Women in Media Arts

Ars Electronica (AT)

Fri Sep 11, 2020, 11:30 am - 12:55 pm
All times are given in Central European Time (CET / UTC +1).
Ars Electronica New World Channel
DE + EN

In 2016, Ars Electronica launched one of the largest online databases for women in media arts. This database, first dedicated to the women pioneers of Ars Electronica, was then opened to all female artists working with digital means as a tool for artistic expression. A whole program focus was thus established and will be presented this year in two panels.

Timetable

Program

Future of Inclusion Lab
Rashin Fahandej (US)

American Arts Incubator is a creative exchange program that utilizes community-driven digital and new media art projects to instigate dialogue, build communities, bolster local economies, and further social innovation while addressing a local social or environmental challenge. This year’s iteration in Austria was led by artist Rashin Fahandej, who ran the “Future of Inclusion Lab,” a series of co-creation workshops that provided technology and resource access to Austria-based creatives.

[Alien] Star Dust: Signal to Noise – guided networked meditation
Victoria Vesna with Paul Geluso, Rhiannon Catalyst, John Brumley, Ivana Dama, Clinton Van Arman

[Alien] refers to looking up into outer space for star dust and then turning our gaze back down to earth, extending the idea that everything is interconnected, flowing, flying, and mixing around our planet and beyond.

Key Note: Neri Oxman

A multi-disciplinary designer, Oxman founded The Mediated Matter Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010 where she established and pioneered the field of Material Ecology, fusing technology and biology to deliver designs that align with principles of ecological sustainability. Oxman became a tenured professor at MIT in 2017.

Electronic Theatre @ Online

Since 1987, the Electronic Theatre has compiled a large number of submissions from all over the world, providing an up-to-the-minute survey of animation art in the context of technology and society. It impressively illustrates the dynamic development of artistic computer animation over the past three decades as well as the expansive growth of various fringe areas. A glance at the works selected this year shows a broad range, from animation in the context of performance and installations to real-time animation and multifaceted, subject-based discussions.

Acquired Immunity. Beyond Cultivamos Cultura

Virtual tours of the natural and social landscape around Cultivamos Cultura.

Visionary Pioneer of Feminist Media Art

What began as a technological revolution has long since become part of our culture and our social reality. There are visionary pioneers who not only anticipated these changes with their artistic work but have also been seminal in laying the foundations for media art as we know it today.

Key Note: Lorena Jaume Palasì

Founder of The Ethical Tech Society. Her research focuses on the ethics of digitalization and automation and, in this context, on questions of legal philosophy. 2017 Appointed by the Government of Spain in the Council of Eminent Persons on Artificial Intelligence. Former member of the High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence of the EU Commission. 2018 Theodor Heuss Medal “for their contribution to a differentiated consideration of algorithms and their mechanisms of action” with the AlgorithmWatch initiative.

Key Note: Lynn Hershman Leeson
Lynn Hershman Leeson (US)

For over fifty years, Hershman Leeson’s practice mines the intersections of technology and the self. She is known for her groundbreaking contributions to media art from Artificial Intelligence to DNA programming, often anticipating the impact of technological developments in society.

DARV_ Abandoned Land
Lee Jung In (KR/AT) Mihaela Kavdanska (BG/RO/AT) Violeta Ivanova (BG/AT) Florian Weinrich (AT)

DARV_ Abandoned Land is an intermedia dance performance which sprouts connections between analog and digital. The performers interact with large-scale objects and video projections, resembling the endless migration from one world to another in search for the better. The DARV team and eight dancers perform in various locations in Austria, South Korea and Bulgaria, guiding the audience through dystopian realities and abandoned sites. Drained-off utopias, failed social mechanisms and ideologies are embodied, explored and ultimately abandoned.

Key Note: Joanna Bryson
Joanna Bryson

Joanna Bryson is Prof. of Ethics and Technology at the Hertie School. Her research focuses on the impact of technology on human cooperation, and AI/ICT governance. From 2002-2019 she was on the Computer Science faculty at the University of Bath. She has also been affiliated with the Dpt. of Psychology at Harvard University, the Dpt. of Anthropology at the University of Oxford, the School of Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim, and the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy

Breaking up the gameplay – a talk about feminism and experiencing the abolished private
Rebecca Merlic (HR)

Artist Talk about the feminist aspects of The City as a House, an interactive visual novel, an experiment of a white European 30-year-old heterosexual human, living in Tokyo without inhabiting a private apartment over a period of time.

The City as a House – A speculative exploration of the possibilities of abolishing known forms of habitation
Rebecca Merlic (HR)

Vast amounts of pictures, sounds, videos and 3D scans are organized as environments in Rebecca Merlic’s The City as a House, in form of an interactive visual novel. A work about the experiment of a white European 30-year-old heterosexual human living in Tokyo without inhabiting a private apartment over a period of time. A speculative exploration of the possibilities of abolishing known forms of habitation.

