ASER TALKS Brussels – The Artwork As A Living System
with Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau and Dr. Elio Tuci moderated by Alexandra Dementieva and Dr. Florian Zanatta Saturday 15 April 2023 at 7pm IMAL, Brussels
The event is part of the exhibition "The Work as a Living System".
The intersection between biology, technology & art, and the use of biological systems and processes serve as a metaphor for the complex relationships between humans, nature and the digital world.
Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau are internationally acclaimed pioneers of interactive art. Since the early 90s, their immersive installations encourage us to explore and interact with natural environments and to participate in their simultaneous transformation in the digital space. Plants, water and lights become sensitive interfaces through which the public can create and connect with virtual environments. https://www.imal.org/en/events/the-artwork-as-a-living-system
Dr. Elio Tuci is a researcher in the field of artificial life, with a focus on using robotic and computational models to understand the behavior of biological systems. He has collaborated with artists on projects that explore the intersection of art, science, and technology. https://directory.unamur.be/staff/etuci
LEONARDO LASER TALKS SPECIAL – 'The Cookery' Thursday 26 January 2023 from 10AM to 8pm iMAL, Brussels
The Cookery’ debuts its first edition between 23 and 29 January 2023.
'The Cookery' programme includes workshops, conferences, round tables, presentations and performances on the most emerging artistic practices - from creative coding, audiovisual and sound art practices to those linked to extended realities, artificial intelligence, design, fashion or architecture.
Laser Talks Brussels will be hold January 26 from 10 to 6 PM, Friday at 12 PM,Saturday at 12 PM. Streaming will be organised for 'Realities in Transition'. Experts group. Roundtable https://www.youtube.com/@imagicy/streams
The growth of XR (Extended Reality) scenarios (Augmented & Virtual Realities, Metaverse...), raises serious social and cultural issues.
The Realities in Transition project aims at addressing these by thinking and promoting a common, open and sustainable XR, at a European level.
All events will be recorded and put online later. All talks will be in present
Programme for THURSDAY 26.01
10:00 Nicolas Nova Talk BIO
Nicolas Nova is a researcher, writer and design researcher. He is an anthropologist of technology active in the field of contemporary cultures, interaction design and futures research. His work is focused on observing and documenting digital and new media practices, as well as environmental changes. Using ethnographic approaches, Nicolas investigates everyday cultures to tell stories, and employs design techniques such as Design Fiction to explore the implications of social or technological changes.
He is both co-founder of the Near Future Laboratory, a research agency based in Europe and California, and Professor at the Geneva University of Arts and Design (HEAD – Genève), where he teaches digital anthropology, ethnography and design research. He is also associate researcher at medialab SciencesPo in Paris.
Nicolas holds a PhD in Social Sciences (University of Geneva), and another PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL, Switzerland). He was previously visiting professor at ENSCI - Les Ateliers (Paris) and Politecnico di Milano, visiting researcher at the Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, CA), the Institute of Sociological Research at the University of Geneva, and co-founder/curator of the Lift Conferences, a series of international events about digital culture, design and innovation. He has given talks and exhibited his work on the intersections of design, technology and the near-future in venues such SXSW, EPIC, the AAAS conference, O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, PICNIC, NEXT, the design week in Milano, and the Institute for the Future.
11:00 Regine Debatty Talk BIO
Régine Debatty is a Belgian curator, blogger and art critic who lives in Turin, Italy. In 2004, she created we make money not art, a blog that has received numerous distinctions over the years, including two Webby awards and an honorary mention at the STARTS Prize, a competition launched by the European Commission to acknowledge “innovative projects at the interface of science, technology and art”.
Régine writes and lectures internationally about the way artists, hackers and designers use science and technology as a medium for critical discussion. She created A.I.L. (Artists in Laboratories), a weekly program about the connections between art and science for Resonance104.4fm, London’s legendary art radio station (2012–14.) She has collaborated on numerous publications, most notably co-authoring the “sprint book” New Art/Science Affinities, published by Carnegie Mellon University (2011), co-editing E-Relevance· The Role of Arts & Culture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence for the Council of Europe (2021) and she is now co-writing a book about art and digital labour.
13:00 PLAYING THE MEDIA, PLAYING THE SENSES Online performance In an online streaming event, Eric and Isjtar present CREWs work past and future in the form of a lecture performance. Participants are guided through the CREW studio. Historical hardware artefacts developed by CREW are combined with XR techniques to draw a complex picture of CREW’s work, and how it relates to past, present and future forms of XR performance. After the lecture, participants are invited to an open discussion online.
BIOS
Eric Joris, founder of CREW, is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher that pioneered immersive VR performances. Since 2003 CREW and Eric have realized fully embodied performances using in-house developed Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).
Isjtar works as a media artist, electronic music composer and performer. A first-generation native digital artist, he uses the computer as chisel, stone and looking glass. His work is transdisciplinary, as such he excels in collaborations and art-science-technology crossovers.
