Panel Discussion and Q&A
Residency programs offer an opportunity for Artists or Scientists to swap their respective point of view – from working in an atelier to testing their skills in a laboratory context and vice versa – thus encouraging the exchange of ideas and building of new conceptiual models for problem solving.
Sustainable solutions to complex challenges demand a capacity for looking at the issue from different angles. By increasing collaboration efforts between cultural and research institutions, academia, innovation centers, creatives, and citizens, new insights and innovative methodologies and prototypes can be generated.
Initiatives such as STARTS4Water therefore aim to support artists, researchers, technology experts and other stakeholders in finding a common ground and language to respond to regional water – related challenges, such as clean water as a basic right for all humans and on the conservation of life in our oceans, seas and marine life.
Residency. But How? focuses on the potential of residency programs as powerful tools in transitioning towards a more just and sustainable future, by converging views of science, arts and technology and facilitating collaborative research and action.
Chair:
Christian Rauch (DE)
Speakers:
Aimee Van Wynsberghe (CA)
Irakli Sabekia (GE)
Marjan Žitnik (HR)
Robertina Šebjanič (SI)
Biographies
Christian Rauch (DE) is a researcher and social entrepreneur working at the intersection of science, art, society and business to explore future possibilities for a sustainable present. He is founder and director of STATE, a Berlin-based initiative that partners with organisations such as the United Nations, European Commission, Fraunhofer Association or XPRIZE, to create transdisciplinary cultural and artistic programs to re-think the questions that shape our tomorrow and facilitate creativity without borders. A strong focus of Christian’s work is on the question of how to enable futures-oriented group intelligence processes. In this context, he created tools such as the AKAW futures thinking cards and Futures Canvas, a digital platform for collective speculation and envisioning futures together. He is visiting professor at INSEAD’s European Center for Executive Education (CEDEP), keynote-speaker and facilitator and works with executives and decision-makers to enhance their futures-thinking capacities. Christian studied physics in Berlin and Sydney and received his PhD in renewable energy research from Aalto University Helsinki, before he worked in knowledge transfer and innovation management for a German research institute. He supports the German Academy of Science and Engineering as a member of its Communication Science Expert Bank, is part of the curatorial board of the BIOTOPIA museum and jury member of the German Creative Industries Award “Kultur- und Kreativpiloten” of the BMWi. As an active fellow of the BMW Foundation’s Responsible Leader network, he promotes sustainable development as part of an international network of changemakers.
Prof. Dr. Aimee van Wynsberghe is not only the face of the new science partnership but also jury member as well as supervisor of the ArtScience Residency. With her Sustainable AI Lab, based at the University of Bonn she will support the research behind and development of the new artworks.
Irakli Sabekia (GE) is a Georgian designer and art researcher living in Amsterdam. A graduate of the Design Academy Eindhoven, he has a background in natural sciences and visual communication, and his work explores the role of humans in relation to artificial and natural systems. By engaging with politics, society and technology, he aims to create spaces for alternative narratives and the re-evaluation of existing structures. Using both artistic and scientific methods, he creates installations, interventions, and interactive experiences to enter into dialogue with viewers and provide a multi-layered insight into the issues he addresses.
Marjan Žitnik (HR) was born 28th March 1990 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. During his primary and high school, he played piano (won 2 national and 1 international award). Besides art he showed interest in computers and digital design. After getting master degree in computer engineering he founded several mobile-app-based startups, and recently worked as the Product Manager in Photomath (several times #1 AppStore educational app Worldwide, +200M downloads). His biggest passion since he was a kid was fishing, which his family taught him of, and he never missed the opportunity to get back to the boat. In 2018 he founded Maritimo Fishing with the slogan “Fish like locals do”, which offers customized boat & kayak fishing trips. In 2019 the company presented Maritimo Shop, an online store offering fishing womenswear & menswear. In 2020 the company founded the organisation Maritimo Recycling, which cleans the Adriatic sea from plastic, and designing recycled fishing lures which will be presented to the public in 2021.
Robertina Šebjanič (SI) is an artist whose work explores the ecological, (geo)political and cultural realities of aquatic environments and the impact of humanity on other organisms. Her projects call for developing empathetic strategies to recognise the other (non-human) species. In her analysis of the Anthropocene and its theoretical framework, the artist uses the terms “aquatocene” and “aquaforming” to refer to the human impact on aquatic environments.Her works received awards and nominations at Prix Ars Electronica, Starts Prize, Falling Walls. Her art work Aurelia 1+Hz / proto viva generator (artist proof) is since 2019 part of the .BEEP {collection;}_ Electronic Art Collection, Spain. She exhibited / performed at solo and group exhibitions as well as in galleries and festivals: Ars electronica Linz, Kosmica festival_ Laboratorio Arte Alameda_Mexico City, Matadero_Madrid, La Gaîté Lyrique_ Paris, Le Cube_Paris, MONOM_ CTM Berlin, Art Laboratory Berlin, ZKM_Karlsruhe, re:publica_Berlin, Mladi Levi_Ljubljana, Centro de Cultura Digita_ Mexico City, Piksel_Bergen, OSMO/ZA_Ljubljana, Device art 5.015 at Klovičevi dvori_Zagreb, Eastern Bloc_Montreal, Eyebeam_New York, PORTIZMIR#3_ Izmir, Kiblix festival_Maribor, Spektrum_Berlin, KIKK festival_ Namur, +MSUM (Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova)_Ljubljana and more.Credits
The ArtScience Residency is enabled by the partnership of Ars Electronica and Art Collection Deutsche Telekom and with the support of Sustainable AI Lab of the University Bonn.
S+T+ARTS Day is supported by the European Project Repairing the Present which has received funding from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement LC01641664.