Rio Verde
Cherish Marquez (US)

Rio Verde is a socially conscious video game by Cherish Marquez that explores the healing powers of the desert, as well as themes such as Latinx iconography and mental wellness.

Women in Art, Science and Technology
Marta de Menezes (PT), Dalila Honorato (GR/PT), Ebru Yetiskin (TR), Ionat Zurr (AU), Jo Wei, Kathy High (US), Laura Beloff (FI), María Antonia González Valerio (MX), Victoria Vesna (US)

The panel On Roots and Fruits is a collection of talks from some of the founding members of FEMeeting: Women in Art, Science and Technology on the impact of its conferences and other community activities, and their perspective on the future development of women in art, science and technology. FEMeeting aims to disseminate projects carried out by individuals who identify as women to contribute to (a) the development of research methodologies in art and science and (b) the development of collaboration strategies that can increase knowledge-sharing and bring communities together.

The Women in Media Art: Telematic Performance
Ximena Alarcón (UK/CO), Anat Ben David (UK/IL), Alex Murray-Lesley (ES/NO/AU), Tina Frank (AT), Claudia Schnugg (AT)

This panel will investigate approaches in telematic collaborative art production and telematic art reception through the voices of four artists and researchers experienced in the cutting/edge production of telematic performances and collaborative music production.

Women in Media Arts
Ars Electronica (AT)

In 2016, Ars Electronica launched one of the largest online databases for women in media arts. This database, first dedicated to the women pioneers of Ars Electronica, was then opened to all female artists working with digital means as a tool for artistic expression. A whole program focus was thus established and will be presented this year in two panels.

An Atlas of Absence – Online meeting performance
Summer Mei Ling Lee and Laura Boles Faw

Technology was supposed to connect us. The dominant modality for communication and connection during this pandemic era is the digital screen. In this work, collaborators Laura Boles Faw and Summer Mei Ling Lee continue their ongoing series addressing distance and longing that increasingly figures into this heightened moment.

Falling Up Exhibition
re.riddle, California, San Francisco (US)

Amidst riots and racial tensions, divisive political rhetoric and a global pandemic, the past half year has been a time of turbulent uncertainty. These acute ruptures and moments of pain, conflict and unknowingness have inadvertently led to a mode of seeing our former and current realities anew, which may more or less best be described as “surreal”.

‘site inspection’ – Virtual cocktail party & FM4 Radio Show in VR
sound:frame / Eva Fischer (AT), Marijn Bril (NL), Angie Pohl (AT)

For this year’s Ars Electronica, sound:frame and Pausanio invite the audience to join an exclusive virtual cocktail party in the Area for Virtual Art’s mozilla hub space. Together we will teleport from one artist’s space to another and have a virtual toast.

‘site inspection’ – Virtual exhibition tour
sound:frame / Eva Fischer (AT), Marijn Bril (NL), Angie Pohl (AT)

The sound:frame curators Eva Fischer and Marijn Bril will guide through the Area for Virtual Art and talk with the exhibiting artists and some of the Area’s team members, about their approaches to virtuality and digitality.

sound:frame & Pausanio virtual – Area for Virtual Art
sound:frame / Eva Fischer (AT), Marijn Bril (NL), Angie Pohl (AT)

sound:frame together with Pausanio presents the Area for Virtual Art – an online platform for digital art and virtual formats. Discover current artistic approaches in virtual exhibitions and meet people in discussion programs and live events to exchange thoughts and create new ideas and concepts. The Area for Virtual Art develops into an international hub, giving a platform to current digital art forms and connecting people all over the world.

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.

Tour: If You Hold the Stone Hold it in Your Hand – COVID19 Data Sculptures
Clarissa Ribeiro

LIVE: Data-Driven Algorithmic Design and 4-axes CNC Carving After a short talk sharing a few aspects of the poetics focusing on algorithmic design, we invite the online audience for a lab visit and we will set up a 4-axis CNC to carve one of the data-sculptures live.

Workshop: WATERBODIES
Claudia Jacques and Victoria Vesna

This workshop will introduce you to a variety of issues around water bodies around the world. Participants will develop and add their stories and / or artwork or scientific research related to a stream, lake, sea, ocean. Communities will form around specific water bodies that will become guardians and share up to date information about the status.

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.

Workshop: Data Garden
Eli Joteva and Zeynep Abes

In this workshop you will learn the art of photogrammetry, volumetric collage and shared virtual spaces.

Workshop: Follow the Fibers: Weaving as a Method of Inquiry
Monica LoCascio, Artist and Member of ArtSci Collective

Fascia and Mycelium through the lens of Anni Albers and weaving

Workshop: Houdini Software Intro
Debra Isaac

In this workshop, we will create a rocky 3D object, fracture and shatter it, and then emit particles with forces. Learn the power and flexibility of Houdini’s Procedural and non destructive node based 3d software that excels in using both raw data and generative art.