Since 2019, Eric and Isjtar form the artistic heart of CREW together to plot and fill out CREW's artistic trajectory. As an experimental company, CREW seeks to make visible the ways technology changes us. The playground for sharing this immersive work with the public includes theatre, installations, and performances. These real-time creations anchor immersion in the here and now as the point of contact between humans and technology.
Participants requirements: up to date computer with good enough internet connection
15:00
THE EXTENDED MUSICAL SPACE – PARTICIPATORY AND CREATIVE MUSIC MAKING IN DIGITALLY AUGMENTED MUSICAL ENVIRONMENTS Talkby Bavo van Kerrebroek XR technology, as the latest instantiation of our escape into the virtual, has now reached a point from which we are no longer bound to our physical bodies, substituting conscious experience of our physical environments for experimentally controlled, simulated, and multisensorial contexts. With its capacity to immerse its users while offering an embodied sense of presence, it has great potential to simulate existing, or create new musical contexts enriching for embodied and collective music making. This presentation will give an overview of scientific and artistic research into the dynamic and coregulatory processes underlying music making, to answer fundamental questions regarding the technologically-mediated nature of musical expression and experience in XR. It aims to provide a basis for the extended musical space, in which composers, performers, spectators, and participants can explore, discover, and co-create the fertile dynamics and meaningful engagements of making music in XR. BIO
Bavo Van Kerrebroeck is a researcher in the fields of embodied (musical) interaction, extended reality and human-computer interaction. He works with extended reality and audio spatialization technologies to enable and investigate the dynamical processes underlying coordination between musical players. For this purpose, he develops enriched and mediated musical contexts in which people and machines interact and can meaningfully express themselves. He is currently finalizing his PhD at the Institute of Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music (IPEM). His work has been published in the Frontiers and Computer-Human Interaction journals and has been presented at ISMIR, ICMC and Expanded Animation at Ars Electronica.
16:00
ANIMA - THE USE OF AI FOR IDENTITY MODELS
ALEXANDER SCHUBERT Talk
AI can be used to create, alter and deceive identities. Using this technology as a metaphor for questions of agency, constructivism and personality models is a continued interest of Alexander Schubert - leading to the current music theatre work ANIMA™
BIO
Alexander Schubert (1979) studied bioinformatics, multimedia composition. He’s a professor at the Musikhochschule Hamburg. Schubert’s interest explores the border between the acoustic and electronic world. In music composition, immersive installation and staged pieces he examines the interplay between the digital and the analogue. He creates pieces that realize test settings or interaction spaces that question modes of perception and representation. Continuing topics in this field are authenticity and virtuality. The influence and framing of digital media on aesthetic views and communication is researched in a post-digital perspective. Recent research topics in his works were virtual reality, artificial intelligence and online-mediated artworks.
Schubert is a founding member of ensembles such as “Decoder“.
His works have been performed more than 700 times in the last few years by numerous ensembles in over 30 countries.
17:00 RIT EXPERT PANEL Roundtable
The growth of XR (Extended Reality) scenarios (Augmented & Virtual Realities, Metaverse...), raises serious social and cultural issues.
The Realities in Transition project aims at addressing these by thinking and promoting a common, open and sustainable XR, at a European level.
To do so, the activation of an active, thinking Creative and Activist European XR community is needed.
The 7 members of the consortium (Seconde Nature - France - Aix en Provence; LEV - Spain - Gijon and Madrid; Kontejner - Croatia – Zagreb; Ars Electronica - Austria – Linz; Dark Euphoria - France – Marseille; V2 - Netherland – Rotterdam and iMal - Belgium – Brussels) will animate the Creative and Activist European XR community composed of the following contributors and beneficiaries, from diverse sectors, at various levels of implication: The cultural and creative sector, Students and academia, Economic sector, Government and policy makers, Civil society.
FRIDAY 27.01
17:00 / Talk: Fari (ULB - VUB)
The popularity of using artificial intelligence to generate art is growing. However, ethical concerns arise about making art with models that have been trained using other people’s artwork. What does that mean for creativity? How is generative AI changing creative work? When is art really art? Who is the real author of the work? These are all questions that will be addressed.
Session Moderator: Lea Rogliano
Participants: Hugues Bersini, FARI AI Institute for Common Good Lead Scientific Advisor / Head, IRIDIA (ULB), Carl Mörch, Manager, FARI AI Institute for Common Good, Université Libre de Bruxelles & more TBC
SATURDAY 28.01
17:00 / Talk: Benjamin Gaulon
BIO Benjamin Gaulon is an artist, researcher, educator and cultural producer. He has previously released work under the name "recyclism". His research focuses on the limits and failures of information and communication technologies; planned obsolescence, consumerism and disposable society; ownership and privacy; through the exploration of détournement, hacking and recycling. His projects can be softwares, installations, pieces of hardware, web based projects, interactive works, street art interventions and are, when applicable, open source.
He is currently director of NØ SCHOOL, a non profit organisation whose mission is to support and promote emerging art and design research and practices that address the social and environmental impacts of information and communication technologies, in France and beyond. Co-organiser of NØ SCHOOL NEVERS 2019. And he is the CEO of IoDT the Internet of Dead Things Institute
Organised by iMAL, in collaboration with ADEM Lab & Cyland Lab.
