An October 16, 2023 notice (received via email) from Toronto’s ArtSci Salon makes this performance announcement,
PATTERNS FROM NATURE Saturday, November 4th, 2023 Isabel Bader Theatre 93 Charles St West Toronto 8pm Free admission
An ambitious new project is set to captivate audiences with a mesmerizing fusion of physics, film, and music.
Physicist Stephen Morris, filmmakers Udo Prinsen, Gita Blak, Lee Hutzulak, Tina de Groot, and composer/saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff are joining forces to explore Morris’ area of research Emergent Patterns in Nature through a captivating multimedia experience.
The centerpiece of this innovative project is a four-movement, 40-minute work. Each filmmaker will delve into a specific research area within Emergent Patterns in Nature, exploring Branches, Flow, Cracks, and Ripples. Collaborating closely, the team will draw inspiration from one another’s progress into the composition and filmmaking processes. These areas were inspired, in part, by the books about Patterns in Nature by Philip Ball.
Blending jazz and classical elements, the composition will be performed by a chamber ensemble featuring woodwinds, brass, percussion, piano, string quartet, bass, drum set, and conductor. Renowned soloists, including clarinetist François Houle, the Molinari String Quartet, pianists Matt Mitchell and Santiago Leibson, bassist Carlo De Rosa, drummer Satoshi Takeishi, trombonist Ryan Keberle, and saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff, will contribute their virtuosity to the performance.
This groundbreaking collaboration promises to transport audiences on an immersive journey through the wonders of Emergent Patterns in Nature. The result will be an unforgettable multimedia experience that pushes the boundaries of creativity and innovation.
Toronto ensemble: Camille Watts (flute), François Houle (clarinet), Quinsin Nachoff (tenor saxophone), Peter Lutek (bassoon), Jason Logue (trumpet), David Quackenbush (french horn), Ryan Keberle (trombone), Mark Duggan (percussion), Santiago Leibson (piano), Carlo De Rosa (bass), Satoshi Takeishi (drums), Molinari String Quartet (Olga Ranzenhofer – violin I, Antoine Bareil – violin II, Frédéric Lambert – viola, Pierre-Alain Bouvrette – cello), JC Sanford (conductor)
In co-presentation with Art-Sci Salon at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences and the University of Toronto Department of Physics
Made possible, in part, through the generous support of The Canada Council for the Arts, the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences and the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec
Just Register here and/or there’s a roundtable discussion scheduled for the next day,
Let’s talk it up
An October 20, 2023 notice (received via email) from Toronto’s ArtSci Salon makes this related event announcement,
Patterns from Nature is a new project intersecting physics, film, and music. Physicist Stephen Morris, filmmakers Udo Prinsen, Gita Blak, Lee Hutzulak, Tina de Groot, and composer/saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff joined forces to explore Morris’ area of research Emergent Patterns in Nature through a captivating multimedia experience.
The transdisciplinary collaborations that led to this complex multimedia and multidimensional work raises many questions:
Why and in what way did science, film and music come to converge in this work?
What role did each participant play?
How did they interpret the scientific findings informing the project?
What were the inspirations, the concerns, the questions that each participant brought into this work?
Come with your questions and curiosity, share your experience and feedback with the protagonists
For those who can’t get to the Toronto events, there is a recently published (2023) book about an art/physics collaboration, Leaning Out of Windows (see September 11, 2023 post/book review).
Join us to welcome Cerpina and Stenslie as they introduce us to their book and discuss the future cuisine of humanity. To sustain the soon-to-be 9 billion global population we cannot count on Mother Earth’s resources anymore. The project explores innovative and speculative ideas about new foods in the field of arts, design, science & technology, rethinking eating traditions and food taboos, and proposing new recipes for survival in times of ecological catastrophes.
To match the topic of their talk, attendees will be presented with “anthropocene snacks” and will be encouraged to discuss food alternatives and new networks of solidarity to fight food deserts, waste, and unsustainable consumption.
This is a Hybrid event: our guests will join us virtually on zoom. Join us in person at Glendon Campus, rm YH190 (the studio next to the Glendon Theatre) for a more intimate community experience and some anthropocene snacks. If you wish to join us on Zoom, please
This event is part of a series on Emergent Practices in Communication, featuring explorations on interspecies communication and digital networks; land-based justice and collective care. The full program can be found here
This initiative is supported by York University’s Teaching Commons Academic Innovation Fund
Zane Cerpina is a multicultural and interdisciplinary female author, curator, artist, and designer working with the complexity of socio-political and environmental issues in contemporary society and in the age of the Anthropocene. Cerpina earned her master’s degree in design from AHO – The Oslo School of Architecture and Design and a bachelor’s degree in Art and Technology from Aalborg University. She resides in Oslo and is a project manager/curator at TEKS (Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre). She is also a co-founder and editor of EE: Experimental Emerging Art Journal. From 2015 to 2019, Cerpina was a creative manager and editor at PNEK (Production Network for Electronic Art, Norway).
Stahl Stenslie works as an artist, curator and researcher specializing in experimental media art and interaction experiences. His aesthetic focus is on art and artistic expressions that challenge ordinary ways of perceiving the world. Through his practice he asks the questions we tend to avoid – or where the answers lie in the shadows of existence. Keywords of his practice are somaesthetics, unstable media, transgression and numinousness. The technological focus in his works is on the art of the recently possible – such as i) panhaptic communication on Smartphones, ii) somatic and immersive soundspaces, and iii) design of functional and lethal artguns, 3D printed in low-cost plastic material.He has a PhD on Touch and Technologies from The School of Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway. Currently he heads the R&D department at Arts for Young Audiences Norway.
If you’re interested in the book, there’s the anthropocenecookbook.com, which has more about the book and purchase information,
The Anthropocene Cookbook is by far the most comprehensive collection of ideas about future food from the perspective of art, design, and science. It is a thought-provoking book about art, food, and eating in the Anthropocene –The Age of Man– and the age of catastrophes.
Published by The MIT Press [MIT = Massachusetts Institute of Technology] | mitpress.mit.edu
Supported by TEKS Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre | www.teks.no
*Date changed* Streaming Carbon Footprint on October 27, 2023
Keep scrolling down to Date & location changed for Streaming Carbon Footprint subhead.
From the Toronto ArtSci Salon October 5, 2023 announcement,
Oct 27, [2023] 5:00-7:00 PM [ET] Streaming Carbon Footprint
with Laura U. Marks and David Rokeby – Room 230 The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences 222 College Street, Toronto
We are thrilled to announce this dialogue between media Theorist Laura U. Marks and Media Artist David Rokeby. Together, they will discuss a well known elephant in the room of media and digital technologies: their carbon footprint. As social media and streaming media usage increases exponentially, what can be done to mitigate their impact? are there alternatives?
This is a live event: our guests will join us in person.
if you wish to join us on Zoom instead, a link will be circulated on our website and on social media a few days before the event. The event will be recorded
Laura U. Marks works on media art and philosophy with an intercultural focus, and on small-footprint media. She programs experimental media for venues around the world. As Grant Strate University Professor, she teaches in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Her upcoming book The Fold: From Your Body to the Cosmos will be published I March 2024 by Duke University Press.
David Rokeby is an installation artist based in Toronto, Canada. He has been creating and exhibiting since 1982. For the first part of his career he focussed on interactive pieces that directly engage the human body, or that involve artificial perception systems. In the last decade, his practice has expanded to included video, kinetic and static sculpture. His work has been performed / exhibited in shows across Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia.
Awards include the first BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award for Interactive Art in 2000, a 2002 Governor General’s award in Visual and Media Arts and the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Interactive Art 2002. He was awarded the first Petro-Canada Award for Media Arts in 1988, the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for Interactive Art (Austria) in 1991 and 1997.
I haven’t been able to dig up any information about registration but it will be added here should I stumble across any in the next few weeks. I did, however, find more information about Marks’s work and a festival in Vancouver (Canada).
Fourth Annual Small File Media Festival (October 20 -21, 2023) and the Streaming Carbon Footprint
When was the last time you watched a DVD? If you’re like most people, your DVD collection has been gathering dust as you stream movies and TV from a variety of on-demand services. But have you ever considered the impact of streaming video on the environment?
School for the Contemporary Arts professor Laura Marks and engineering professor Stephen Makonin, with engineering student Alejandro Rodriguez-Silva and media scholar Radek Przedpełski, worked together for over a year to investigate the carbon footprint of streaming media supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
“Stephen and Alejandro were there to give us a reality check and to increase our engineering literacy, and Radek and I brought the critical reading to it,” says Marks. “It was really a beautiful meeting of critical media studies and engineering.”
After combing through studies on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and making their own calculations, they confirmed that streaming media (including video on demand, YouTube, video embedded in social media and websites, video conferences, video calls and games) is responsible for more than one per cent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. And this number is only projected to rise as video conferencing and streaming proliferate.
