Interdisciplinary Workshop Promoting Women’s Perspectives on the Transnational Arts and Posthumanities
Experiments on new networks created through collaborations of cultural practices, high technology, and nature are common elements in various media questioning traditional notions of order, knowledge, and truth. Thereby, the arts as laboratories of creativity provide huge potentials to perform such syntheses helping us to rethink conventional social and ecological stereotypes. In this workshop, we will discuss this idea together with international female artists, curators, and researchers.
Host / Moderator
Kerstin Borchhardt (AT/DE)
Speakers
Sabine Himmelsbach (CH)
María Antonia Gonzales Valerio (MX)
Rahma Khazam (FR/GB)
Yukiko Matsunaga, (JP)
Elena Soterakis, (US)
Yoko Shimizu, Artist (AT/JP)
Language: English
Free admission.
Program
| 09:30 – 13:00 | Morning Panel: Keynotes and Discussions |
| 09:30 | Welcome and Introduction by Kerstin Borchhardt (Associate Professor, Katholische Privat-Universität Linz) |
| 09:45 | Sabine Himmelsbach (Director, House of Electronic Arts [HEK], Basel), Coding Care. Addressing Ecological Change and the Climate Crisis through Media Art |
| 11:00 | Yukiko Matsunaga (Associate Professor, University of Tokyo), Not just a Way of Expression: The Body Meets Music |
| 12:00 | María Antonia Gonzales Valerio (Professor/Artist, National Autonomous University of Mexico [UNAM], Mexico-City), What about Nature? Rethinking the Shape of Nature within a Particular City |
| 16:00 – 19:00 | Evening Panel: Keynotes, Discussions, and Art Presentation |
| 16:00 | Rahma Khazam (Researcher, Institut ACTE, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, EnsadLab, Paris), Mutualism or Parasitism? Reflections on the Implications of Symbiotic Relations |
| 17:00 | Elena Soterakis (Director, BioBAT Art Space, New York), BioBAT Art Space – Creative Explorations in Biotechnology and Art (online) |
| 18:00 | Art Presentation of the Ars Electronica Futurelab (Yoko Shimizu and Ali Nikrang) Art Project Sonosynthesis (2022) Presented by Yoko Shimizu (Key Researcher/Artist, Ars Electronica Futurelab, Linz) |
Kerstin Borchhardt (AT/DE)
Kerstin Borchhardt is an Associate Professor at the Institute of History and Theory of Art at Catholic Private University Linz. She has worked as a postdoc and lecturer at several German Universities and was a cooperating partner at UNAM in Mexico City. Her research interests include hybrid creatures, posthumanism, and the relationship of art, science, and popular culture. She has published several books and articles and is an organizer and speaker at international conferences and events.
Sabine Himmelsbach (CH)
Since 2012, Sabine Himmelsbach, is director of HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel. She was project manager for the Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz. In 1999 she became exhibition director at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe and she was the artistic director of the Edith-Russ-House for Media Art in Oldenburg from 2005–2011. In 2022 she curated Earthbound – In Dialogue with Nature for the European Capital of Culture Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg. Her writings and lectures encompass media art and digital culture.
María Antonia Gonzales Valerio (MX)
María Antonia González Valerio, PhD in Philosophy, is a full professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who directs the Seminar Arte+Ciencia bringing together artists, academics, and scientists. She is a curator and leads Bios ex Machina. She is also the proponent of a philosophy of nature within ontology-aesthetics. Several publications as: Through the Scope of Life: Art and (Bio)technologies Philosophically Revisited, Springer 2023.
Rahma Khazam (FR/GB)
Dr. Rahma Khazam is affiliated to Institut ACTE, Sorbonne Paris 1 and EnsadLab, Paris. Her research focuses on modernism, image theory, and contemporary speculative aesthetics. Publications include Ikonische und spekulative Wende: Von Visualität zu Realität in: Nach der ikonischen Wende. Actualität und Geschichte eines Paradigmas, Kadmos, 2021. She is the editor of Objets Vivants, a collection of philosophical essays exploring the frontiers between life and non-life (Mimésis, 2023).
Yukiko Matsunaga (JP)
Dr. Yukiko Matsunaga is a biomedical engineering scientist. Her research focuses on vascular tissue engineering to understand healthy and abnormal blood vessels and aims for regenerative medicine and drug discovery. She is also interested in the impact of incorporating art and design into the scientific research in the field of life sciences and healthcare. She was awarded The Young Scientists Prize from MEXT Japan in 2018.
Yoko Shimizu (AT/JP)
Yoko Shimizu is a researcher and artist at Ars Electronica Futurelab with a background in biology and chemistry. She began her career as a creative director and consultant for corporations, and later founded her lab, where she developed innovative technologies and installations that combine science and art. Yoko works with companies, government agencies, museums, and universities around the world and is a speaker and lecturer at international events, conferences, and educational institutions.
Elena Soterakis (US)
Elena Soterakis serves as the Co-Founder and Executive Director of BioBAT Art Space (NY), a BioArt gallery situated within a biotech incubator. Soterakis is also a Director of Creative Productions at Beyond Earth, an international women-led artist collective. Her artistic practice delves into themes of environmental degradation and humanity’s relationship with technology and nature. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Art and Design Atlanta, the Torrence Museum of Art, and the San Louise Obispo Museum of Art.
Co-funded by Bischöflicher Fonds zur Förderung der Katholischen Privat-Universität Linz Günter Rombold Privatstiftung