Garage Digital: Worlds beyond Worlds
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art / Nikita Nechaev, Moscow (RU)

Works and practices of several artists and collectives, that participate in Garage Digital program, reflect on the different types of networks, infrastructures, ecologies and algorithms, and pose questions of the possible tactics and strategies to reassemble these systems with new types of communities, modes of rationality and production in mind —cunning, poetic, speculative and emergent.

The Garden of Forking Paths

Online Exhibition In the time of a global pandemic, how can we exhibit and share projects, ideas andartworks with other people in lieu of a physical space? This question informed thecreation of our digital garden project that can be accessed from all over the worldwith an internet connection and a web-browser. We invite you to explore our garden at any time and from any place.

PRISM BELL / UV TOWER

Live Music Event Advancements in technology enable us to surpass the analogue restrictions ofsound production and build novel music instruments for the digital age. In thislive-event, Lia Mice will present PRISM BELL, a large scale instrument exploring thefull-body engagement of the musician. Andrea Guidi & Giacomo Lepri also presenttheir UVTOWER that uses mirrors and lasers to produce rhythm and sound.

re.riddle presents Falling Up
re.riddle, California, San Francisco (US)

re.riddle presents unique programming showcased in site-specific exhibitions and pop-up events worldwide. The itinerant gallery curates socially engaging and multidisciplinary exhibitions of contemporary art. Its mission is to contribute to the discourse on contemporary art in thought provoking and playfully subversive ways. Via new modes of production, reception and consumption, re.riddle places an emphasis on the whimsical, in hopes that art continues to arouse curiosity and promote an awareness of its profound impact on our daily surroundings and lives.

The History of Dark Matter Retold
Adeyemi Michael

Dark Matter by Adeyemi Michael It was during the DARK MATTER exhibition in Science Gallery London that History of Dark Matter Retold was conceptualised. Scientist and actress Laura-Joy Pieters collaborated with director Adeyemi Michael to produce a film that portrayed Laura’s birth and heritage. When speaking about what she wished to communicate with the film, Laura expressed that “The achievements of black women are all around us and are present throughout history, yet they are rarely ever seen or acknowledged, much like the nature of the elusive dark matter”.

FEM
Women in Art, Science and Technology

Techniques for the automatic generation of music – which have long been focused on systems ruling the score – are now being deployed at all levels of sound representation: signal, gesture, symbol, form. Sound synthesis using deep networks constitutes a radical break with conventional modelling approaches. How do composers handle these emerging possibilities?

Exhibition
Krzystof Wodiczko, Behnaz Farahi, Memo Akten, Lauren Lee McCarthy (US)

This exhibition examines how different strategies of the ‘gaze’ could be used to undermine various forms of power structure and promote different forms of resistance. It does so by displaying either exhibits illustrating the gaze and voices of marginalized groups, or projects exploring how literal masks might hide or reveal identities. The idea is to use art and technology in combination with critical thinking to convey a powerful political message.

Live Program of Telluric Vibrations, UCLA Botanical Gardens – Los Angeles

Enjoy the extensive live Program of Telluric Vibrations, UCLA Botanical Gardens – Los Angeles

The Manchine
Kommhaus (AT)

The Manchine is a book about the linking and, ultimately, fusion of man and machine. Renowned experts from different disciplines cover topics like digitalization, interconnectedness, robotics, artificial intelligence, the industrial revolution and Industry 4.0.

Rotten Body (2020)
Alexandra Mabes (CL), Nicolás Oyarce (CL), Ana Rosa Ibáñez (CL)

Dance installation inspired by the decomposing course of action which fungi encourages. The shape of the body is deformed through the materials to portray the transformation and reconfiguration of matter in the decay.

Artificial Seascapes. Two female AI artists respond to current uncertainty with powerful art.
CADAF (The Contemporary and Digital Art Fair) (US)

​An one-hour live session with artists, Anne Spalter and Sofia Crespo, in discussion. We will dive into their artistic practices, their use of AI, and the relationship between data, GAN and human perception.

Artificial Seascapes
CADAF (The Contemporary and Digital Art Fair) (US)

Artificial Seascapes reflects on the impact humans and technology have on the environment and explores new ways to visualize it. By incorporating artificial intelligence, algorithmic tools and data processing into their practice, Spalter and Crespo allow us to see mundane events from the perspective of a machine. By shifting the focal point, scenes that are familiar to the human eye – cruise ship images or sea creatures – begin to evolve, resulting in new compositions that have never been seen. The artists invite the viewers to submerge in these new worlds, where beauty and technology collide to expose questions of human perspective, consciousness and preservation.

Digital Exhibition Sojourner 2020 – A conversation among all artists

Through the ages, artists, writers, and filmmakers have been inspired by space. Their visionary depictions of space as an environment for people have influenced the scientific and engineering feats we know so well today. How will artists continue to inspire the future of space exploration? What are the opportunities and challenges in the creation of art for our interplanetary futures?