“One per cent doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s significant if you think that the airline industry is estimated to be 1.9 per cent,” says Marks. “ICT’s carbon footprint is growing fast, and I’m concerned that because we’re all turning our energy to other obvious carbon polluters, like fossil fuels, cars, the airline industry, people are not going to pay attention to this silent, invisible carbon polluter.”
One thing that Marks found surprising during their research is how politicized this topic is.
Their full report includes a section detailing the International Energy Association’s attack on French think tank The Shift Project after they published a report on streaming media’s carbon footprint in 2019. They found that some ICT engineers state that the carbon footprint of streaming is not a concern because data centres and networks are very efficient, while others say the fast-rising footprint is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Their report includes comparisons of the divergent figures in engineering studies in order to get a better understanding of the scope of this problem.
The No. 1 thing Marks and Makonin recommend to reduce streaming’s carbon footprint is to ensure that our electricity comes from renewable sources. At an individual level, they offer a list of recommendations to reduce energy consumption and demand for new ICT infrastructure including: stream less, watch physical media including DVDs, decrease video resolution, use audio-only mode when possible, and keep your devices longer—since production of devices is very carbon-intensive.
Promoting small files and low resolution, Marks founded the Small File Media Festival [link leads to 2023 programme], which will present its second annual program [2021] of 5-megabyte films Aug. 10 – 20. As the organizers say, movies don’t have to be big to be binge-worthy.
And now for 2023, here’s a video promoting the upcoming fourth annual festival,
The Streaming Carbon Footprint webpage on the SFU website includes information about the final report and the latest Small File Media Festival. Although I found the Small File Media Festival website also included a link for purchasing tickets,
The Small File Media Festival returns for its fourth iteration! We are delighted to partner with The Cinematheque to present over sixty jewel-like works from across the globe. These movies are small in file size, but huge in impact: by embracing the aesthetics of compression and low resolution (glitchiness, noise, pixelation), they lay the groundwork for a new experimental film movement in the digital age. This year, six lovingly curated programs traverse brooding pixelated landscapes, textural paradises, and crystalline infinities.
Join us Friday, October 20 [2023] for the opening-night program followed by a drinks reception in the lobby and a dance party in the cinema, featuring music by Vancouver electronic artist SAN. We’ll announce the winner of the coveted Small-File Golden Mini Bear during Saturday’s [October 21, 2023] award ceremony! As always, the festival will stream online at smallfile.ca after the live events.
We’re most grateful to our future-forward friends at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, and SFU Contemporary Arts. Thanks to VIVO Media Arts, Cairo Video Festival, and The Hmm for generous distribution and exhibition awards, and to UKRAïNATV, a partner in small-file activism.
Cosmically healthy, community-building, and punk AF, small-file ecomedia will heal the world, one pixel at a time.
Augmented Self: Can Generative AI be more than just a tool? Sept. 20 [2023] 6:00-8:00 @Fields
This event is a collaboration between ArtSci Salon and the Quantified Self Meet up Group led by Eric Boyd. Join us for a thought-provoking exploration into the world of “Augmented Self: Can Generative AI be more than just a tool?”.
While the era of the Quantified Self isn’t over, new tools have emerged which make the idea of JUST quantifying yourself (for personal growth or insight) seem outdated. The widespread assumptions is that ChatGPT and other Generative AI tools can do at least some of your thinking FOR YOU. Similarly, MidJourney can churn out passable images from just a prompt (that ChatGPT wrote for you), even if you aren’t an artist. This ability has raised many red flags and concerns regarding intellectual property and copyright infringement. And hundreds more such tools are arriving like a tsunami as venture capitalists pour billions into Generative AI startups. How do we navigate Generative AI for personal growth and creativity? What are its ethical uses? How do we use it for personal growth and creativity, for education or accessibility? What is it’s impact on our sense of self and on the conditions of our employment?
Event Schedule:
6:00-6:30pm. Reception and Networking
6:30-7:15pm. Panel Discussion (see below)
7:15-7:45pm. Q&A with the audience
7:45-8:00pm. Networking
8pm – option – retiring to a nearby pub for discussions
Panel Discussion:
Engage with a diverse panel of experts, each offering a nuanced perspective on the integration of AI into personal development:
Techie Viewpoint:Eric Boyd, will talk in general about the “Augmented Self” idea, and relate his experiences working with these tools on an unusual creative project – a solarpunk tarot deck. It’s a gigantic project, and “orchestrating artificial cognition” is the weird “augmented” experience at the heart of it.
Artist Viewpoint:Ryan Kelln, a software artist, has been using text-to-image tools to explore remixing, appropriation, and representation in his latest concert (https://www.ryankelln.com/project/transmigrations/). His exploration didn’t answer all his questions but left him changed for the better.
Other Viewpoints: Seeking project show & tell, brief opinions and constructive criticism!
This event will be recorded. If you wish to join us on Zoom, please, head to the Facebook event page here a few days before the event to get the link.
Audience Participation: We invite your participation! If you’d like to speak on the panel, we are still looking to flesh it out. Ideally we’re looking for an educator who is grappling seriously with the impact of e.g. ChatGPT on their students and the process and goals of education in general. And we’re open to other ideas and viewpoints! Please contact the organizer (Eric Boyd) via meetup message with a brief description of your background and what you might share/say in 5+ minutes. It doesn’t need to be formal, these are the frontiers!
And everyone, please bring your curiosity and your questions! We welcome all input, especially critical or out-of-frame input. We don’t even know what kind of language we should be using to discuss this!
If you are intrigued by the intersection of technology, self-improvement, and personal expression and seek a nuanced perspective on the augmented self, this event is designed for you.
Join us for an evening of generative AI collaboration stories (in the usual manner of QS “what did you do”), candid exploration, and thought-provoking dialogue. Chart your course through the potential and complexities of the Augmented Self with the guidance of insightful experts and a community of like-minded explorers.
This event description began from a series of prompts to ChatGPT. Can you spot the unedited sections? Does it matter if you can or can’t? It feels very new and different to make things this way. Let’s talk about it. see full description by organizer Eric Boyd.
“Migrations Without Borders” is a modular piece of art that explores the potential of AI to mimic and remix cultural styles and elements [emphasis mine]. Incorporating eight distinct musical styles and corresponding visual elements, the piece allows for the dynamic composition of linked music themes and visuals.
But “Migrations” is more than just a showcase of AI’s abilities. It is a deliberate mixture of themes, including immigration, remix culture, AI bias, and the interplay of language and imagery. Drawing from Dhaivat’s personal experience and Toronto’s diverse cultural landscape, the piece creates a universe of cross-pollination that encourages reflection on the ways in which technology is changing our relationship to culture, identity, and acceptable thought.
The art invites us to consider the consequences of AI’s powers of mimicry and integration. What does it mean for likenesses and cultures to collide and mix so easily? How do we navigate the borrowing of styles and representations that may not be our own? What responsibilities and freedoms do we have in this rapidly evolving landscape?
…
North Vancouver
I wouldn’t ordinarily post about an art exhibition closing or finale event but this it a good companion event in Toronto and gives people in the Vancouver area an opportunity for something that’s more avant garde than I realized when the exhibition was announced in May 2023,, from the Phase Shifting Index Closing Celebration event page on the Polygon Art Gallery website,
Jeremy Shaw: Phase Shifting Index
Closing Celebration
Sunday, September 24 5:00pm
[Location: The Polygon Gallery at 101 Carrie Cates Court in North Vancouver, BC, Canada]
Artist in attendance
Final day to see Phase Shifting Index—for the full experience of the seven-channel work please come at least 35 minutes before the exhibition closes at 5:00 pm.
Doors at 5:00pm Screening of Jeremy Shaw’s short film Quickeners at 5:15pm Conversation between Jeremy Shaw and The Polygon’s Audain Chief Curator Monika Szewczyk at 5:45pm Reception at 6:15pm
About Quickeners Quickeners: They live about 500 years after us and belong to the entirely rational- thinking species of Quantum Human, who are immortal and connected to each other through an abstract entity called “The Hive”. However, Quickeners have a developed a rare disorder named “Human Atavism Syndrome” – or H.A.S.- that prompts them to unexplainably desire to engage in long-forgotten behavioural patterns of humans. Detached from Hive, the Quickeners fall into an ecstatic state in which they sing, clap, cry, scream, dance and handle poisonous snakes [emphasis mine].
About Phase Shifting Index Through a seven-channel video, sound, and light installation—the most ambitious use to date of Jeremy Shaw’s signature, evolving ‘post-documentary’ approach—visitors experience seven distinct subcultures that believe they can fundamentally alter reality.