LEONARDO LASER TALK – Immersive listening
with Roel Heremans and Esther Venrooij
moderated by Edith Doove, chaired by Alexandra Dementieva Tuesday 20 December 2022
iMAL, Brussels
"AS HUMANS WE ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR MEANING IN WHAT WE EXPERIENCE AND WE ARE ALWAYS PROJECTING OURSELVES ONTO OUR SURROUNDINGS, EVEN WHEN WE SEE, HEAR OR EXPERIENCE NOTHING."
On the Process of Becoming Silent and Listening - Esther Venrooij
An evening around attentive listening through the work of two artist-researchers that create immersive sound installations, sound landscapes, or films in which listening triggers the imagination and creates a special relationship with the audience.
With Roel HEREMANS and Esther VENROOIJ
Roel Heremans is a transdisciplinary artist working with sound, composed introspection and neurofeedback.
In most of his works he composes fragments of audio that trigger the imagination of visitors in order to create immersive group experiences.
As a result the visitors simultaneously become actors, witnesses, performers and reenactors of mental and physical processes of thought and movement, where collective performances encounter individual reactions and vice versa. https://roelheremans.com
Esther Venrooij considers her dual roles as artist and composer as occupying two different sensorial planes. She creates work in a variety of media, such as composed music, improvised combinations of electronica, video and site-specific installations. With a sharp focus, both in her studies and creative impulses on audio topography, she explores the way sound and movements inhabits space. Having collaborated live and in the studio with a variety of visual, sound and dance artists, Venrooij’s biography reads like a mixed media map of projects. She has performed and presented her works extensively for audiences in Europe, Asia and United States. In November 2015, she completed her PhD studies in Art at KULeuven with an exhibition of a series of sound installations and a dissertation: ‘Audio Topography: The Interaction of Sound, Space and Medium’. In 2018, she was granted a ZAP-mandate at KULeuven, in the field “Spatial Experiences: Spatial Experiences: Visual, Auditory, Sensorimotor, Tactile and Conceptual” and is she supervising doctoral research projects. https://esthervenrooy.me
Images references :
Esther Venrooij : Double screening, Installation view "On the Process of Becoming Silent and Listening" (2021)
Roel Heremans : The NeuroRight Arcades on Ars Electronica Festival
LEONARDO LASER TALKS Brussels
The olfactory experience as a new language
with Peter De Cupere and Piet Devos
17:00-19:30 pm CEST
Sunday 12 June 2022
iMAL, 30 Quai des Charbonnages, Koolmijnenkaai, 1080 Brussels - www.imal.org/en
The olfactory experience as a new language with Peter De Cupere and Piet Devos
TThe olfactory experience is accessible to people of different cultures and with different abilities. It might actually become a new language for dialogue about common human values and needs.
In the animal world the olfactory system plays one of the most important roles to help animals to survive. In order to hunt, to recognize enemies and friendly species, smells warn them of potential danger. Humans perceive smells with each breath and while still inside of the womb their olfactory sensor is fully developed at the age of 7-8 months. But later humans lose half of these capacities. During the last two decades, doctors and researchers, from neuroscientists to the humanities, have sought to better understand the sense of smell, the way it shapes our everyday life, our emotions, feelings, our eating preferences, its role in creating memory and its functioning in our social interactions.
As part of the The Festival of the New European Bauhaus, LASERtalks Brussels invites artist Peter De Cupere and scholar Piet Devos to discuss their work on the importance of smell in human and nonhuman interaction. The talk is moderated by Edith Doove and Alexandra Dementieva.
The Festival of the New European Bauhaus brings together people from all walks of life to debate and shape our future. A future that is sustainable, inclusive and beautiful. It is a great opportunity to network, exchange and celebrate – from science to art, from design to politics, from architecture to technology.
About Adem Adem asbl/vzw is Nonprofit organisation based in Brussels, Belgium. It develops and produces artistic creations and participates in the realization and artistic production of projects, covering all aspects of artistic creations, all disciplines and in particular multimedia, science, communication, journalism, it organizes events -talks, performances, exhibitions.
About LEONARDO/ISAST Leonardo fosters transformation at the nexus of art, science and technology, because complex problems require creative solutions. We serve to empower an inclusive global network, a borderless community where all belong in pursuit of a more vibrant, just and regenerative world. A fearless pioneer since 1968, Leonardo serves as THE community forging a transdisciplinary network to convene, research, collaborate and disseminate best practices at the nexus of arts, science and technology worldwide.
About LASER Talks Leonardo/ISAST LASER Talks are a program of international gatherings that bring artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together for informal presentations, performances and conversations with the wider public. The mission of LASER is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building.