CADAF presents Sofia Crespo and Anne Spalter
CADAF (The Contemporary and Digital Art Fair) (US)

The Contemporary and Digital Art Fair is honored to present Anne Spalter and Sofia Crespo, two female artists working with AI technology. Spalter and Crespo explore current socio-economic issues, including COVID19 and ecological uncertainty, in their work. Both artists exhibited their work at CADAF Online, which took place June 25-28, 2020. Artificial Seascapes​ reflects on the impact humans and technology have on the environment and explores new ways to visualize it.

Digital Exhibition: Sojourner 2020

In 2019, the Space Exploration Initiative announced an open call to invite artists to submit artworks for an exciting ISS launch opportunity. After three rounds of reviews, nine groups of artists are selected to be on board Sojourner2020, an international art payload. For this year’s Ars Electronica In Kepler’s garden online program, we created a digital spaceship to share the diverse portfolio from the initiative. Audiences are invited to immerse themselves in this digital world, walk around and encounter each other.

Live Performance: Augmented Empathy

Live-streamed public outdoor performance

Live Panel: On Roots and Fruits

This panel is a collection of talks from some of the founding members of FEMeeting regarding the impact of the conferences and other community activities, as well as their perspective on the future development of women in art, science and technology.

FEMeeting Seeds

The seeds of our garden, the aromatic herbs and giant sequoias growing within FEMeeting the year throughout, are the members of our worldwide community. This part of our garden’s program includes video testimonies, images and sounds expressing the character and souls of some of the extraordinary women working today in art, science and technology.

FEM Books

FEMeeting 2020 Garden has its own reading corners where you can find more information about the conferences and other meetings. Check out the abstracts for a concise idea on the rich variety of topics researched by the participants of FEMeeting gatherings.

Antibodies
FEMeeting WEB 2020

set of short videos and audio podcasts

Sarah Petkus’s Noodle Feet visits the Pavilion of Knowledge

Sarah Petku’s Robot called Noodle Feet is visiting the Pavilion of Knowledge. Join and find out how the Pavilion of Knowledge looks like.

Datasets vs Mindsets: Performance Program
Katarina Melik-Ovsepian + Nikita Prudnikov (aka monekeer) (RU), Maria Molokova (RU), Kira Weinshtein (RU), Nikolay Golikov, Yulia Glukhove (holoherz), EOLA

The project includes a one-day performance program using innovative forms of representation and interaction between online and offline formats, such as new approaches to webcasting and experimental web-interfaces, which create brand-new user experiences for online visitors.

Emergence & Convergence: Interviews
Katherine Melançon, George Fok, Daniel Corbeil, Sabrina Ratté

In these interviews, Katherine Melançon, George Fok, Daniel Corbeil and Sabrina Ratté explain the scope of their works, the subtle links they made between technology and ecology, and their vision of the future as seen through this lens.

[Dis]possess
Jason Zhao, et al.

[Dis]possess highlights the contradictory forces of capital and progressive politics within the artworld, simulating a coworking space in downtown Chicago that sells twenty-first century indulgences for the price of a cup of coffee.

[Dis]location
Brett Balogh; William Harper; James Hartunian; Kristin McWharter; Patrick O’Shea; Jung Ho Park; Zhong Ren

[Dis]location investigates and extends specific sites in Chicago and beyond to foreground our shared connections to public spaces in both the built and natural environments.

Emergence & Convergence: Art as prophetic and responsive
Katherine Melançon, George Fok, Moritz Wehrmann, Cheryl Sim

In this live conversation, Cheryl Sim, managing director and curator at the PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, and artists from the exhibition Emergence & Convergence will discuss their work, which meets at the intersection of the self, digital technology, the built environment and the natural world.

[Dis]place
Lola Blake; Jiwon Ham; Addison Tyler Leon; Ethan Proia; Meimei Song; Yimin Zheng

[Dis]place questions the reciprocal relationship between the self and its surroundings in an attempt to expand fixed notions of subject, host, and home.

[Dis]content
Gloria Fan Duan; Blake Fall-Conroy; Anaïs Morales; Judd Morrissey, Mark Jeffrey, & Abraham Avnisan; Alan Perry; Chengan Xia; Kio Zhu

[Dis]content probes cultural objects and historical sites to examine the role of art and artifact in the construction of collective memory.

[Dis]connect
Lee Blalock; Ashara Renfroe; Anna Christine Sands; Julia Tsai; Anne Wilson & Shawn Decker

[Dis]connect interrogates the struggle for connection despite the ubiquity of instant communication, underscoring the role these technologies play in redefining our relationships to others and to ourselves.

[Dis]orient
Eduardo Kac; Jakyung Lee; Bun Stout; Tongqi Wang; Ling Zeng

[Dis]orient explores real and imaginary spaces of isolation and introspection through experimental poetry and performance.

I sit and worry about her
Jasna Jovicevic (RS)

I sit and worry about her is a musical improvisation experiment exploring the endless worry of mothers for their daughters through the mapping and sonification of brain waves.

Artist talk – Kristina Tica
Kristina Tica (RS)

The winner of the Serbian national art+science AI Lab selection for 2020, Kristina Tica, talks about her project Digital Prayer. The project is using a computer vision method for image generation to create a visual output that represents Orthodox icons.