About Jeremy Shaw Born in North Vancouver and now based in Berlin, Jeremy Shaw works in a variety of media to explore altered states and the cultural and scientific practices that aspire to map transcendental experience. His films, installations and sculptures have gained worldwide acclaim with solo exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, Paris, MoMA PS1, New York, and Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin as well international surveys including the 57th Venice Biennale, 16th Lyon Biennale and Manifesta 11, Zurich.
For anyone who does decide on the full experience, here’s more about Phase Shifting Index from the May 17, 2023 Polygon news release,
From June 23 to Sept. 24, 2023, The Polygon Gallery presents the North American premiere of Phase Shifting Index by North Vancouver-born, Berlin-based artist Jeremy Shaw. The immersive installation combines film, sound, and light to tell a story about an imagined future in which human beliefs and survival are at stake.
…
Phase Shifting Index is a seven-channel video, sound, and light installation that functions as a science-fiction pseudo-documentary about seven distinct subcultures that believe they can fundamentally alter reality. Each screen shows a group engaging in ritualistic movements while dressed in clothing that places them in periods ranging from the 1960s to the 1990s. Shaw uses outdated modes of 20th-century video technology (such as 16mm film and Hi-8 video tape), while interviews in indecipherable languages are subtitled in English. All seven channels are tied together by an overarching narrator who describes their belief systems and the significance of their movements: body-mind centering, robotic popping-and-locking, modern and postmodern dance, jump-style, hardcore punk skanking, and trust exercises, amongst others.
As the work progresses, the audiovisual elements of each screen draws the viewer into a dramatic narrative arc. At the climax, the seven autonomous subcultural groups align in a trans-temporal dance routine, with all subjects on all screens engaged in the same cathartic, synchronized movements, before disintegrating into abstraction and chaos. Sounds and sights collide on screen and then meld into a synaptic colour field. The result is a suspension of time and space, as the seven parallel realities fuse into one psychedelic art installation.
…
It was the ‘psychedelic’ in the last line along with references to the 1960s that dampened my enthusiasm for this ‘mind blowing’ experience. However, Ryan Kelln’s Transmigrations and proposed talk at Art Science Salon/Quantified Self Toronto’s event “Augmented Self: Can Generative AI be more than just a tool?” broadened my thinking on the matter.
Toronto’s Art/Sci Salon’s January 30, 2023 announcement (received via email) lists information for two organizations, the Onsite Gallery’s events and the Salon’s own events.
Onsite Gallery
This gallery is located in Toronto, Ontario at 199 Richmond St. W. From the homepage, “It is the flagship professional gallery of OCAD [Ontario College of Art and Design] University and an experimental curatorial platform for art, design and new media.”
From the Onsite Gallery ‘more-than-human‘ event page. First, there’s the exhibition (Note 1: I found the gallery’s event page I’m using here more informative than the email announcement; Note 2: I have not included the images featuring the artists and their work),
more-than-human
February 01 to May 13, 2023
Curated by Jane Tingley
Core exhibition of the CONTACT Photography Festival
more-than-human presents media artworks at the intersection of art, science, Indigenous worldviews, and technology that speculatively and poetically use multimodal storytelling as a vehicle for interpreting, mattering, and embodying more-than-human ecologies. The artworks in this exhibition aim to critically and emotionally engage with the important work of decentering the human and rethinking the perspective that sees nature as a lifeless resource for exploitation. Many of the artworks use technological and scientific tools as entry points for witnessing and interacting with these more-than-human worlds, as they help visualize phenomena beyond human sensory perception while nevertheless situating us within them. Combined, the artworks in the show weave a story that tells a tale of symbiosis, intersections, and more-than-human relationality. They incorporate scientific, philosophical, and Indigenous perspectives to create an experiential tapestry that asks the viewer to reconsider, reorient, and rethink relationships with the more-than-human.
Jane Tingley is an artist, curator, Director of the SLOlab: Sympoietic Living Ontologies Lab and Associate Professor at York University. Her studio work combines traditional studio practice with new media tools – and spans responsive/interactive installation, performative robotics, and telematically connected distributed sculptures/installations. Her works is interdisciplinary in nature and explores the creation of spaces and experiences that push the boundaries between science and magic, interactivity, and playfulness, and offer an experience to the viewer that is accessible both intellectually and technologically. Using distributed technologies, her current work investigates the hidden complexity found in the natural world and explores the deep interconnections between the human and non-human relationships. As a curator her interests lie at the intersection art, science, and technology with a special interest in collaborative creativity as impetus for innovation and discovery. Recent exhibitions include Hedonistika (2014) at the Musée d’art contemporain (Mtl, CA), INTERACTION (2016) and Agentsfor Change (2020) at THE MUSEUM (Kitchener, CA). As an artist she has participated in exhibitions and festivals in the Americas, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe – including translife -International Triennial of Media Art at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, Elektra Festival in Montréal (CA) and the Künstlerhause in Vienna (AT). She received the Kenneth Finkelstein Prize in Sculpture (CA), the first prize in the iNTERFACES – Interactive Art Competition (PT).
more-than-human artists
Ursula Biemann is an artist, author and video essayist. Her artistic practice is research oriented and involves fieldwork from Greenland to Amazonia, where she investigates climate change and the ecologies of oil, ice, forests and water. In her multi-layered videos, she interweaves vast cinematic landscapes with documentary footage, science fiction poetry and academic findings to narrate a changing planetary reality. In 2018, Biemann was commissioned by Museo de Arte, Universidad Nacional de Colombia in the co-creation of a new Indigenous University in the South of Colombia led by the Inga people in which she contributes the online platform Devenir Universidad. Her recent video installation Forest Mind (2021) emerges from this long-term collaboration. She has published numerous books, including Forest Mind (2022) and the audiovisual online monograph Becoming Earth on her ecological video works between 2011-2021. Biemann has exhibited internationally with recent solo exhibitions at MAMAC, Nice and the Centre culturel suisse, Paris. She is appointed Doctor honoris causa in Humanities by the Swedish University Umea, and has received the 2009 Prix Meret Oppenheim, the Swiss Grand Award for Art, and the 2022 Zurich Art Award.
Lindsey french (she/they) is a settler artist, educator and writer whose work engages in multi- sensory signaling within ecological and technological systems. She has exhibited widely including at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the International Museum of Surgical Science (Chicago), Pratt Manhattan Gallery (New York), the Miller Gallery for Contemporary Art (Pittsburgh), and SixtyEight Art Institute (Copenhagen). Recent publications include chapters for Ambiguous Territory: Architecture, Landscape, and the Postnatural (Actar, 2022), Olfactory Art and The Political in an Age of Resistance (Routledge, 2021), Why Look at Plants (Brill, 2019), and poetry for the journal Forty-Five. They earned an interdisciplinary BA in Environment, Interaction, and Design (Hampshire College), and an MFA in Art and Technology Studies (School of the Art Institute of Chicago). Newly based in the prairie landscape of Treaty 4 territory in Regina, Saskatchewan, french teaches as an Assistant Professor in Creative Technologies in the Faculty of Media, Art, and Performance at the University of Regina.
Grace Grothaus Is a computational media artist whose research explores ecosystemic human and plant relationships in relation to the present global climate crisis and speculative futures. She is interested in art’s potential to foster empathy with more-than-human worlds. Frequently collaborative, Grace works with scientists, engineers, musicians and other visual and performing artists. Her research-creation is expressed as physical computing installations which take place both outdoors or in the gallery and often center around the sensing and visualization of invisible environmental phenomena. Her artworks have been exhibited widely including at the International Symposium of Electronic Art (Barcelona, ES & Durban, SA), Environmental Crisis: Art & Science (London, UK), Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris, FR), and the World Creativity Biennale (Rio de Janiero, BR). Grothaus has received numerous awards including from the United States National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Currently she is working towards a PhD in Digital Media from York University where she has been named a VISTA scholar and a Graduate Fellow of Academic Distinction.
Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning is an interdisciplinary artist and Queen’s National Scholar in Anishinaabe Language, Knowledge, and Culture (ALKC) in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Queen’s University. Manning has expertise in Anishinaabe ontology, mnidoo interrelationality, phenomenology, and art. A member of Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation, her primary philosophical influence and source of creativity is her early childhood grounding in Anishinaabe onto- epistemology. She is Principal Investigator of Earthdiver: Land-Based Worlding (MITACS), and Co-Investigator on Pluriversal Worlding with Extended Reality. Manning co-directs the cross- institutional Peripheral Visions Co-Lab (York and Queen’s). She is an affiliate of Revision Centre for Art and Social Justice, and Fellow of The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI).