About New European Bauhaus Festival The Festival brings together people from all walks of life to debate and shape our future. A future that is sustainable, inclusive and beautiful. It is a great opportunity to network, exchange and celebrate – from science to art, from design to politics, from architecture to technology. The Festival brings the European Green Deal at the heart of our daily lives
About CYLAND Founded in 2007, CYLAND is a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding the intersection of Art :: Tech through an annual international festival, visual exhibitions, sound art, video art, and educational programming. CYLAND brings together artists, curators, technologists, educators, and thinkers to create innovative projects around the world.
About iMAL iMAL is a space for artistic practices around the creative and critical use of new technologies. iMAL connects a community of artists, thinkers, makers and citizens from Belgium and abroad and offers a completely renewed infrastructure to support a program focusing on research, production and presentation.
Peter De Cupere is the most prolific and proactive proponent of olfactory art in the world and an expert in the field of the olfactory system. In collaboration with a number of visually impaired assistants he has developed a shared system of writing for the blind to create an olfactory alphabet, the OLFABET.
Piet Devos is an author, translator and literary scholar. At the age of five he became blind due to retinal cancer. These experiences of illness and disability are very important for who he is today. They have shaped him as a person, as a writer and researcher, but also as an activist for a greener and more inclusive world.
Edith Doove (PhD) is a curator, writer and researcher, specifically interested in notions of emergence and contingency, cross and transdisciplinary collaborations.
iMAL, Sunday 12 June at 5pm 30 Quai des Charbonnages Koolmijnenkaai, 1080 Brussels
PREVIOUS
‘Tangible sound, postdigital instruments, audio spatialization
technologies and extended reality.’
Materialising digital matter into sound objects, embodied music interaction, spatialisation technologies to enable and investigate synchronisation between musical players using movement and sound, the physical aspects of musical human machine interaction, reinterpretation the physical value of well established cultural techniques creating Tangible user Interface.
With Claire Williams, Enrique Tomás and Bavo Van Kerrebroeck.
Claire Williams
is working at the borders of science, technology, arts and textiles. She sees her self as an artist and researcher that tries to work between these fields, finding a common language, creating and amplifying specific interactions between different mediums. Her obsessions lay mostly around data, sound and ancient textiles, trying to materialise digital matter, imperceptible or inaudible informations found in our super saturated techno environment. She likes to work with unstable media, researching ways to create specific tools, usages or techniques to give us a sensitive experience of our daily environment. In her work she mainly uses textile techniques, hacked machines, DIY electronics, open source software and hardware. http://www.xxx-clairewilliams-xxx.com https://chroniques.org/en/oeuvre/zoryas
Enrique Tomás
is a sound artist and post-doc researcher who dedicates his time to finding new ways of expression and play with sound, art and technology. His work explores the intersection between sound art, computer music, locative media and human-machine interaction.
As an individual artist, Tomás’ activity is centered around ultranoise.es and focuses on performances and installations with extreme and immersive sounds and environments. He has exhibited and performed in spaces of Ars Electronica, Sonar, CTM, IRCAM, IEM, KUMU, SMAK, NOVARS, STEIM, Steirischer Herbst, Alte Schmiede, etc., and in galleries and institutions throughout Europe and Latin America.
TAMLAB (Tangible Music Lab) at the University of Linz https://tamlab.ufg.at
Dr. Dipl.-Ing. Enrique Tomás, Post Doc researcher at TAMLAB https://tamlab.ufg.at/team/enrique-tomas
Bavo Van Kerrebroeck
is a researcher in the fields of embodied (musical) interaction, extended reality and human-computer interaction. He works with extended reality and audio spatialization technologies to enable and investigate the dynamical processes underlying coordination between musical players. For this purpose, he develops enriched and mediated musical contexts in which people and machines interact and can meaningfully express themselves. He obtained a master’s in engineering and computer music at the KUleuven and Sorbonne University, did a research internship at IRCAM and worked as an analyst for IBM and the European Space Agency. He is currently finalizing his PhD at the Institute of Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music (IPEM). His work has been published in the Frontiers and Computer-Human Interaction journals and has been presented at ISMIR, ICMC and Expanded Animation at Ars Electronica. https://research.flw.ugent.be/nl/bavo.vankerrebroeck
Laser Talk Brussels is curated and organized by Alexandra Dementieva (ADEM lab) in collaboration with Edith Doove.
Alexandra Dementieva is a multimedia artist, based in Brussels. The idea of interaction between the viewer and an artwork, mediated by technologically progressive visualization methods, lies at the core of her work. In her installations she uses various art forms on an equal basis: dance, music, cinema and performance. Akin to an explorer she raises questions related to social psychology and theories of perception suggesting solutions to them by contemporary artistic means, that is by taking a subjective stance behind a camera. Her installations focus on the role of the viewer and her/his interaction with an artwork and bring forth ways of provoking the viewer’s involvement thus allowing hidden mechanisms of human behaviour to be revealed. https://alexdementieva.org bureaudoove.com
dinA
Nieuwbrug 3 Rue du Pont Neuf / Brussel 1000 Bruxelles
The LASER Talks Brussels on March 29
Hosted by IMAL - Center for Digital Cultures imal.org
Learning through sound
Sound helps us interact with the world and with each other, sonification gives a great possibility to present and analyse data. Space around us is filled with humming, murmuring, reverberating, carrying information. Sound waves can be a means of diagnosing health conditions and of monitoring the faraway space. Frequencies beyond human hearing can wake dormant instruments measuring volcanoes activity. Sound can be almost a physical instrument. Astrophysicists refer to sonification of light/brightness variations to reconstruct stellar compositions and structure. Scientists and artists are exploring and probing the world by listening.
