talk is hosted by the Alt lab, a non-disciplinary research laboratory dedicated to artistic-scientific research and implementation of interdisciplinary projects.

Online Exhibition NEW CONNECTIONS
HKU University Of The Arts Utrecht (NL)

The opening night will feature several live performances all related to the theme “new connections”. This for example by revisiting and passing on music traditions through electronic means, new tactile electronic instruments and an AV show performed by live coding artists.

CINETic Residencies
Kıvanç Tatar (CA/TR), João Tragtenberg (BR), Saint Machine (RO), Leonard Nicola Hein & Claudia Schmitz (US/DE)

Due to COVID travel restrictions, the program for residencies that was supposed to take place at CINETic, has moved to an online collaborative program. Four artists around the world collaborated with CINETic researchers and artists. The talk with the online residents will focus on the experience of developing work for online interactions in a long-distance collaborative process.

Postmasters presents Nicola Verlato, Donato Piccolo and Kristin Lucas
Paulina Bebecka - Postmasters Gallery, PostmastersROMA, Rome (IT)

​In the current uncertain climate of physical disconnection, hyper digital connection and distortion of life as we know it, I wanted to express that humanity is still at the very core of our increasingly technological experience on earth. The chosen artists bring about an examination of reality and the need to cherish our humanity through various digital media, such as artificial intelligence, 3D scanning, 3D gaming software, generative 360 WebXR animation, drones, and techno.

Tree of/and Life
Center for Urban History of East-Central Europe, Lviv, Ukraine (UA)

The film tells the story of a craftsman's creativity and his connection to a tree that extracts an invisible form from a material substance. The act of creating by a human being is subject to the power of the substance that governs the carver independently determining the result. The subjectivity of nature is also manifested in the film through chemical damage - images and memory are absorbed and disappear behind the veil.

This is Sónar+D

Sónar+D – Sónar Festival's creative technologies conference – is an international congress exploring how creative minds are changing our present and imagining new futures, in collaboration with researchers, innovators and business leaders from all sectors and industries.

Workshop: Mycelial Landscapes: How Fungi Shape the World and Take the Shape of the Future
Kaitlin Bryson

This workshop explores the incredible world of fungi from their ecology to their biochemistry and explores how these amazing organisms shape and make the world around us. We will also learn about how we can work with fungi helping them take shapes and forms for building sustainable futures. We will do a simple exercise of making mycelium hands to stretch our notions of touch and physicality during the time of the pandemic.