STUDIOTOPIA

Society may be reeling from a series of unexpected economic and existential crises, but many ominous and all-encompassing global catastrophes are still ahead. The Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015 offered strategies to face these looming challenges by providing a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.” To act on this blueprint, we require diverse expertise and experimental and innovative approaches.

STUDIOTOPIA is a European initiative that seeks to activate the collaborative and interdisciplinary expertise required to face these future challenges by implementing an inverse art and science residency model. Scientists from diverse disciplines responded to an open call to work alongside and learn from leading European artists. In Creative Question Challenges at  this year’s Ars Electronica, future problems will be explored and future solutions hypothesized with the broadcast beginnings of a 17-month conversation between artists and scientists.

STUDIOTOPIA is a cooperation between eight European cultural institutions: Center for Fine Arts (BOZAR) and GLUON in Brussels, Ars Electronica in Linz, Cluj Cultural Centre in Cluj, Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Laboral in Gijon.

Open Mozilla Hub

Timetable

Program

Creative Question Challenge: Quietly Subversive
Ciprian Mureșan (RO), Sanneke Stigter (NL), Corina Bucea (RO)

‘Let us finish what we started’. This is how the UN introduces its first Sustainable Development Goal – to end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets have been described as a sprawling, misconceived mess of grandiose intentions. The title of the development agenda itself – ‘Transforming our World’ – oozes utopian ambition. It was adopted by 193 nations in 2015. Five years later and with ten years left, how do you think our world will transform?

Creative Question Challenge: Embodied perception and life as movement
Alexandra Pirici (RO), Paco Calvo (ES), Corina Bucea (RO)

‘Let us finish what we started’. This is how the UN introduces its first Sustainable Development Goal – to end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets have been described as a sprawling, misconceived mess of grandiose intentions. The title of the development agenda itself – ‘Transforming our World’ – oozes utopian ambition. It was adopted by 193 nations in 2015. Five years later and with ten years left, how do you think our world will transform?

Creative Question Challenge: Radical change by working together
Kat Austen (UK/DE), Indrė Žliobaitė (FI), Laurence Gill (IE), Andrew Newman (AT/AU)

‘Let us finish what we started’. This is how the UN introduces its first Sustainable Development Goal – to end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets have been described as a sprawling, misconceived mess of grandiose intentions. The title of the development agenda itself – ‘Transforming our World’ – oozes utopian ambition. It was adopted by 193 nations in 2015. Five years later and with ten years left, how do you think our world will transform?

Creative Question Challenge: Can unheard signals inspire change?
Siobhán McDonald (IE), Chris Bean (IE), Adriaan Eeckels (BE)

‘Let us finish what we started’. This is how the UN introduces its first Sustainable Development Goal – to end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets have been described as a sprawling, misconceived mess of grandiose intentions. The title of the development agenda itself – ‘Transforming our World’ – oozes utopian ambition. It was adopted by 193 nations in 2015. Five years later and with ten years left, how do you think our world will transform?

Genetic Biotech through the Eyes of Artists

BOZAR presents a talk on genetic modification, featuring Sandra Lorenzi (FR), Kuang-Yi Ku (TW), Christophe De Jaeger (BE), and 2 scientists from the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie – VIB. The talk will be preceded by a video streaming of a guided tour in the VIB facilities in Gent (BE), with Sandra Lorenzi (FR – artist of the Studiotopia programme), Kuang-Yi Ku (TW – artist of the Studiotopia programme), Sofie Bekaert (BE – VIB) and VIB scientists Roosmarijn Vandenbroucke and Sofie Goormachtig, presenting their current research.

Creative Question Challenge: The Organ of Consciousness
Oswaldo Maciá (CO/UK), Chris Bean (IE), Emilia Leszkowicz (PL)

‘Let us finish what we started’. This is how the UN introduces its first Sustainable Development Goal – to end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets have been described as a sprawling, misconceived mess of grandiose intentions. The title of the development agenda itself – ‘Transforming our World’ – oozes utopian ambition. It was adopted by 193 nations in 2015. Five years later and with ten years left, how do you think our world will transform?

!brute_force: Feeding the Algorithm / AI LAB Journey
Maja Smrekar (SI)

Responding to the coronavirus pandemic, the !brute_force project focuses on the future of market-driven diagnostic wearables and AI-based health monitoring technologies. A human and dog performer climb through an installation of platforms and empty spaces. Both wear Electrocardiograph ECG/EKG diagnostic wearables, used for the medical monitoring of chronic heart and respiratory conditions.

!brute_force: Workflow Reflections – Panel
Speakers: Alen Balja (SI/CH), Martí Sànchez-Fibla (ES), Maja Smrekar (SI), Tina Šolar (SI), Mia Zahariaš (SI), Moderation: Tatiana Kourochkina (RU)

Responding to the coronavirus pandemic, the !brute_force project focuses on the future of market-driven diagnostic wearables and AI-based health monitoring technologies. A human and dog performer climb through an installation of platforms and empty spaces. Both wear Electrocardiograph ECG/EKG diagnostic wearables, used for the medical monitoring of chronic heart and respiratory conditions.

Creative Question Challenge: Hybrid forms of being together
3 137 (GR), Audrey-Flore Ngomsik (FR), Christos Carras (UK/GR)

Will there be no poverty and zero hunger across the world in ten years? Is this planet to be populated in ten years by billions of healthy and educated humans? Is comfortability or autonomy more important to well-being? Can you be comfortably autonomus? These are the questions scientists were asked who applied to an open call to collaborate with artists in the STUDITOPIA residency program.

Creative Question Challenge: Examining organic and digital ecosystems
Hypercomf (GR), Markos Digenis (GR)

Will there be no poverty and zero hunger across the world in ten years? Is this planet to be populated in ten years by billions of healthy and educated humans? Is comfortability or autonomy more important to well-being? Can you be comfortably autonomus? These are the questions scientists were asked who applied to an open call to collaborate with artists in the STUDITOPIA residency program.

Creative Question Challenge: Human being and “soft” technologies
Christiaan Zwanikken (NL), DM Hoyt (US), Emmanuel Grimaud (FR)

‘Let us finish what we started’. This is how the UN introduces its first Sustainable Development Goal – to end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets have been described as a sprawling, misconceived mess of grandiose intentions.

Creative Question Challenge: Between scientific discovery and perceptual expansion
Dmitry Gelfand & Evelina Domnitch (NL/BY), Guillaume Schweicher (BE/LU), Florian Schreck (DE)

Let us finish what we started’. This is how the UN introduces its first Sustainable Development Goal – to end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their 169 targets have been described as a sprawling, misconceived mess of grandiose intentions. The title of the development agenda itself – ‘Transforming our World’ – oozes utopian ambition. It was adopted by 193 nations in 2015. Five years later and with ten years left, how do you think our world will transform?

Project Credits / Acknowledgements

STUDIOTOPIA is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Studiotopia
Creative Europe