With Aernoudt JACOBS, Katrien KOLENBERG and Mathieu ZURSTRASSEN.
Aernoudt JACOBS is a Belgian artist working primarily with the medium of sound. His work is both phenomenological and empirical. It has its origins in acoustic and technological research and investigates how sounds can trigger sonic processes that will affect the observer's scope of perception. His work focuses on a central question: how can the complexity, richness and stratification of our direct, daily environment be translated into something that can really be experienced. His work has been exhibited widely in Belgium and abroad. In addition to his artistic practice Jacobs co-directs with Christoph De Boeck Overtoon, a platform and production facility for sound art based in the centre of Brussels.
Katrien KOLENBERG is an astronomer (astrophysics), STE(A)M coordinator and manager of ESERO-Belgium (European Space Education Resource Office) coordinator at the KULeuven. She is professor of astrophysics at the University of Antwerp and the VUB. After obtaining her PhD in astrophysics at KULeuven in 2002, she did research at the University of Vienna and at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. At each of these stops, art always featured alongside astronomy. Her scientific research is situated in the field of stellar astrophysics, in particular variable stars and asteroseismology (the physics of vibrating stars).
She is passionate about science and art, astronomy for development, and innovative/artistic science communication and education worldwide. In this context, she long ago made the bridge from the data of vibrating stars to the sound that can be associated with them, and discovered the (persuasive) power of multisensory data exploration. Her collaboration with Wanda Diaz Merced, who uses and studies sonification, inspired her to start "fine-tuning" sonification techniques for pulsating stars. While star sounds have often been used for science communication, the power of the sonification method for data analysis within asteroseismology (and by extension other fields) has never been thoroughly investigated. The AstroSounds collaboration allows this to be investigated on a larger scale, by letting the public listen to stars!
Mathieu ZURSTRASSEN is a trained architect who since 2013 embraces the path of visual arts. In designing objects, he moves away from the projection of the drawing and focuses on the experimentation of construction. He gives added value to his work, symbolic and philosophical, on the quality of the invisible and the relationships thus created between the sender and receiver. He uses the codes of craftsmanship to solve aesthetical issues often at the borders of the unspeakable. Highly technical, Mathieu Zurstrassen combines the ambiguity of materials, a poetic thought made of humour and delicacy.
He has since exhibited in various events, galleries and festivals such as the KIKK Festival or Ars Electronica or Venice Biennale.
LASER TALKS Brussels are curated by Alexandra DEMENTIEVA in collaboration with Edith DOOVE as moderator.
Alexandra Dementieva is a multimedia artist, based in Brussels. The idea of interaction between the viewer and an artwork, mediated by technologically progressive visualization methods, lies at the core of her work. In her installations she uses various art forms on an equal basis: dance, music, cinema and performance. Akin to an explorer she raises questions related to social psychology and theories of perception suggesting solutions to them by contemporary artistic means, that is by taking a subjective stance behind a camera. Her installations focus on the role of the viewer and her/his interaction with an artwork and bring forth ways of provoking the viewerТs involvement thus allowing hidden mechanisms of human behaviour to be revealed. alexdementieva.org
in collaboration with moderator
Edith Doove (PhD) is a curator, writer and researcher, specifically interested in notions of emergence and contingency, cross and transdisciplinary collaborations. She holds a PhD as member of Transtechnology Research at Plymouth University. Since 2018 she lives and works in France, currently in Rouen where she teaches at ESADHaR (École supérieure dТart et design Le Havre Rouen). She is a postdoctoral advisor with Transtechnology Research, a regular contributor to Leonardo Reviews, moderator of the Leonardo LASER Talks Brussels and co-convenor of Currer Bell College. Recent exhibition projects are Loving Care - Pierre Mertens (Blikfabriek, Antwerp, 2020), Troupe/Troep (ChezKit, Pantin/Paris, 2021) and the 10th anniversary version of the international art project Bolero (Rouen, 2021).
Assistance for streaming by Peter Friess
Editing by Anton Khlabov, Cyland
PREVIOUS
LASER Talks Brussels – Out-of-control-ness and the emergence of possibilities CHAIRED BY: Alexandra Dementieva
Panelists: Frances BRAZIER – Joost REKVELD – Frank THEYS
Moderator: Edith Doove
This is the 4rd talk in the series, discussing notions of out-of-control ness in a social and technical context that are at the core of the work of the three panelists: Prof. Dr. Frances BRAZIER who is a full professor in Engineering Systems Foundations at the Delft University of Technology and visual artists Joost REKVELD and Frank THEYS.