Mary Bunch is a media artist, Canada Research Chair, and Associate Professor, Cinema and Media Arts at York University. Through theoretical inquiry and collaborative research creation, Bunch mobilizes queer, feminist, disability and decolonial frameworks to better understand peripheral worldmaking imaginaries in media arts and intermedial performance. She is co-editor of a special issue on Access Aesthetics in Public, Principal Investigator on the research creation project Pluriversal Worlding with Extended Reality (SSHRC Insight) and co-investigator on Earthdiver: Land- Based Worlding (MITACS). Dr Bunch is co-director of the Peripheral Visions Co- Lab, Executive Committee member of Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, a core member of Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA), a Fellow at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, and an Affiliate of Revision Centre for Art and Social Justice.
Suzanne Morrissette (she/her) (she/her) is an artist, curator, and scholar who is currently based out of Toronto. Her father’s parents were Michif- and Cree-speaking Metis with family histories tied to the Interlake and Red River regions and Scrip in the area now known as Manitoba. Her mother’s parents came from Canadian-born farming families descended from United Empire loyalists and Mennonites from Russia. Morrissette was born and raised in Winnipeg and is a citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation. As an artistic researcher Suzanne’s interests include: family and community knowledge, methods of translation, the telling of in-between histories, and practices of making that support and sustain life. Her two recent solo exhibitions, What does good work look like? and translations recently opened in Toronto (Gallery 44) and Montreal (daphne art centre) respectively. Her work has appeared in numerous group exhibitions such as Lii Zoot Tayr (Other Worlds), an exhibition of Metis artists working with concepts of the unknowable, and the group exhibition of audio-based work about waterways called FLOW with imagineNATIVE Film + Media Art Festival. Morrissette holds a PhD from York University in Social and Political Thought. She currently holds the position of Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director for the Criticism and Curatorial Practices and Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Histories Masters programs at OCAD University.
Joel Ong (PhD, MSc.Bioart) is a media artist whose works connect scientific and artistic approaches to the environment, developed from more than a decade of explorations in sound, installation and socially conscious art. His conceptual explorations revolve around metaphors of distance, connectivity, assiduously reworking this notion of the ‘environment’ – how different tools and scales of observation reveal diverse biotic and abiotic relationalities, and how these continually oscillate between natural and computational worlds. His works have been shown at internationally at the Currents New Media Festival, Nuit Blanche Toronto, Seattle Art Museum, the Gregg Museum of Art and Design, the Penny Stamps Gallery and the Ontario Science Centre etc. Joel is Associate Professor in Computational Arts and Director of Sensorium:The Centre for Digital Arts and Technology at York University, in Toronto, Canada. His research has been funded by such as SSHRC, eCampus Ontario, Women and Gender Equality Canada.
Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits are Riga and Karlsruhe based artists and co-founders of RIXC Center for New Media Culture in Riga [Latvia], co-curators of RIXC Art and Science Festival, chief-editors of Acoustic Space, as well as co-chairs of recently founded NAIA – Naturally Artificial Intelligence Art association in Karlsruhe, Germany. Together they create visionary and networked artworks – from pioneering internet radio experiments in 1990s, to artistic investigations in electromagnetic spectrum and collaborations with radio astronomers, and more recent “techno-ecological” explorations. Their projects have been nominated (Purvitis Prize 2019, 2021, International Public Arts Award – Euroasia region 2021), awarded (Ars Electronica 1998, Falling Walls – Science Breakthrough 2021) and shown widely including at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Latvian National Museum of Arts, House of Electronic Arts in Basel, Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, and other venues, exhibitions and festivals in Europe, US, Canada and Asia. More recently they both also have been lecturers in MIT ACT – Art Culture Technology program (2018-2021), Boston.
Rasa Smite holds a PhD in sociology of media and culture; her thesis Creative Networks. In the Rear-View Mirror of Eastern European History (11) has been published by The Amsterdam Institute for Network Cultures. Currently she is a Professor of New Media Art at Liepaja University, and Senior Researcher at FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel, Switzerland.
Raitis Smits holds his doctoral degree in arts, and he is a Professor at the Art Academy of Latvia. In 2017 Raitis was a Fulbright Researcher in the Graduate Center of NYC.
Artists Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits, Grace Grothaus, Suzanne Morrissette and Lindsey french introduce their works exhibited in more-than-human and engage in a discussion about their practice. Moderated by Jane Tingley.
Join Dr Karen Houle for an introductory talk on basic premises of Cartesian humanism followed by an exhibition tour discussion of the artworks in that context with Jane Tingley.
Forest Mind (31 minutes) tackles the underlying concepts that distinguish the Indigenous knowledge systems from that of modern science, gauging the limits of rationalism which has dominated Western thinking for the last 200 years.
Artists Joel Ong, Jane Tingley, Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning and Mary Bunch introduce their artworks their works exhibited in more-than-human and engage in a discussion about their practice. Moderated by Lisa Deanne Smith.
Join us for a slow paced, sensory-based guided walk that connects you with the healing power of the natural world. Space is limited, advance registration required.
Registration is limited, free tickets will be released on 1 April [2023] at 12 p.m.: https://bit.ly/3XlyOga
There’s more.
Art/Sci Salon February 28 – May 7, 2023 events
From the January 30, 2023 Art/Sci Salon announcement (received via email), Note: Most of the in-person events take place in Toronto,Ontario,
Mark your calendar for the following events (more details coming up soon)
Artsci Dialogues
Ecology, Symbiosis, Human/Plant Relations
Feb 25 [2023], 3:00-5:00 pm, The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences [222 College Street · Toronto, Ontario] In person and Online
Ethics of Care
March 25 [2023], 3:00-5:00 pm The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical sciences In person and Online
In addition to the June 22 – July 16, 2022 exhibition in Toronto (These are a Few of Our Favourite Bees) highlighted in my June 14, 2022 posting, the ArtSci Salon has sent a June 20, 2022 announcement (received via email) about two events taking place for the first time in venues outside of Toronto,
IN VANCOUVER
A LIGHT FOOTPRINT IN THE COSMOS
SYMPOSIUM, EXHIBITIONS, PERFORMANCES, AND SCREENINGS
JUNE 24 – 27, 2022 | IN-PERSON AND ONLINE DJAVAD MOWAFAGHIAN WORLD ART CENTRE SFU GOLDCORP CENTRE FOR ARTS, 149 W. HASTINGS ST., VANCOUVER AND OTHER VENUES
REGISTRATION ON A SLIDING FEE SCALE. IN-PERSON REGISTRATION INCLUDES CATERED LUNCHES AND COFFEE BREAKS AND ADMISSION TO PERFORMANCES AND SCREENINGS.
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A Light Footprint in the Cosmos is a celebration of research methods and intercultural dialogue elaborated by the Substantial Motion Research Network (SMRN).
Inspired by 17th–century Persian process philosopher Sadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, Azadeh Emadi and Laura U. Marks founded SMRN in 2018 for scholars and practitioners interested in cross-cultural exploration of digital media, art and philosophy. Sadra famously stated that each individual is “a multiplicity of continuous forms, unified by the essential movement itself,” which describes how SMRN’s members inform each other’s practice and how those practices weave across artistic and scholarly work. Our collective method unfolds hidden connections: researching histories of media in world cultures, tracing paths of transmission, seeking models for media in world philosophies, studying vernacular practices, cultivating cultural openness, developing hunches, building imaginative and fabulative connections, and diagramming the processes of unfolding and enfolding. We fold South, Central, and East Asian, Persian, Arab, North and sub-Saharan African and African diaspora, Eastern European, and global Indigenous practices into contemporary media and thought. Our light footprint lies in seeking appropriate technological solutions, often from non-Western and traditional practices, to contemporary overbuilt digital infrastructures.
Celebrating the substantial motion of thought and/as creative practice, A Light Footprint in the Cosmos will feature presentations by 60 scholars and artists, delivered both online and in person, at the acoustically sophisticated performance venue Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre.
The exhibitions, performances, and curated film screenings are integral to the event. We are delighted to present exhibitions of works of 17 artists, curated by Nina Czegledy and hosted by Vancouver contemporary art venues Or Gallery and Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, and Studio T at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. The artworks explore, via a wide variety of analogue and digital media, the global circulation and connectivity of theories and technologies, addressing both historical inspirations and contemporary issues. They illuminate hidden connections and reveal diverse yet complementary concepts and practices. The musical performances literally draw breath from deep cultural sources. SMRN’s methods extend into the curated screenings Cinema of Breath: Rapture, Rupture and Cosmological Diagrams.
A Light Footprint in the Cosmos affirms the substantial movement of thought and practice by seeking to stage dialogues, provoke discussion and spark new collaborations in order to decolonize media studies, art history and aesthetics.
IN VENICE (ITA)
Emergent [emphasis mine]
a post pandemic mobile gallery
Part 1
Megachile Alienus Sala Camino Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa Venezia
June 22-25, 2022
Opening June 22, 18:30 …
Emergent is a mobile gallery featuring collaborations across the sciences and the arts. Its goal is to better comprehend and cope with the emergence, survival, and adaptation of life due to climate change and global mobility, laboratory manipulations and world making.