Emergence & Convergence: An Online Guided Tour
PHI (CA)

PHI is thrilled to present an online guided tour of Emergence & Convergence, the PHI Centre’s current exhibition in Montreal. Emergence & Convergence is an invitation to immerse ourselves completely in the works. This exhibition investigates our humanity in relationship with our planet and all living beings.

better off online. World Wide Webb. Curated by Anika Meier
KÖNIG GALERIE – Berlin / Tokyo / London / Digital

World Wide Webb by the British artist Thomas Webb is a virtual world the digital visitor enters through the browser on a smartphone. It is a multiplayer video game, a digital exhibition space and a world full of art and characters the visitor is invited to interact with. Webb recreates the social spontaneity of the world pre-Covid-19. He built a virtual world for new media artists to share their thoughts on what technology is and could be. The visitor meets AI avatars designed by Webb, to reflect the human nature and to question the use of technology in the digital age. Net art is presented in its genuine medium, the digital realm, where video art is also easily accessible.

The Woman-Machine: Performance
Félicia Atkinson (FR)

Watch this performance on the Livestream.

The Woman-Machine: Panel II
Aude Bernheim, Sophie Sakka

The second day of “The Woman-Machine” will feature panels from with Aude Bernheim on AI and ethics and Sophie Sakka on therapeutic robots and autism.

The Woman-Machine: Panel I
Clotilde Chevet, Oulimata Gueye

On Firday the event “The Woman-Machine” will start with talks from Clotilde Chevret about AI and gender, followed by another panel with Oulimata Gueye on afrocyberfeminism.

Real Feelings – A talk on Survival with Lucy McRae and Angelique Spaninks
Lucy McRae (GB), Angelique Spaninks (NL)

Sci Fi Artist and Body Architect Lucy McRae in conversation with the curators behind the exhibition Real Feelings. Her new work Solitary Survival Raft, shown at HeK, is an inflatable, reactive, breathing sculpture, inviting visitors to crawl into it for safety. The outbreak of Covid-19 has made our digitalized societies evade the human touch even more. Going against the idea of a future without being touched, McRae builds machines that gently embrace and hold the body.

Real Feelings – A Talk on Vibes with Lauren Lee McCarthy, Kyle McDonald and Ariane Koek
Lauren Lee McCarthy (US), Kyle McDonald (US), Ariane Koek (GB)

Sabine Himmelsbach, Ariane Koek and Angelique Spaninks, the curators behind the exhibition Real Feelings at HeK Basel in conversation with the American artist Lauren Lee McCarthy. This Artist Talk allows insights into the work of a highly interesting and relevant artist, examining social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation and algorithmic living. Her interactive installation Vibe Check, especially commissioned for the exhibition at HeK, consists of a series of cameras capturing and analyzing the visitors emotional reactions to each other, ultimately presenting the results to them individually.

Real Feelings – A Virtual Exhibition Tour with curator Sabine Himmelsbach
Sabine Himmelsbach (DE)

Co-curator Sabine Himmelsbach will digitally guide you through the international group show Real Feelings at HeK Basel, to present work by 20 artists in mediums ranging from artificial intelligence, interactive installations, robotics and biometrics, to gaming, video installations, virtual reality and photography. The shown works examine how technology can capture, evaluate or generate our emotions in a variety of ways. Find out more about the artistic and curatorial choices that determined the installation and set design of the exhibition.

Newcastle Garden CQC Session 2: The invisible and inner Ecology
Louisa Magrics (AU), Andrew Lloyd (AU)

This session will address themes of nuclear medicine, epidemiology, biological art and nano art. How can artists play an important role in making the invisible visible?

Newcastle Garden CQC Session 1: Re-indigeni(z)ing Ecology
Rewa Wright (NZ), Daryn McKenny (AU)

The first CQC session kicks off with important indigenous perspectives on ecology past, present and future. Traditional knowledge and stories are not locked in the past, but have the power to inform present and future ways of living. What perspectives and approaches can indigenous knowledge offer the planet as we move toward the future?

Collective Curated Exhibtions I: On the Road, Young Media Artists in China

A collaborative project between SCm/CityU HK and Guan Shang Yue Museum of Art, Shenzhen, presenting 50 installations by 35 artists; which involved 15 curators, art critics and scholars from China and Hong Kong. It provided an overview of the media art scene across China today, and demonstrated how young Chinese artists are exploring and combining both older and ‘newer’ media to new ends.

Ars Electronicas Garden Newcastle: We Guide You Tour
University of Newcastle (AU), FASTLab (AU), Art Thinking Australia (AU)

A tour of the Ars Electronica Garden Newcastle that focuses on the overarching theme of Ecology that spans both the natural and artificial world. Inspired by the Ars Electronica We Guide You format, the tour also provides a unique lens into the Newcastle culture.

Opening of Ars Electronica Garden Newcastle
University of Newcastle (AU), FASTLab (AU), Art Thinking Australia (AU)

Official opening of BIOMES & Ars Electronica Newcastle Garden 2020.

