RIXC FESTIVAL 2019, THE 4TH OPEN FIELDS CONFERENCE ON ART-SCIENCE RESEARCH AND UN/GREEN EXHIBITION
Neal WHITE. Bodies and Plants: Ways of Sensing in Contemporary Art
Drawing on projects with Office of Experiments, at the Center For Land Use Interpretation (USA), with Arts Catalyst (UK), Bioart Society (Finland), and current research on Vlieland Island (Holland), Neal White will explore ‘the deep field’ as a description of entanglements and encounters between the disciplinary knowledge of art, media arts and other academic disciplines whose practices, methods and technologies are relevant in to mutual inquiry. He will outline his own approach to epistemic values and things, and how these extend to fieldwork as a method of experimental inquiry into complex spaces, senses, data and events, where worlds and world views, human knowledge and sensorial experience collide. In this context, he will explore spatial and temporal approaches to site specific art; about what remote sensing might mean for our experience of deep changes to often remote environments, how the age of asymmetry alters our experience of hyperobjects, and the role of ground truth / situated knowledge within the sensorial realm.
The deep field is therefore explored in the context of independent artistic research, and the development of new initiatives at CREAM, the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, based at University of Westminster, UK.
Anna NAZO. Green, Undulation, Viscosity of Sense.
Within live digital-physical performance this research introduces and develops an understanding around quantum ghosting (nonconscious cognition) and the problem of the supra-sensuousness; that is, something that goes beyond human perceptive apparatus but is a significant part of the world we inhabit. In doing so, it aims to extend and complicate ways of understanding intelligence and liveness. The method of this research is using the paradigm of radical matter (Golding: 2010, 2013) that is thinking through dimensionalities of curved time which leads into questions of superpositionality and nonlocality. It brings in a way of thinking of time as dimension of time, and understanding of speed, duration and the moment of performance in relation to wavefunction. That method enables radically rethink logic of sense (Deleuze: 1990) from the perspective of the wave function and quantum entanglement (Born: 1926, Schrodinger: 1926). It brings in consciousness as feedback loops and as a corporeal trace (Spinoza: 2002, Deleuze: 1988, Kaku: 2014, Mandelbrot: 1983, 2004) that operates as quantum system (Penrose: 1994) that is undecidable (Godel: 1986). It enables to argue around multiplicity of specific forms of consciousness, and that argument brings in synthetic and systems biology, biotechnology, computational ecology, object oriented ontology (Morton: 2013), coiled with distributed ecology of intelligence (Shanahan: 2015). That move enables to enter the domain of quantum logic of sense that is happening in the moment of a particular form of consciousness, which is enabled by the entanglement of wave fields at the moment of performance, and that goes beyond human perceptive abilities, and which is this research begins to name the supra-sensuousness.
Anna Nazo is a performance artist working at the intersection of art, science, philosophy and computing technologies, with particular focus on brainwaves CGI, AI poetry, drones and new materialities. Within live digital-physical performance Anna’s work addresses questions of artificial forms of intelligence and liveness in relation to nonconscious cognition [quantum ghosting] and the problem of the supra-sensuousness; that is, something that goes beyond our perceptive apparatus but is a significant part of the world we inhabit. Anna has shown artwork and performed internationally including: KOSMICA Parliament at Ars Electronica Festival, Linz (2018); The Victoria & Albert Museum’s Digital Futures, London (2016; 2018); Angewandte Innovation Laboratory, Vienna (2019); Exposed Arts Projects, London (2018); Asylum, London (2018); Assembly Point, London (2018); Ensapc Ygrec, Paris, France (2017); Rainbow Unicorn, Berlin, Germany (2017); The MozEx exhibition curated by the Tate and V&A, London (2016); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK (2016); Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia (2015); The 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia (2015); Untapped Emerging Artists, The Artist Project, Toronto (2015); Somerset House, London, UK (2013); NYC Creative Tech Week, Columbia University, NYC (2016); the NSF Crxss Platfxrm Festival of Street Culture, Copeland Gallery, London (2018). Anna has spoken at international conferences and symposia including the Creative Technologies Symposium at Columbia University, NYC Creative Tech Week , NYC, USA (2016); the Electronic Visualisation & the Arts (EVA) Conference, British Computer Society, London, UK (2014, 2016); the 14th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, Fukuoka, Japan (2015). Recently Anna was invited to do a performance and present a paper at the SymbioticA 2018 Conference: Quite Frankly – It’s a Monster Conference, Unhallowed Arts, University of Western Australia, Perth (2018), alongside keynote speakers, artists, scientists and philosophers, such as Karen Barad, Stelarc, Kira O’Reilly, Fiona Wood, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr, et al.