Brazier approaches the subject through her research into social systems and connects out-of-control-ness with the notion of emergence and new possibilities, the empowerment of people in change management. For Rekveld the notion of out-of-control-ness is related to his research into analog computing, its history and culture, pushing the limits of its affordance. For Theys it’s related to the current state of affairs of the world and global warming which is the subject of his latest interactive multimedia installation ‘Chronicle of an Extinction Foretold’.
Frances BRAZIER is a full professor in Engineering Systems Foundations at the Delft University of Technology, as of September 2009, before which she chaired the Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems Group for 10 years within the Department of Computer Science at the VU University Amsterdam. She holds a MSc in Mathematics and a doctorate in Cognitive Ergonomics from the VU Amsterdam. Parallel to her academic career she co-founded the first ISP in the Netherlands: NLnet and later NLnet Labs. She is currently a board member of the NLnetLabs Foundation.
With a strong background in the design of human computer interaction, multi-agents systems, and distributed systems, current research focuses on the design of socio-technical ecological systems that enable and support participation in today's networked society: participatory systems! The leading design principles include design for trust, design for empowerment and design for engagement. Areas of study and exploration include distributed energy management, crisis management, dynamic supply chain management, real-time safety management. https://www.tudelft.nl/tbm/over-de-faculteit/afdelingen/multi-actor-systems/people/professors/profdr-fm-frances-brazier
Joost REKVELD is an artist motivated by the question of what we can learn from a dialogue with machines. In his work, he explores the sensory consequences of systems of his own design, often inspired by forgotten corners in the history of science and technology. His films, installations and performances are composed documentaries of the worlds opened by such systems. His abstract films have been shown world-wide in a wide range of festivals and venues for experimental film, animation or other kinds of moving image. He has realized several installations and was involved in many collaborative projects involving composers, music ensembles, theatre companies, dance companies and artist’s labs. Since February 2017, he’s affiliated to the School of Arts, University College Ghent as an artistic researcher. http://www.joostrekveld.net/
Frank THEYS is a visual artist, theatre and film maker. His audiovisual work varies from video and interactive installations to documentary, experimental film and theatre performance. He received several international awards such as the first award at the film and video festivals of Locarno, Montbéliard and Novi Sad.
Frank Theys was cofounder of Argos, Centre for Arts and Media (Brussels) and of Dziga, the Belgian guild of media artists. He has taught audiovisual arts at LUCA Brussels and Ghent, performaing arts at DasArts, Masters in the Performing Arts at the Amsterdam School for the Arts (AHK) and art philosophy at the KABK ArtScience Interfaculty in The Hague. He has been a visiting teacher and lecturer at more than 30 universities, film and art schools worldwide.
http://www.franktheys.net
The LASER Talks Brussels - Tuesday 07 September at 7pm
Hosted by IMAL - Center for Digital Cultures imal.org
Notions of Transhumanism CHAIRED BY: Alexandra Dementieva
Panelists: Marc Coeckelberg, PETERMFRIESS and Angelo Vermeulen
Moderator: Edith Doove
Event info/Context:
In 2021 LASER Talks Brussels organizes four talks. This is the 3rd talk in the series, discussing notions that are at the core of the work of the three panelists: Marc Coeckelberg, PETERMFRIESS and Angelo Vermeulen.
Subject:
According to a recently updated manifesto from Humanity+, Transhumanism can be interpreted as an approach to extend human lifespan and to expand human capabilities and states. The Manifesto continues stating that Transhumanism is the world’s strongest advocacy for a positive future in changing the human condition of disease, poverty and prejudice toward health, well-being, and prosperity.
In contrast to advocacy for improving the human condition, today’s interest in Transhumanism is in the first place not driven by direct necessities, but rather by commercial interests around Big data, AI, neuroscience, and more generally by platform entrepreneurs. Improvement of living conditions, planetary challenges and salvation are promised for the future, based on a strong technology dependence and externalisation of senses and reasoning capabilities. Critics often see Transhumanism as posing threats to human values and dignity by evoking transgenerational modification of human biology, body/brain cloning and genetic engineering. And in our highly competitive social environment, which demands increasingly efficient behaviour, any kind of enhancement is prone to increase inequalities in terms of wealth and social status or treatment. It can also be questioned if Transhumanism is an objective in itself, and how it relates to the idea of supremacy of the Homo Sapiens compared with other live-forms.
On the positive side Transhumanism can be seen as interesting stimuli for reflecting on desirable futures in light of human activity on Earth, which is provoking serious issues for humanity itself, but as well for other species. And what if Transhumanism is not a mere extension of lifespan, but a re-consideration and re-evolution on what constitutes humanity, and even a ‘going-beyond’ the humanity idea? This could be seen as an invitation to reflect in transversal manner between science, art and other disciplines on new and experienceable scenarios, linked to non-human based creativity for the future of us.
The role of the arts could be to challenge human-centred only scenarios, to evoke though questions around Transhumanism, to explore alternative design methods and use scenarios for technologies using artistic practices, and to make future emotionally experiencable for a larger audience. Beyond existing settings and conventions, the collaboration between scientist, artists and even machines could help us to develop new ideas, representing another ‘perception’ of the world and future thinking.