The Traveling Plant Video Tour
Annick Bureaud (FR); Tatiana Kourochkina (ES/RU); Marta de Menezes (PT); Claudia Schnugg (AT); Robertina Šebjanič (SI), Michael Marder (ES)

In a short video, the Seeds organizations, curators and artists, joined by special guests, present the project, with its different routes and hopes, to the public and the imaginary plant itself, through a tour of an Italian garden, an underwater garden, a hydroponic greenhouse, and more.

The Traveling Plant – Preparatory Log Book

A collective compilation of recommendatons and advice from people who, in the spirit of hosting, are asked to tell the plant what she may expect to discover and experience in her voyage, and what and whom she may encounter. Invited contributors and open contributions worldwide. A selection of the contributions will be published in an online PDF publication.

Diving into an Acidifying Ocean
Cristina Tarquini (IT/FR)

As part of Heartbeat of the Earth, a series of online interactive artworks interpreting climate data, digital artist Cristina Tarquini invites us to dive into our acidifying oceans using data from NOAA. Cristina Tarquini (IT) created an interactive data visualisation, inviting you to dive into the ocean and explore the impact of rising temperatures & in turn rising CO2 levels on marine life, over time.

Diving into an Acidifying Ocean – Q&A
Cristina Tarquini (IT/FR), Frédéric Gazeau (FR) & Freya Murray (UK)

Join the Q&A with the artist who created the online experiment and the scientist who advised her.

(UN)REAL
Science Gallery Network (INT)

The Science Gallery Garden at the Ars Electronica Festival will explore trust, technology, global challenges, arts innovation and new forms of digital storytelling. A showcase from the world’s only university network dedicated to public engagement with science and art, it will feature interactive workshops, experimental audio and visual experiences, livestreamed events and a specially-curated digital archive.

Acquired Immunity. Art and Biology at Cultivamos Cultura

The Microdocumentaries and Q&A of Acquired Immunity art and biology at Cultivamos Cultura

Acquired Immunity Exhibition

Acquired immunity displays artworks arising from our residencies and invited artists. We bring together artworks that were created as a response to challenges from the local environment: natural, social, and other artists. A response that we compare to the way the immune system responds to new challenges.

Acquired Immunity – Guided Tours

Guided tours of the exhibition by the curator, Marta de Menezes, an artist, Adam Zaretsky, and an immunologist, Luis Graca, will provide different paths within the real and virtual spaces.

Acquired Immunity Guided Tour 1 – with live Q&A
Marta de Menezes

This episode features a guided tour of the exhibition by curator Marta de Menezes, followed by a live Q&A.

Acquired Immunity Guided Tour 2 – with live Q&A
Adam Zaretsky

This episode features a guided tour of the exhibition by invited artist Adam Zaretsky, followed by a live Q&A.

Acquired Immunity Guided Tour 3 – with live Q&A
Luis Graça

This episode features a guided tour of the exhibition by immunologist Luis Graça, followed by a live Q&A.

MoneyLab#8 | Minting a Fair Society
MoneyLab

MoneyLab explores the imaginaries of artists, researchers, activists and geeks in search of other possible economies, and urgently interrogates a different financial discourse. Can we use technology critically to support alternative values of cooperation and “commoning” in a world dominated by individualism and competition?

!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.

From Art to Innovation: Do They Really Need Us?
Gašper Beg (SI), Luka Frelih (SI), Miha Horvat (SI), Janez Janša (SI), Jurij Krpan (SI), Marko Peljhan (SI/US), Irena Pivka (SI), Marko Pritržnik (SI), Peter Purg (SI)

Despite the widely embraced opinion that involving artists and creatives in innovation processes contributes to better results, very few research and development platforms are employing artists or art thinking in their innovation teams. Die talk’s participants will discuss the challenges for artists, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs stemming from essentially non-existing collaborative/open innovations.

ANYWHERE

During the Ars Electronica Festival visitors in Linz will be transported virtually to Luxembourg to explore the exhibition ANYWHERE by Mary-Audrey Ramirez in Esch-Belval. Through an interactive multimedia experience and real-life online game, the Festival public will be able to discover sections of a retired blast furnace at the site of a former steel plant in Esch

Rebecca Merlic – The City as a House
VENT gallery (AT)

Vast amounts of pictures, sounds, videos and 3D scans are organized as environments in Rebecca Merlic’s The City as a House, in form of an interactive visual novel. A work about the experiment of a white European 30-year-old heterosexual human living in Tokyo without inhabiting a private apartment over a period of time. A speculative exploration of the possibilities of abolishing known forms of habitation.

What is Sound – Alpha blending
Luana Lojić (HR)

What is Sound: Alpha blending is an audio-visual performative search for available information on the smallest things and units ever recorded or seen based on internet stored data (ex. bits, nanobes, phonemes, photons, atoms, etc.). Its constant is made of endless improvised medial translations formed from free online available generative tools and starts with a question posed into a search engine, building informational layers of text, sound, pictures and moving images.