Emergent is a porous object: it encourages reflections across different experiences and sites of divergence through and with the arts; it may reach new human and non-human audiences, and have a transformative effect on the places it visits.
Emergent is a postpandemic gallery interrogating the role of exhibition spaces today. What possible experiences, what new dialogues could a redesign of the gallery as a living, breathing entity foster?
Emergent was Designed and executed by Roberta Buiani Lorella Di Cintio Ilze Briede [Kavi]
Fabrication: Rick Quercia
Megachile Alienus is an Installation by Cole Swanson
Scientific collaboration: Laurence Packer
Fabrication for installation: Jacob Sun
Thanks to: Alessandro Marletta Anna Lisa Manini
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Steven Baris, Never the Same Space Twice D29 (oil on Mylar, 24 x 24 inches, 2022). [downloaded from https://www.sfu.ca/sca/events—news/events/a-light-footprint-in-the-cosmos.html?mc_cid=f826643d70&mc_eid=584e4ad9fa]
Toronto’s ArtSci Salon has been hosting a series of events and exhibitions about COVID-19 and other health care issues under the “Who Cares?” banner. The exhibitions and events are now coming to an end (see my February 9, 2022 posting for a full listing).
A March 29, 2022 Art/Sci Salon announcement (received via email) heralds the last roundtable event (see my March 7, 2022 posting for more about the Who Cares? roundtables), Note: This is an online event,
Bayo Akomolafe Seema Yasmin
Of Health Myths and Trickster Viruses
Friday, April 1 [2022], 5:00-7:00 pm [ET]
Des mythes sur la santé et des virus trompeurs
Le Vendredi 1 avril [2022], de 17H à 19H A conversation on the unsettling dimensions of epidemics and the complexities of responses to their challenges. ~ Une conversation sur les dimensions troublantes des épidémies et la complexité des réponses à leurs défis.
Seema Yasmin, Director of Research and Education, Stanford Health Communication Initiative. She is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, Pulitzer prize finalist, medical doctor and Stanford and UCLA professor.
Bayo Akomolafe Chief Curator, The Emergence Network. He is a widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author ~
Seema Yasmin, Director of Research and Education, Stanford Health Communication Initiative. Elle est une journaliste lauréate d’un Emmy Award, finaliste du prix Pulitzer, médecin et professeure à Stanford et UCLA.
Bayo Akomolafe, Chief Curator, The Emergence Network. Il est un conférencier international très célèbre, un penseur posthumaniste, un poète, un enseignant, un intellectuel public, un essayiste et un auteur.
There are the acknowledgements,
“Who Cares?” is a Speaker Series dedicated to fostering transdisciplinary conversations between doctors, writers, artists, and researchers on contemporary biopolitics of care and the urgent need to move towards more respectful, creative, and inclusive social practices of care in the wake of the systemic cracks made obvious by the pandemic.
We wish to thank/ nous the generous support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, New College at the University of Toronto and The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University; the Centre for Feminist Research, Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, The Canadian Language Museum, the Departments of English and the School of Gender and Women’s Studies at York University; the D.G. Ivey Library and the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto; We also wish to thank the support of The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
This series is co-produced in collaboration with the ArtSci Salon
The Who Cares? series webpage, found here, lists the exhibitions and final events,
You can find out more about Toronto’s Art/Sci Salon’s Who Cares? speaker series in my February 9, 2022 posting. For this posting, I’m focusing on the upcoming March 2022 events, which are being offered online. From a March 7, 2022 Art/Sci Salon announcement (received via email),
We’re pleased to announce our next two events from our “Who Cares?” Speaker Series
Nous sommes heureux d’annoncer notre deuxième événement de notre “Who Cares?” Série de conferences
March 10 [2022], 2:00-3:00 pm [ET]
Data Meditation: Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico
HER – She Loves Data
Nuovo Abitare
Join us for a discussion about questions like:
Why does data have to be an extractive process?
What can we learn about ourselves through the data we generate everyday?
How can we use them as an expressive form to represent ourselves?
Data Meditations is the first ritual designed with the new approach of HER: She Loves Data, which addresses data as existential and cultural phenomena, and the need of creating experience (contemporary rituals) that allow societies and individuals to come together around data generating meaning, new forms of solidarity, empathy, interconnection and knowledge.
Rejoignez-nous pour une discussion basée sur des questions telles que :
Pourquoi les données doivent-elles être un processus d’extraction ?
Que pouvons-nous apprendre par rapport à nous, grâce aux données que nous générons chaque jour ?
Comment pouvons-nous les utiliser comme une forme expressive pour nous représenter ?
Data Méditations est le premier rituel conçu avec la nouvelle approche de HER [elle] : She loves Data , qui parle des données en tant que phénomènes existentiels et culturels , mais également , la nécessité de créer des expériences [ rituels contemporains ] qui permettent aux sociétés et aux individus de se réunir autour de données générant du sens , de nouvelles formes de solidarité , empathie , d’interconnexion et de connaissance.
Maria Antonia Gonzalez-Valerio, Professor of Philosophy and Literature, UNAM, Mexico City. Sharmistha Mishra, Infectious Disease Physician and Mathematical Modeller, St Michael’s Hospital Madhur Anand, Ecologist, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico, Independent Artists, HER, She Loves Data
One lesson we have learnt in the past two years is that the pandemic has not single-handedly created a global health crisis, but has exacerbated and made visible one that was already in progress. The roots of this crisis are as cultural as they are economic and environmental. Among the factors contributing to the crisis is a dominant orientation towards healthcare that privileges a narrow focus on data-centered technological fixes and praises the potentials of technological delegation. An unsustainable system has culminated in the passive acceptance and even the cold justification of triage as an inevitable evil in a time of crisis and scarcity.
What transdisciplinary practices can help ameliorate the atomizing pitfalls of turning the patient into data? How can discriminatory practices such as triage, exclusion based on race, gender, and class, vaccine hoarding etc.. be addressed and reversed? What strategies can we devise to foster genuine transdisciplinary approaches and move beyond the silo effects of specialization, address current uncritical trends towards technological delegation, and restore the centrality of human relations in healthcare delivery?
L’une des leçons que nous avons apprises au cours des deux dernières années est que la pandémie n’a pas créé à elle seule une crise sanitaire mondiale, mais qu’elle en a exacerbé et rendu visible une qui était déjà en cours. Les racines de cette crise sont aussi bien culturelles qu’économiques et environnementales. Parmi les facteurs qui contribuent à la crise figure une orientation dominante en matière de soins de santé, qui privilégie une vision étroite des solutions technologiques centrées sur les données et fait l’éloge du potentiel de la délégation technologique. Un système non durable a abouti à l’acceptation passive et même à la justification froide du triage comme un mal inévitable en temps de crise et de pénurie.
Quelles pratiques transdisciplinaires peuvent contribuer à améliorer les pièges de l’atomisation qui consiste à transformer le patient en données ? Comment les pratiques discriminatoires telles que le triage, l’exclusion fondée sur la race, le sexe et la classe sociale, la thésaurisation des vaccins, etc. peuvent-elles être abordées et inversées ? Quelles stratégies pouvons-nous concevoir pour favoriser de véritables approches transdisciplinaires et dépasser les effets de silo de la spécialisation, pour faire face aux tendances actuelles non critiques à la délégation technologique, et pour restaurer la centralité des relations humaines dans la prestation des soins de santé ?
We wish to thank/ nous [sic] the generous support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, New College at the University of Toronto and The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University; the Centre for Feminist Research, Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, The Canadian Language Museum, the Departments of English and the School of Gender and Women’s Studies at York University; the D.G. Ivey Library and the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto; We also wish to thank the support of The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
2. Friday, March 18 – 6:00 to 8:00 pm [ET] Critical care and sustainable care Suvendrini Lena, MD, Playwright and Neurologist at CAMH and Centre for Headache, Women’s College Hospital, Toronto Adriana Ieraci, Roboticist and PhD candidate in Computer Science, Ryerson University Lucia Gagliese – Pain Aging Lab, York University
COVID-19 has put health care workers in a more than usually interesting position and the Art/Sci Salon in Toronto, Canada is ‘creatively’ addressing the old, new, and emerging stresses. From the Who Cares? events webpage (also in a February 8, 2022 notice received via email),
“Who Cares?” is a Speaker Series dedicated to fostering transdisciplinary conversations between doctors, writers, artists, and researchers on contemporary biopolitics of care and the urgent need to move towards more respectful, creative, and inclusive social practices of care in the wake of the systemic cracks made obvious by the pandemic.