Carlos CASTELLANOS. Un/Green Agency:
Human-Non-Human Relations in New Media Art
In what may be called an “ecological turn”, what is called new media art has demonstrated an increased interest in the relations between humans, nonhumans and the natural environment. Whether referred to as bio-art, environmental art or any myriad of other names, the focus on human-nonhuman-environmental interactions resonates across these practices. Collectively, they all share a desire to explore zones of negotiation and reciprocity between the human and more than human worlds. Matter, the environment and non-human life are seen not as passive and inert but rather as lively and dynamic, with agency and lifeworlds of their own. Viewed in this vein, these works may be characterized as engendering perceptual shifts with regard to the divide between humans and nonhumans, system and environment, observer and observed. I will present a brief overview of these practices as well as discuss some current work of my own. I will discuss how through various types of processes-driven practices that feature combinations of living matter, emerging technologies, artificial intelligence and public engagement, artists are not only exploring how these systems can serve as vectors of novelty and unexpected variety, they are also forging a new aesthetics and systems of ideas focused on showcasing alternative possibilities of human/non-human relations in the age of climate change and environmental degradation. As these works suggest, a myriad of alternative possibilities for human/non-human relations are possible.
Claire BREACH. TERRITORIAL DENIZENS.
The 16-bit elysium field of the early internet, would appear to remain still and empty within the eternal scrolling, if it wasn’t for the strangely familiar denizens of several territories, condemned to dance in the liminal enviroments they claimed. This recreation of a forgotten rpg map, of an old world, for myself, generates an uncanny nostalgia. Drenched in unreal sunlight or otherwise some transient seasonal thing, the colour of memory (green?), the patterns of dreamed bus seats, embedded in subliminal messages which may or may not be true.
Paul E. QUAST. A Profile of Humanity; how ‘green’ are our postcards from Earth?
The celestial noösphere is a fluctuating, artificial field of intelligent design that consciously emanates outwards from our planet as a result of the many pioneering initiatives we have engineered to preserve the abstract, cognitive reasoning of our species and its’ exploration of the cosmos. There are many cultural applications that presently contribute to this purposeful technosignature surrounding the Earth system; our desires to create secure ‘eternal memory’ libraries to preserve information beyond our terrestrial environment (Guzman et al., 2015), communication attempts with extra-terrestrial intelligence (Zaitsev, 2006), expressions within ‘SpaceArt’ (Paglen 2012), mission outreach initiatives (Sutherland, 2015) and also symbolic gestures (Schulze-Makuch, 2016) devised to impart some profound heuristic about our observed position within the universe. While the motivations of these articulated ‘postcard’ messages vary, this microcosm arising from humanities’ distributed cognition presents us with some intriguing conflicts in regards to asymmetrical contextualisation of our environmental origins, representing the diversity of inhabiting biota and idealised ‘green’ depictions of our colonised biosphere. This session intends to discuss some of the initial findings of the ‘A Profile of Humanity’ (Quast, 2018) study which is focused upon conducting an introspective cross-analysis of extant messages (interstellar transmissions and artefacts) in an attempt to document the many narratives, analogues and philosophies we employ in describing our planet beyond geocentric orbit.
Paul Quast is a SETI scholar, independent researcher and interdisciplinary artist who presently lives and works within Edinburgh. In 2016, he received his Masters from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh while also working as the project director for the ‘A Simple Response to an Elemental Message’ transmission project. Quast is a founding trustee and director of the ‘Beyond the Earth foundation’; a non-profit, interdisciplinary organisation which is presently developing ‘Companion Guide to Earth’ artefacts for geosynchronous orbit; archival elements which will aid in ‘interpretation preservation’ for deep-time archaeology and planetary stewardship applications. He is an advisor with Memory of Mankind and also serves on the For All Moonkind ‘Archaeology, Science and Heritage’ council and Arch Mission Foundation ‘Strategic Advisor’ council.