Solar Walk @ Deep Space 8K
Réka Bucsi

Solar Walk, by the Hungarian animation artist Réka Bucsi, is a symphony between humans, animals, creatures, and inanimate and unknown objects.

Electronic Theatre @ Deep Space 8K

Since 1987, the Electronic Theatre has compiled a large number of submissions from all over the world, providing an up-to-the-minute survey of animation art in the context of technology and society. It impressively illustrates the dynamic development of artistic computer animation over the past three decades as well as the expansive growth of various fringe areas. A glance at the works selected this year shows a broad range, from animation in the context of performance and installations to real-time animation and multifaceted, subject-based discussions.

The Crying Book with Heather Christle and Performance by Gary Motley
Heather Christle, Gary Motley

The Crying Book is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy. Why do we cry? How do we cry? Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it. She researches tear-collecting devices and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence. Motley performs Someday Sunday as Christle reads from her first book of nonfiction, The Crying Book.

Reparatur der Zukunft
Ö1

With the Repairing the Future initiative, Ö1 wants to address the questions of 20 to 30-year-olds and give their ideas more space. Ars Electronica is presenting two projects around this theme

‘Nature Disrupted’ – Niio.art Video Art Program – Curated by Steven Sacks, bitforms gallery
Niio Art (IL), Tel Aviv

Nature Disrupted presents 4 video artworks by Claudia Hart and Marina Zurkow.

Hege Tapio and Norwegian BioArt Arena
NOBA – Norwegian Bioart Arena (NO)

Introduction of NOBA – Norwegian Bioart Arena with our team, facilities and our collaboration partners across Norway. Featuring Hege Tapio (NO), Annike Flo (NO), Nora Vaage (NO), Solveig Arnesen (NO), Hanan Benammar (FR/DZ), Simon Daniel Tegnander (NO), FAEN-Female Artistic Experiments Norway (NO), Eva Bakkeslett, Centre for Genomic Gastronomy (NO/US) ,The Dinghy AiR (NO) , Steven Barstow(NO) , Marita Isobel Solberg and Trond Ansten (NO), Elind Rui Blix (NO) , NIBIO- The Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NO)

NOBA- Norwegian BioArt Arena
NOBA – Norwegian Bioart Arena (NO)

Introduction of NOBA – Norwegian Bioart Arena with our team, facilities and our collaboration partners across Norway.

Human Oil – the last oil
Hege Tapio

Watch our premiere of Humanoil, a recorded performance by artist Hege Tapio, followed by the introduction of NOBA – Norwegian Bioart Arena. NOBA is the hub for the expanded field of bioart in Norway, and exists to bridge the gap between artists and scientists working on ecology, biology, technology, activism and art.

PSM presents Catherine Biocca
PSM Gallery (DE)

Within her body of work, Catherine Biocca frequently shapes environments that insinuate total autonomy from the viewer’s reality. It is almost as if, by visitation, we are actually intruding upon private property or a theater stage, interrupting the very happenings taking place. Her characters, often recognizable as anthropomorphized assemblages, are consistently active and presently conscious within their surroundings.

Natalia Fedorova: To be the wind for the tree

Did you ever want to hear a tree talk?  Did you ever want to feel how the water goes up the tree crones? How does the wind feel for the tree? The project of the artist and curator Natalia Fedorova is based on the idea of the Internet of Trees (IoT) verbalizing the tree sensualities. It consists of a poetry generator producing iterations based on TT and sensor data.

Ethan Avila, Laura Rodriguez: The Fruits of Consciousness

The final path of the trip is dedicated to finding new types of life forms, combining both human and non-human agents: robotics; AI+nature; the garden as a model of human consciousness; how to explain gardens to non-human agents; how to explain smells and touch to AI; collecting data from the gardens; big data and consciousness.

Pangardenia Boat Trip

Saint-Petersburg is a city built on swamps and full of water. We don’t have much greenery rooted in soil, but we do have underwater “gardens” (microbiome of Neva, Fontanka, Krukov Kanal, etc.) and deeply layered swamp life in the city’s depth. This path will lead us through water nomadic gardens of the city and its outskirts. It will be a site-specific artistic boat-trip that collaborated with boat-drones whose task is to collect eco-data.

Evgeniy Molodsov: Ramus

Cultural institutions such as universities and museums are locked. Used to be full of activities and people, today they are abandoned gardens. We will visit these semi-closed, semi-live spaces and share this experience online to recreate them in virtual spaces and to find new ways for growing knowledge and art.

The Hollow Sound of Longing
Daata presents Eva Papamargariti
Daata (UK)

Eva Papamargariti’s work explores the relationship and construction of the limits between virtual space and material reality, as well as the dynamic dissolution that takes place on the verge of these two “ecosystems.” Her practice delves into issues and themes related to simultaneity, the merging of our surroundings with the virtual, the constant diffusion of fabricated synthetic images that define and fragment our identity as well as the symbiotic procedures and entanglement that take place between humans, nature and technology.