About the Series
Critiques of the health care sector are certainly not new and have been put forward by workers and researchers in the medical sector and in the humanities alike. However, critique alone fails to consider the systemic issues that prevent well-meaning practitioners to make a difference. The goal of this series is to activate practical conversations between people who are already engaged in transforming the infrastructures and cultures of care but have few opportunities to speak to each other. These interdisciplinary dialogues will enable the sharing of emerging epistemologies, new material approaches and pedagogies that could take us beyond the current crisis. By engaging with the arts as research, our guests use the generative insights of poetic and artistic practices to zoom in on the crucial issues undermining holistic, dynamic and socially responsible forms of care. Furthermore, they champion transdisciplinary dialogues and multipronged approaches directed at changing the material and discursive practices of care.
Who cares? asks the following important questions:
How do we lay the groundwork for sustainable practices of care, that is, care beyond ‘just-in-time’ interventions?
What strategies can we devise to foster genuine transdisciplinary approaches that move beyond the silo effects of specialization, address current uncritical trends towards technological delegation, and restore the centrality responsive/responsible human relations in healthcare delivery?
What practices can help ameliorate the atomizing pitfalls of turning the patient into data?
What pathways can we design to re-direct attention to long lasting care focused on a deeper understanding of the manifold relationalities between doctors, patients, communities, and the socio-environmental context?
How can the critically creative explorations of artists and writers contribute to building resilient communities of care that cultivate reciprocity, respect for the unpredictable temporalities of healing, and active listening?
How to build a capacious infrastructure of care able to address and mend the damages caused by ideologies of ultimate cure that pervade corporate approaches to healthcare funding and delivery?
This event will be online, please register HEREto participate. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
A Conversation with Bahar Orang, author of Where Things Touch, on staying attuned to the fragile intimacies of care beyond the stifling demands of institutional environments.
This short presentation will ask questions about care that move it beyond the carceral logics of hospital settings, particularly in psychiatry. Drawing from questions raised in my first book Where Things Touch, and my work with Doctors for Defunding Police (DFDP), I hope to pose the question of how to do the work of health care differently. As the pandemic has laid bare so much violence, it becomes imperative to engage in forms of political imaginativeness that proactively ask what are the forms that care can take, and does already take, in places other than the clinic or the hospital?
Bahar Orang is a writer and clinician scholar in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Her creative and clinical work seeks to engage with ways of imagining care beyond the carcerality that medical institutions routinely reproduce
Roundtables 1. Friday, March 11 – 5:00 to 7:00 pm [ET] Beyond triage and data culture Maria Antonia Gonzalez-Valerio, Professor of Philosophy and Literature, UNAM, Mexico City. Sharmistha Mishra, Infectious Disease Physician and Mathematical Modeller, St Michael’s Hospital Madhur Anand, Ecologist, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico, independent artists, HER, She Loves Data
(Online)
2. Friday, March 18 – 6:00 to 8:00 pm [ET] Critical care and sustainable care Suvendrini Lena, MD, Playwright and Neurologist at CAMH and Centre for Headache, Women’s College Hospital, Toronto Adriana Ieraci, Roboticist and PhD candidate in Computer Science, Ryerson University Lucia Gagliese – Pain Aging Lab, York University
Keynote Conversation Friday, April 1, 5:00-7:00 pm [ET] Seema Yasmin, Director of Research and Education, Stanford Health Communication Initiative [Stanford University] Bayo Akomolafe, Chief Curator of The Emergence Network
(hybrid) William Doo Auditorium, 45 Willcox Street, Toronto
* The format of this program and access might change with the medical situation
We wish to thank the generous support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, New College, the D.G. Ivey Library, and the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto; the Centre for Feminist Research, Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, The Canadian Language Museum, the Departments of English and the School of Gender and Women’s Studies at York University. We also wish to thank the support of The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
This series is co-produced in collaboration with the ArtSci Salon
Toronto’s (Canada) Art/Sci Salon (also known as, Art Science Salon) sent me an August 26, 2021 announcement (received via email) of an online show with a limited viewing period (BTW, nice play on words with the title echoing the name of the institution mentioned in the first sentence),
PROXIMAL FIELDS
The Fields Institute was closed to the public for a long time. Yet, it has not been empty. Peculiar sounds and intriguing silences, the flows of the few individuals and the janitors occasional visiting the building made it surprisingly alive. Microorganisms, dust specs and other invisible guests populated undisturbed the space while the humans were away. The building is alive. We created site specific installations reflecting this condition: Elaine Whittaker and her poet collaborators take us to a journey of the microbes living in our proximal spaces. Joel Ong and his collaborators have recorded space data in the building: the result is an emergent digital organism. Roberta Buiani and Kavi interpret the venue as an organism which can be taken outside on a mobile gallery.
PROXIMAL FIELDS will be visible September 8-12 2021 at
With: Elaine Whittaker, Joel Ong, Nina Czegledy, Roberta Buiani, Sachin Karghie, Ryan Martin, Racelar Ho, Kavi. Poetry: Maureen Hynes, Sheila Stewart
Video: Natalie Plociennik
This event is one of many such events being held for Ars Electronica 2021 festival.
For anyone who remembers back to my May 3, 2021 posting (scroll down to the relevant subhead; a number of events were mentioned), I featured a show from the ArtSci Salon community called ‘Proximal Spaces’, a combined poetry reading and bioart experience.
Many of the same artists and poets seem to have continued working together to develop more work based on the ‘proximal’ for a larger international audience.
International and local scene details (e.g., same show? what is Ars Electronica? etc.)
As you may have noticed from the announcement, there are a lot of different institutions involved.
Local: Fields Institute and ArtSci Salon
The Fields Institute is properly known as The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences and is located at the University of Toronto. Here’s more from their About Us webpage,
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Founded in 1992, the Fields Institute was initially located at the University of Waterloo. Since 1995, it has occupied a purpose-built building on the St. George Campus of the University of Toronto.
The Institute is internationally renowned for strengthening collaboration, innovation, and learning in mathematics and across a broad range of disciplines. …
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The Fields Institute is named after the Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields (1863-1932). Fields was a pioneer and visionary who recognized the scientific, educational, and economic value of research in the mathematical sciences. Fields spent many of his early years in Berlin and, to a lesser extent, in Paris and Göttingen, the principal mathematical centres of Europe of that time. These experiences led him, after his return to Canada, to work for the public support of university research, which he did very successfully. He also organized and presided over the 1924 meeting of the International Congress of Mathematicians in Toronto. This quadrennial meeting was, and still is, the major meeting of the mathematics world.
There is no Nobel Prize in mathematics, and Fields felt strongly that there should be a comparable award to recognize the most outstanding current research in mathematics. With this in mind, he established the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, which, contrary to his personal directive, is now known as the Fields Medal. Information on Fields Medal winners can be found through the International Mathematical Union, which chooses the quadrennial recipients of the prize.
Fields’ name was given to the Institute in recognition of his seminal contributions to world mathematics and his work on behalf of high level mathematical scholarship in Canada. The Institute aims to carry on the work of Fields and to promote the wider use and understanding of mathematics in Canada.
The relationship between the Fields Institute and the ArtSci Salon is unclear to me. This can be found under Programs and Activities on the Fields Institute website,
2020-2021 ArtSci Salon
Description
ArtSci Salon consists of a series of semi-informal gatherings facilitating discussion and cross-pollination between science, technology, and the arts. ArtSci Salon started in 2010 as a spin-off of Subtle Technologies Festival to satisfy increasing demands by the audience attending the Festival to have a more frequent (monthly or bi-monthly) outlet for debate and information sharing across disciplines. In addition, it responds to the recent expansion in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area] area of a community of scientists and artists increasingly seeking collaborations across disciplines to successfully accomplish their research projects and questions.
We are pleased to announce our upcoming March 2021 events (more details are in the schedule below):
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Ars Electronica
It started life as a Festival for Art, Technology and Society in 1979 in Linz, Austria. Here’s a little more from their About webpage,
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… Since September 18, 1979, our world has changed radically, and digitization has covered almost all areas of our lives. Ars Electronica’s philosophy has remained the same over the years. Our activities are always guided by the question of what new technologies mean for our lives. Together with artists, scientists, developers, designers, entrepreneurs and activists, we shed light on current developments in our digital society and speculate about their manifestations in the future. We never ask what technology can or will be able to do, but always what it should do for us. And we don’t try to adapt to technology, but we want the development of technology to be oriented towards us. Therefore, our artistic research always focuses on ourselves, our needs, our desires, our feelings.
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They have a number of initiatives in addition to the festival. The next festival, A New Digital Deal, runs from September 8 – 12, 2021 (Ars Electronica 2021). Here’s a little more from the festival webpage,
Ars Electronica 2021, the festival for art, technology and society, will take place from September 8 to 12. For the second time since 1979, it will be a hybrid event that includes exhibitions, concerts, talks, conferences, workshops and guided tours in Linz, Austria, and more than 80 other locations around the globe.