Panelists
Mark Coeckelbergh
Mark Coeckelbergh is Professor of Philosophy of Media and Technology at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Vienna and former President of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. He is the author of several books and has written many articles. He is best known for his work in philosophy of technology and ethics of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), he has also published in the areas of moral philosophy and environmental philosophy. https://coeckelbergh.wordpress.com/
Petermfriess
Peter Friess (artist name PETERMFRIESS) has a background in self-organizing social systems (Ph.D.) and space technology. Besides his activities in ICT innovation, he is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher with a wide array of interests, in particular artificial intelligence, system theory, humanities, philosophy and ecology. His focus is on the connection of societal changes to emotional and aesthetic values, and the enablement of transdisciplinary processes. His work has been shown around the world at exhibitions and festivals. https://www.petermfriess.com/ and http://www.robosoul.us/
Angelo Vermeulen
Angelo Vermeulen is a space systems researcher, biologist and artist. In 2009 he co-founded SEADS (Space Ecologies Art and Designs), an international transdisciplinary collective of artists, scientists, engineers, and activists. Its goal is to reshape the future through critical inquiry and hands-on experimentation. Currently, he works at Delft University of Technology on advanced concepts for interstellar exploration. His work proposes a bio-inspired design approach to deal with the unpredictability inherent to interstellar travel. http://www.angelovermeulen.net
Laser Talk Brussels is moderated by
Dr. Edith Doove is a curator, writer and researcher, specifically interested in notions of emergence and contingency, cross and transdisciplinary collaborations. She holds a PhD as member of Transtechnology Research at Plymouth University. Since 2018 she lives and works in France, currently in Rouen where she teaches at ESADHaR (École supérieure d’art et design Le Havre Rouen). She is a postdoctoral advisor with Transtechnology Research, a regular contributor to Leonardo Reviews, moderator of the Leonardo LASER Talks Brussels and co-convenor of Currer Bell College. Recent exhibition projects are Loving Care – Pierre Mertens (Blikfabriek, Antwerp, 2020), Troupe/Troep (ChezKit, Pantin/Paris, 2021) and the 10th anniversary version of the international art project Bolero (Rouen, 2021). https://bureaudoove.com/
credit: 1. Paul Malone's Interpretation, Phase 01 of the ‘aleatory whispers: arachnids' project
2. Ulrike Kuchner’s Interpretation, Phase 01 of the ‘aleatory whispers: arachnids’ project
Dr. Ulrike KUCHNER followed both of her passions and (simultaneously) studied Astrophysics at the University of Vienna, Austria, as well as Fine Arts/Paintings at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where she was born and raised. Today, after Masters and Ph.D. degrees have taken her to Australia, Chile, the US and Germany, she is an astronomer as well as a visual artist, currently based in the UK, where she works as a post-doctoral researcher for the University of Nottingham. In her scientific research, she studies how mass is assembled in the Universe and how galaxies form and evolve over their lifetime. As an artist she operates where art, culture, and science intersect, using both backgrounds to find or reject interdisciplinary answers to overarching questions. Her art often deals with the themes of humanity and imperfections in data, something we tend to strip away from science. She also joins the creative process of other art-scientists and science-artists as curator, mentor and researcher, and challenges the frontiers between the two cultures, translating between the fields without imposing a hierarchy. www.ulrikekuchner.com
Paul MALONE has always been interested in how the physical world comes to be; how it originates and what is its relationship to consciousness. In pursuing this research he has explored many historic lost and forgotten theories of science and natural philosophy; especially so in astrophysics. Often these early theories can be repurposed with contemporary data to resolve otherwise intractable problems within the current paradigm. The artworks he creates use these concepts as source material and it is often intriguing how this process assists in the visual understanding those phenomena. Paul is currently researching theories from the pre-Einstein era in relation to the phenomenon we call the Sun. This object is one of the most easily observed of all those in astronomy and yet it still presents some of the deepest and manifest mysteries within human understanding.