Data Garden – Tour & Talk
​Kyriaki Goni (GR)

Data Garden ​Prerecorded discussion between artist Kyriaki Goni (GR), Prodromos Tsiavos (GR) Head of Digital at The Onassis Foundation, and *TBC,* followed by live recap and audience Q&A on YouTube and Zoom.

Gallery
Austrian Cultural Forum Tokyo (JP)

(Re)Visit Japan on a tour through a digital gallery with 100+ artworks created by artists from Austria.

Journey
Austrian Cultural Forum Tokyo (JP)

Come with us on a virtual journey through the past, present, and future of Japan – guided by reality, nostalgia, and fantasy. Let memories and dreams from Austria inspire your imagination.

el violador eres tú
LASTESIS collective

el violador eres tú is a small-format staging that, using the collage technique, links performance, sound and visual experimentation, with the aim of generating a graphic, visual and scenic assessment of theoretical essays that address gender issues from a feminist perspective. el violador eres tú is based on The Elementary Structures of Violence by Rita Segato (2003).

Feminist Structures: Networks and the Collective
Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem (CL)

One-actress experimental theatrical performance via webcam, in livestream format, where the original video component is visually transformed and processed in real time through Max/Msp Jitter, in a way that the resulting image is affected by the sound of the voice and body of the same performer, reacting to the energy, rhythm and/or dynamics of the speech and movements.

Round Table: Nouvelles technologies et pratiques artistiques dans le contexte d’une crise mondiale:
Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem (CL), Gustavo Celedón Ph.D. (CL), Makis Solomos Ph.D. (FR), Adolfo Vera Ph.D. (CL)

Éthique, Politique, Esthétique et Écologies de l’art – In the round table “New technologies and artistic practices in a global crisis context: Ethics, Politics, Aesthetics and Art Ecologies de l’art texte d’une crise” we aim to reflect collectively about the role of new technologies and art in the current global context with its ethical, political, aesthetical and ecological implications.

Exhibition VR Room: Did I invite you to exhibit here?
Verónica Francés (ES)

Did I invite you…? hits pause (II) on the imposed new normal to articulate a deeper timeline -millenia back (<<)-, while including multiple parameters -molecular or cosmic (@)- in the analysis.

Still There
Marlene Reischl (AT)

“Still There” is a video installation dealing with irritation as a state. Manipulated through Frame Blending, the computer transforms the images it has been given to generate new intermediate ones by itself.

Women in art, science and technology
Bridging the North Europe to Latin America in Ars Electronica Festival 2020

Such communities are formed in various places, providing a wide range of encouragement and support to their members. What particular issues are considered the most important? Are they similar for women coming from different backgrounds, and how specific are they depending on geographical location?

AUGENSCHEIN
Sylvia Eckermann (AT), Stieglerhaus

The Ars Electronica Garden St. Stefan ob Stainz takes us on a journey to Sylvia Eckermann’s public art project AUGENSCHEIN. AUGENSCHEIN takes the eye as a symbol for how our society relates to vision and visualisation, in its encouraging and more dangerous aspects.

Lisa Nakamura: Estranging Digital Racial Terrorism After COVID
How to Become a High-Tech Anti-Discrimination Activist Collective

This talk argues that COVID-19 forced an accelerated migration to digital networks that exposed new audiences to traumatically racist digital events as well as new openings for critique and resistance.

Chronicles of an Art and Science Collaboration, Otaniemi-Espoo, Finland
Aalto University (FI)

The project highlights the use of autoethnographic narrative as tool for artistic and design research. It brings together self-reflections from three scientists who participated in an art and science collaboration dealing with the use of bio-cellulose for art and design purposes. Through their stories we learn about what inspired them to follow careers in science and how the making of a contribution to sustainability and the good of humankind sustains their work objectives.

A glimpse into the cultural capital program
European Capital of Culture Esch2022 (LU)

art+science lab
Center for the Promotion of Science – CPN (RS)

The central segment of the Belgrade Garden is the premiere of the winning artwork from the national art+science selection for 2020. Digital Prayer by Kristina Tica uses ML techniques for establishing a connection between the canonical structure of an Orthodox icon and the image artificially generated by a computer program. The Garden will also host a musical performance I Sit and Worry About Her by Jasna Jovicevic (winner of the national selection in 2019), based on sonification of brain waves. Both works came out as results of interdisciplinary dialogues and an intensive scientific mentorship/residency program facilitated by CPN at principal national research centers.

Real Feelings. Emotion and Technology
HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel) (CH)

Emotions are at the core of human experience. They influence every aspect of our lives and shape our social behaviour. In the 21st century, technology has started to engage with emotions like never before. The international group show at HeK presents works by 20 artists ―in mediums ranging from artificial intelligence, interactive installations, robotics and biometrics to gaming, video installations and virtual reality by 20 artists― that explore how technology can assess and trigger our emotions.

Project Credits / Acknowledgements

This project received support from the equal treatment office of the city of Linz.