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Leonardo; The International Society for Arts, Sciences and Technology
Ars Electronica and Leonardo; The International Society for Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) cooperate on projects but they are two different entities. Here’s more from the About LEONARDO webpage,
Fearlessly pioneering 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. Leonardo’ serves a network of transdisciplinary scholars, artists, scientists, technologists and thinkers, who experiment with cutting-edge, new approaches, practices, systems and solutions to tackle the most complex challenges facing humanity today.
As a not-for-profit 501(c)3 enterprising think tank, Leonardo offers a global platform for creative exploration and collaboration reaching tens of thousands of people across 135 countries. Our flagship publication, Leonardo, the world’s leading scholarly journal on transdisciplinary art, anchors a robust publishing partnership with MIT Press; our partnership with ASU [Arizona State University] infuses educational innovation with digital art and media for lifelong learning; our creative programs span thought-provoking events, exhibits, residencies and fellowships, scholarship and social enterprise ventures.
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I have a description of Leonardo’s LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous), from my March 22, 2021 posting (the Garden comes up next),
“… 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.”
To be specific it’s Ars Electronica Garden LEONARDO LASER and this is one of the series being held as part of the festival (A Digital New Deal). Here’s more from the [Anti]disciplinary Topographies ‘garden’ webpage,
Culturing transnational dialogue for creative hybridity
Leonardo LASER Garden gathers our global network of artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together in a series of hybrid formats addressing the world’s most pressing issues. Animated by the theme of a “new digital deal” and grounded in the UN Sustainability Goals, Leonardo LASER Garden cultivates our values of equity and inclusion by elevating underrepresented voices in a wide-ranging exploration of global challenges, digital communities and placemaking, space, networks and systems, the digital divide – and the impact of interdisciplinary art, science and technology discourse and collaboration.
Dovetailing with the launch of LASER Linz, this asynchronous multi-platform garden will highlight the best of the Leonardo Network (spanning 47 cities worldwide) and our transdisciplinary community. In “Extraordinary Times Call for Extraordinary Vision: Humanizing Digital Culture with the New Creativity Agenda & the UNSDGs [United Nations Sustainable Development Goals],” Leonardo/ISAST CEO Diana Ayton-Shenker presents our vision for shaping our global future. This will be followed by a Leonardo Community Lounge open to the general public, with the goal of encouraging contributions to the cultural environments of different regions through transnational exchange and community building.
Getting back to the beginning you can view Proximal Fields from September 8 – 12, 2021 as part of the Ars Electonica 2021 festival, specifically, the ‘garden’ series.
I’ve already written about October 2019 science and art/science events in Canada (see my Sept. 26, 2019 posting), but more event notices for Octoberhave come my way. These events are all art/science (or sciart as it’s sometimes called).
… on the future of life forms … a two-night (Oct./Nov.) discussion in Toronto, Canada
Here’s more from the ArtSci Salon’s October 3, 2019 announcement (received via email)
“…now they were perfecting a pigoon that could grow five or six kidneys at a time. Such a host animal could be reaped of its extra kidneys; then, rather than being destroyed, it could keep on living and grow more organs, much as a lobster could grow another claw to replace a missing one. That would be less wasteful, as it took a lot of food and care to grow a pigoon. A great deal of investment money had gone into OrganInc Farms…” (Margaret Atwood – Oryx & Crake 2003)
In Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood describes a not-too-distant future where humans have perfected the art of fabricating and modifying a variety of creatures to improve and prolongue their own lives and wellbeing.
As Atwood has stated in various occasions, this is not science fiction.
It is in fact already happening. New forms of life appear not only as the product of lab fabrication or gene editing, but also as the result of toxic pollutants and climate change induced adaptation.
what to make of them?
how to cope with a world where extinction, adaptation and mutation risk to make traditional categories and taxonomies obsolete?
or not?
Join us to this two-parts series to discuss the ethics and implications of these transformations with artists, scientists and bioethicists.
this is a “double date”! Please, note the two dates please, RSVP here https://bit.ly/2AH1Pe8
Part 1 Thursday, October 17, 6:00-8:00 pm The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
Altered Inheritance: extinction, recreation or transformation? a dialogue and discussion on the implications of genome editing on humans and other organisms
with Francoise Baylis – Research Professor, Bioethicist, Dalhousie University
Karen Maxwell – Dept. of Biochemistry, Maxwell Lab, University of Toronto
emergent artists from OCADU [Ontario College of Art and Design University] and YorkU [York University, Toronto]
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Part 2 Thursday, November 21, 6:00-8:00 pm The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
Classifying the new? why do we classify? what is it good for? what is the limit of taxonomy and classification in a transforming world?
with Richard Pell – Centre for PostNatural History, Pittsburgh, PA
Laurence Packer – Mellitologist, Professor of biology and environmental studies, York University
Stefan Herda – earth science artist
Cole Swanson – artist and educator (Art Foundation and Visual and Digital Arts, Humber college)
Anna Marie O’Brien – Frederickson, Rochman, and Sinton labs, University of Toronto
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BIOS
Françoise Baylis is University Research Professor at Dalhousie University. She is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia, as well as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Baylis was one of the organizers of, and a key participant in, the 2015 International Summit on Human Gene Editing. She is a member of the WHO expert advisory committee on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing. Her new book “Altered Inheritance. CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing” is published by Harvard University Press
Karen Maxwell is a research professor in the dept of biochemistry at the university of toronto, where she runs the Maxwell Lab. Among other topics, the lab’s three branches “Anti-CRISPR”, “Phage morons” and “Anti-Phage defences” study the interplay of phages with their bacterial hosts, with a focus on phage mediated bacterial virulence mechanisms and inhibitors of anti-phage bacterial defenses.
Richard Pell works at the intersections of science, engineering, and culture. He has worked in a variety of electronic media from documentary video to robotics to bioart to museum exhibition. He is the founder and director of the Center for PostNatural History (CPNH), an organization dedicated to the collection and exposition of life-forms that have been intentionally and heritably altered through domestication, selective breeding, tissue culture or genetic engineering. The CPNH operates a permanent museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and produces traveling exhibitions that have appeared in science and art museums throughout Europe and the United States, including being the subject of a major exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London.
Laurence Packer is a mellitologist, ie a scholar whose main subject of study is wild bees. his research primarily involves the systematics of the bee subfamily Xeromelissinae – an obscure, but fascinating group of bees, restricted to the New World south of central Mexico. he has also expended considerable energy leading the global campaign to barcode the bees of the world. his work is concerned with promulgating the importance of bees: for genetic reasons, it seems that bees are more extinction prone than are almost all other organisms
Stefan Herda‘s practice explores our troubling relationship to the natural world through drawing, sculpture and video. Inspired by the earth sciences, Herda’s work navigates the space between truth and fiction. His material and process-based investigations fuse elements of authenticity, façade, the natural and the manufactured together. He received his BAH from the University of Guelph in 2010. His work in both sculpture and video has been included in exhibitions nationally and has been featured by CBC Arts and Daily VICE. Recently, Stefan has held solo shows at Patel Projects (Toronto) and Wil Kucey Gallery (Toronto), participated in group shows such as Cultivars: Possible Worlds at InterAccess (Toronto) and was featured as one of 12 artists in the Cabinet Project at the University of Toronto
Cole Swanson is an artist and educator based in Toronto, Canada. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and throughout international venues in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. At the heart of recent work is a cross-disciplinary exploration of materials and their sociocultural and biological histories. Embedded within art media and commonplace resources are complex relations between nature and culture, humans and other agents, consumers and the consumed. Swanson has engaged in a broad material practice using sound, installation, painting, and sculpture to explore interspecies relationships.
Anna Marie O’Brien is a post doc in the Frederickson, Rochman, and Sinton labs at University of Toronto, working on duckweeds, microbes, urban contaminants, and phenotypes.her PhD work was at Davis, with thesis advisors Dr. Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and Dr. Sharon Strauss. she also collaborated closely with Dr. Ruairidh Sawers at LANGEBIO-CINVESTAV in Guanajuato, Mexico.
The first highlighted speaker, Françoise Baylis, has been mentioned here twice before, in a May 17, 2019 posting (scroll down to the ‘Global plea for moratorium on heritable genome editing’ subheading) and in an April 26, 2019 posting (scroll down to the ‘Finally’ subheading, the second paragraph). Both postings touch on the topic of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) and germline editing (genetic editing that will affect all of your descendents).
Cartooney in New Westminster (near Vancouver, Canada) starting October 18, 2019
I like physics but I love cartoons Stephen Hawking
There you have it from one of the 20th/early 21st century’s most famous physicists. The quote is the opening line for the New Westminster (near Vancouver, Canada) New Media Gallery’s latest event webpage, Cartooney,
The impact of animated cartoons has been profound. In the early 20th century, we began exploiting the possibilities of the animated frame. The seven artists in this exhibition don’t create cartoons, they deconstruct those that already exist; from Looney Tunes, to The Simpsons to Charlie Brown. They exploit this potent material to reveal the inner and outer workings of our human world. The original cartoon is ever-present, haunting us with suggestive content.