Allison HOLT. The Conversation: Feedback Structures,
Ways of Knowing, and Neurodivergence.
This paper outlines general theoretical implications of feedback systems for framing the interrelated nature of living agents and systems. The model of feedback is identified as forming an ideal conceptual structure for visualizing the sensing, processing, and exchanging of information occurring perpetually, at all scales, including within human cognition. Along with the constructs of the Neurodiversity Model, enactive/expanded media, and 4E cognitive theory—embodied, embedded, extended, and enacted mind—this paper presents research with experts across disciplines and discusses the results of over six years of teaching experimental film/video to autistic individuals. It was written at the invitation of PUBLIC Journal for its upcoming 59th issue: Interspecies Communication (July 2019).
Adnan HADZI. Boattr – the towpath bio- and technosphere.
This paper discusses the towpath/‘network’ of the British Waterways as a digital social commons, through the researcher’s journey on the narrow boat ‘Quintessence’ and the development of the ‘boattr’ prototype in collaboration with MAZI (for “together” in Greek), a Horizon2020 research project. For three years the researcher joined the community of bargees (1), travellers (2), who use the canals to live (3) on them, with a temporary permit (4) to stay for two weeks in one place (5). The paper will offer a critical view on the housing situation in the UK and EU in general. The boattr project connects narrow boats to the ‘Internet-of-Things’ and allows for open wireless mesh-networking within the narrow boat community, by using affordable microcomputers. The paper analyses the technology and knowledge that aims to 1) empower those narrow boats who are in physical proximity, to shape their hybrid urban space, together, according to the specificities of the respective local environment, and 2) foster participation, conviviality, and location-based collective awareness of the canals. The paper looks into capabilities offered by Do-It-Yourself networking infrastructures – low-cost off-the-shelf hardware and wireless technologies – and how small communities or individuals can deploy local communication networks that are fully owned by local actors, including all generated data. These DIY networks could cover from a small square (e.g., using a Raspberry Pi) to a city neighborhood (e.g., RedHook initiative) or even a whole city (e.g., guifi.net), and in the case of boattr the towpath of the canal network. Boattr integrates existing Free and Open Source Software software (like those under development by the P2Pvalue project, mobile sensing devices, and recent developments in open data and open hardware), allowing it to be appropriated by different non-expert users according to their respective context and use case.
http://www.bargee-traveller.
Adnan Hadzi is currently working as resident academic in the Department of Digital Arts, at the Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences, University of Malta. Hadzi has been a regular at Deckspace Media Lab, for the last decade, a period over which he has developed his research at Goldsmiths, University of London, based on his work with Deptford.TV. It is a collaborative video editing service hosted in Deckspace’s racks, based on free and open source software, compiled into a unique suite of blog, cvs, film database and compositing tools. Hadzi is co-editing and producing the after.video video book, exploring video as theory, reflecting upon networked video, as it profoundly re-shapes medial patterns (Youtube, citizen journalism, video surveillance etc.). Hadzi’s documentary film work tracks artist pranksters The Yes Men and !Mediengruppe Bitnik Collective. Bitnik is s collective of contemporary artists working on and with the Internet. Bitnik’s practice expands from the digital to affect physical spaces, often intentionally applying loss of control to challenge established structures and mechanisms. Bitnik’s works formulate fundamental questions concerning contemporary issues.
Bianca HLYWA. Silicone Valley’s Existential Green Dreaming.
The world is full of paranoid constructions. In fear of death, people practise total control in the aesthetics of the white cube, science, and coding, separating life from non life. Perhaps instead we should base our interaction with the environment on the Romantic thinkers, or the Northern Australian indigenous group the Karrabing. Nature, in these thinkers minds, provided cues with which we can understand a higher sense of morality which we could base the structures of our societies on.
But as the snake eats its own tail, an image of birth from destruction, we have Ray Kurzweil’s (the leading engineer at Google) idea of the singularity. Kurzweil believes all our consciousness will be uploaded and merged onto one cloud, creating God speed intelligence, which would make us realize we don’t need our individual bodies, we could have one collective body. And this is where the birth begins- à la Romantic thought-because there is an amoeba called Dictystelium, and once one of the amoebas is starving they all ram into one amoeba and start moving together, budding off into a spore which is caught by insect that brings them to a place with more food.