Social Innovation with Art-Sci-Tech

School of Arts is a part of a small but distinctly international University of Nova Gorica, which provides a fruitful environment for interdisciplinary research. In addition to participating in humanities projects, at this institution art finds ways to cooperate with natural sciences, environmental sciences, karstology, physics and astrophysics. Students get familiar with the interdisciplinary field of art-science-technology (AST) either through videofilm formats (mentor Assoc. Prof. Jasna Hribernik) or through the one of carrier modules, such as New Media (module leader Assoc. Prof. Peter Purg, PhD) and Contemporary Art Practices (module leader Prof. Rene Rusjan). For several years the School of Arts’ main AST guest mentor has been Robertina Šebjanič, who mentors students from different fields of interest (film, animation, photography, new media) who share a passion for scientific and technological approaches within art. Last year the UNG School of Arts succeeded in accrediting a novel Master Module in Art, Science and Technology (MAST), exploring how the imagination of artists and their tools for creativity can bring about true innovations that could tackle the most complex challenges of the future, both for society at large, and industries. Next to accrediting an international master module, participants from a variety of disciplines have jointly explored and identified the vectors of possible policy impacts and priorities for the future of Europe as well as created alliances for forward-thinking future actions. MAST was created by a consortium of partners within an EU supported project, coordinated by the UNG School of Arts, including the Institute of Spatial Design at Graz University of Technology, the Madeira Interactive Arts Institute, and the NGOs Culture Action Europe from Brussels, the Croatian Cultural Alliance from Rijeka, and the Kersnikova Institute from Ljubljana, (2018 – 2020) The MAST spirit continues to live in the konS– Platform for Contemporary Investigative Arts where the Innovation Catalyst profile is being pursued and developed in practice through hundreds of workshops, dozens of cutting-edge artistic productions and a robust transfer-to-industry mechanism. The most recent project upon the legacy of the MAST, is Loose Cells. Since February 2021, experts, professors and students have been creating a multi-layered art-science object addressing issues, such as sea level rise, wood properties/buoyancy, sustainability of the building sector and human-nature-technology relationships. It was designed by a consortium of four partners and the research institute InnoRenewCoE as the main driver of the project. Other partners are: the University of Primorska and the Association for Culture and Education PiNA (with the support of the RUK network of research centers).