The artists in this exhibition reframe our world. Here we are asked to consider the laws, systems and iconographies of the cartoon world while drawing parallels with our human world; physical laws, the laws of gravitation, matter + light, the physics of motion, and societal psychologies & behaviours. We are presented with fascinating catalogues and overlaying systems of symbolic language. The purposeful demolition of expectation in these works, mirrors the instabilities and dreams of modern life. They remind us that the pervasive medium of the cartoon can reflect and influence how we navigate the world. If there is a paradox here, it might be that dismantling a cartoon can throw open the doors of perception.
Artist Andy Holden becomes a cartoon avatar in Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape.
Photograph By contributed [downloaded from https://www.newwestrecord.ca/entertainment/what-can-cartoons-tell-us-about-the-state-of-the-universe-find-out-in-new-west-1.23969740]
An Oct. 7, 2019 article in the New Westminster Record provides a few more details about the show,
The New Westminster New Media Gallery’s next exhibition is exploring the impact of animated cartoons.
Cartooney opens at the gallery on Friday, Oct. 18 and runs until Dec. 8 [2019], then again from Jan. 7 to Feb. 2 [2020].
Artist Kevin McCoy, one-half of the duo of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, will be on hand for an artist talk on opening night, Friday, Oct. 18. The talk will run from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., with a reception and open exhibition from 7:30 to 9 p.m.
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Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, by Andy Holden (U.K.):
In his two-channel audiovisual installation, 57 minutes long, Holden becomes a cartoon avatar, giving both a lecture on cartoons and a cartoon lecture, describing how our world is best now understood as a cartoon. The project incorporates Greek philosophy, Stephen Hawking, critical theory, physics, art, the financial crisis and Donald Trump, while adapting 10 laws of cartoon physics to create a theory of the world and a prophetic glimpse of the world we live in.
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CB-MMXVIII (I’ve been thinking of giving sleeping lessons), by Patten (U.K.):
In this multi-screen audiovisual installation, the artist duo Patten subjects Charlie Brown to all the digital stresses, distortions and manipulations available in 2018, testing his plasticity.
“Sampled texts from philosophy, science and critical theory criss-cross the screens and are linked with scrolling images related to the natural world, DNA, systems, multiples; all serving to influence our reading of the cartoon character and the texts,” says the release. The ambient soundtrack is a dramatically slowed down Linus and Lucy theme.
You can find the New Westminster New Media Gallery on the third floor at the Anvil Centre, 777 Columbia St. See www.newmediagallery.ca for more details.
Collisions Festival: Invasive Systems in Vancouver, November 2019
Curiosity Collider, a Vancouver-based not-for-profit organization, will be hosting its inaugural art-science Collisions Festival: Invasive Systems at the VIVO Media Arts Centre from November 8 to 10, 2019. The festival features an art-science exhibition showcasing independent works and collaborative works by artist/scientist pairs, a hands-on DNA sonification workshop, an opening reception with performances, and guided discussions and tours.
Curated by Curiosity Collider’s Creative Director Char Hoyt, the theme of the festival focuses on the “invasive systems” that surround us – from technology and infections, to pollution and invasive species. “We want to create a space to explore the influence of the invasive aspects of our world on our inner and outer lives” said Char. “We will examine our observations from both scientific and artistic perspectives- are these influences beneficial, inevitable, or preventable?” Attendees can anticipate a deep dive into the delicate and complicated nature of how both living and inanimate things redefine our lives and environments – through visual art, multimedia installations, and interactive experiences.
“I am not a scientist and do not come from a family of scientists, but I have always appreciated knowing how things work, how things are connected and how things evolve – collaboration between art and science feel natural to me,” said Vancouver artist Dzee Lousie. “Both artists and scientists are curious, perform experiments and are driven by questions.” Dzee’s work Crossing, an interactive puzzle painting that examines how microbial colonies can impact our behaviours and processes in our body, is the result of a collaboration with UBC PhD candidate Linda Horianopoulos. “As scientists, we often want people to take notice of our work and engage with it. I think that art attracts people to do exactly that,” said Linda.
The sculptural work Invasion by Prince George artist Twyla Exner explores the remnants of technology. “My artworks propose hybrids of technological structures and living organisms. They take form as abandoned technologies that have sprouted with new life, clever artificialities that imitate nature, or biotechnological fixtures of the not-so-distant future,” Twyla shared. Like Dzee, she feels that artists and scientists share the sense of curiosity, experimentation, and creative problem solving. “Both art and science have the ability to tell stories and shape how people see and interpret the world around them.”
The festival is hosted in collaboration with the VIVO Media Arts Centre (2625 Kaslo Street, Vancouver, BC V5M 3G9). It will open on the evening of November 8th, with a reception and a live performance by local sound artist Edzi’u, during which her sculptural installation Moose are Life will be brought to life. On Saturday, artist Laara Cerman will co-host a DNA sonification workshop with scientist Scott Pownall. Their work Flora’s Song No. 1 in C Major – a hand-cranked music box that plays a tune created from the DNA of local invasive plants – will be on exhibit during the festival. The festival will also include tours by the curator at 3:30pm and guided discussions at 4pm on both Saturday and Sunday. Visit https://collisionsfestival2019.eventbrite.ca for festival tickets and http://bit.ly/collisionsfestival2019 for festival information.
Other participating artists and collaborating scientists include: Christian Dahlberg (Photography/ Painting / New Media Artist), Chris Dunnett (Multidisciplinary Artist), Garth Covernton (PhD Candidate, University of Victoria), Joanne Hastie (Artist / Mechanical Engineer), Kathryn Wadel (Interdisciplinary Mixed Media Artist), and Katrina Vera Wong (Artist / Writer / Editor).
Curiosity Collider and VIVO Media Arts Centre gratefully acknowledge the support of BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, City of Vancouver, Metro Vancouver Regional Cultural Project Grants Program, UBC Faculty of Science, and our printing sponsor Jukebox, for making Collisions Festival: Invasive Systems possible.
About Curiosity Collider Art-Science Foundation
Curiosity Collider Art-Science Foundation is a Vancouver based non-profit organization that is committed to providing opportunities for artists whose work expresses scientific concepts and scientists who collaborate with artists. We challenge the perception and experience of science in our culture, break down the walls between art and science, and engage our growing community to bringing life to the concepts that describe our world.
Are you curious about data sonification? Wondering how music theory and DNA sequences could converge to create a work of art and science? Join us to explore more!
In this DNA sonification workshop, participants will learn the process of DNA barcoding of invasive plant species, and how to sonify DNA sequences with basic music theory and MIDI freeware. Participants will also get hands-on experience in amplying specific genetic regions in plants through polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a step necessary in preparing samples for DNA barcoding.
This workshop will be led by artist Laara Cerman and scientist Scott Pownall, whose art-science collaborative work “Flora’s Song No. 1 in C Major” will be on exhibit during Collisions Festival: Invasive Systems. Laara and Scott will also share their process of working together, and how decisions were made to arrive at their collaborative work of art and science.
We acknowledge that Collisions Festival and its events take place on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil- Waututh) Nations. We are grateful for the opportunity to live and work on this land.
I asked the Curiosity Collider folks (@CCollider on Twitter) if you needed to bring any equipment or have any knowledge of music. The answer was: no, you don’t need to bring anything (unless you want to) and you don’t need to know about music.
Uncorked at Science World at TELUS World of Science in Vancouver on November 14, 2019
This is not a cheap night out. An October 10, 2019 article by Lindsay William-Ross for the Daily Hive website gives you reasons to go anyway (Note: Links have been removed),
A new wine-themed event will have Vancouverites swirling with nerdy glee. Uncorked: A Celebration of the Science of Wine is an evening of sipping and learning that will bring together world-renown winemakers, chefs, and science experts for an unforgettable event.
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Participating wineries are:
Mission Hill Family Estate CedarCreek Estate Winery CheckMate Artisanal Winery Martin’s Lane Winery Road 13 Vineyards
The wines will be paired with bites from Chef Patrick Gayler from Mission Hill’s Terrace Restaurant and Chef Neil Taylor from CedarCreek’s new Home Block Restaurant.
Programming for the evening includes seminars on the science of blending wine, the science of aging wine, the role of technology at modern vineyards, and the science of soil and terroir.
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Proceeds from Uncorked will support Science World’s On the Road program, which last year brought live science performances to 41,500 students throughout B.C. who otherwise might not have had a chance to visit TELUS World of Science.
Tickets are $89 and can be purchased here. You may also want to reserve some money for the silent auction. Don’t forget, it’s November 14, 2019 from 7 pm to 10 pm at Science World in Vancouver. You can find directions and a map here.