Paul studied Fine Art at Reading University for B.A. Degree in 1976 and MFA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 1980. Since leaving college he has worked in studios based in the London districts of Waterloo, Greenwich and, most recently, Art in Perpetuity in Deptford. He has exhibited extensively in the U.K., U.S. and Europe and engaged in curatorial practice through international exhibition exchanges and movie projects. He also delivers lectures and workshops about the historic astrophysical researches he is currently studying. www.paulmalone.co.uk
Els VAN RIEL lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. She studied photo- and cinematography, and worked as a photographer, editor and producer for various photo-, film-, video- and theatre productions. Her films, video's and installations explore the impact of detailed changes in moment, movement, matter, light and perception. With links to the tradition of structural film making, her work explores the basic elements of cinema -time and light- and develops a form for new aesthetic pleasure, bypassing any symbolism and narrativity. For van Riel the projector is a central figure in the cinematographical act of giving form to a screening, performance or installation. The mechanical image source often becomes actively present as if it were a living object. www.elsvanriel.be
Dr. Edith Doove is a curator, writer and researcher, specifically interested in notions of emergence and contingency, cross and transdisciplinary collaborations. She started curating in 1987 in Antwerp and worked as a freelance curator and art critic in Belgium until 2010 before moving to the UK where she became a member of Transtechnology Research at Plymouth University and attained her PhD in November 2017. Since 2018 she lives and works in France, currently in Rouen where she teaches at ESADHaR Le Havre-Rouen. She is a postdoctoral advisor with Transtechnology Research, a regular contributor to Leonardo Reviews, and co-convenor of Currer Bell College. With her creative consultancy BUREAU DOOVE, which she started in 2014, Doove continues to develop a unique bespoke way of collaborating, working, with, for and alongside artists and researchers. bureaudoove.com
Alexandra Dementieva is a multimedia artist, based in Brussels. The idea of interaction between the viewer and an artwork, mediated by technologically progressive visualization methods, lies at the core of her work. In her installations she uses various art forms on an equal basis: dance, music, cinema and performance. Akin to an explorer she raises questions related to social psychology and theories of perception suggesting solutions to them by contemporary artistic means, that is by taking a subjective stance behind a camera. Her installations focus on the role of the viewer and her/his interaction with an artwork and bring forth ways of provoking the viewer’s involvement thus allowing hidden mechanisms of human behaviour to be revealed. alexdementieva.org
CHAIRED BY: Alexandra Dementieva
When: 20th April 2021, 7pm
In 2021 there will be four talks, starting Tuesday 20 April with a conversation with Annemarie Maes, artist and researcher, and Camilla Colombo, curator. Edith Doove will be moderator. Annemarie Maes is showing her exhibition SENSORIAL SKINS - WOVEN BY NATURE, in 2 parts at PILAR, House for Art and Science - Brussels 8 - 23 April 2021 iMAL, Art Center for Digital Culture and Technology -Brussels 29 April - 16 May 2021 with Camilla Colombo as curator.
Speakers
Dr. Edith Doove is a curator, writer and researcher, specifically interested in notions of emergence and contingency, cross and transdisciplinary collaborations. She started curating in 1987 in Antwerp and worked as a freelance curator and art critic in Belgium until 2010 when she moved to the UK. Since 2018 she lives and works in France, currently in Rouen where she teaches at ESADHaR Le Havre-Rouen. She is a postdoctoral advisor with Transtechnology Research at Plymouth University where she attained her PhD in November 2017. She’s a regular contributor to Leonardo Reviews since 2010, co-convenor of Currer Bell College since 2019 and a member of AICA and C-E-A, the French Organization of Curators. With BUREAU DOOVE, which she started in 2014, Doove continues to develop a unique bespoke way of collaborating, working, with, for and alongside artists and researchers.
AnneMarie Maes is an artist who has been studying the close interactions and co-evolutions within urban ecosystems. Her research practice combines art and science, with a keen interest in DIY technologies and biotechnology. She works with a range of biological, digital and traditional media, including live organisms. Her artistic research is materialised in techno-organic objects that are inspired by factual/fictional stories; in artefacts that are a combination of digital fabrication and craftsmanship; in installations that reflect both the problem and the (possible) solution, in multispecies collaborations, in polymorphic forms and models created by eco-data. On the rooftop of her studio in Brussels (BE) she has created an open-air lab and experimental garden where she studies the processes that nature employs to create form. Her research provides an ongoing source of inspiration for her artworks. Bee Agency as well as the Laboratory for Form and Matter -in which she experiments with bacteria and living textiles - provide a framework that has inspired a wide range of installations, sculptures, photography works, objects and books - all at the intersection of art, science and technology. In 2017, she received an Honorary Mention in the Hybrid Art category at Ars Electronica for the Intelligent Guerrilla Beehive project.
Camilla Colombo, is a curator and producer whose practice focuses on arts and sciences.She curated exhibitions in collaboration with the Museum of Ixelles, at BOZAR, PILAR and iMal in Brussels, and she collaborated with z33 (Hasselt) and Atelier LUMA in Arles(France). With a background in the performing arts and in advocacy for the arts at the European level, Camilla worked in Italy, the UK, and Belgium. Interested in hybridisation and crossing of disciplines, she served in art organisations of all sizes as well as with independent artists, focusing on multidisciplinary and multimedia productions. Since 2016 she is based in Brussels where she started merging her multilayered and multidisciplinary experiences in her curatorial practice. She is co-founder and Artistic Director of Ohme, an organisation curating and producing through collaborative practices at the nexus of arts and sciences. In 2019 she co-founded SALOON Brussels, network for women working in the art scene of the Belgian capital. Aside from her curatorial practice, Camilla regularly organises and moderate panel talks usually gathering artists, scientists, researchers and civil society.
SPONSORS
The Leonardo/ISAST LASERs are a program of international gatherings that bring artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together for informal presentations, performances and conversations with the wider public. The mission of the LASERs is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building to over 40 cities around the world. To learn more about how our LASER Hosts and to visit a LASER near you please visit our website. @lasertalks
