This year the Swedish Research Council Symposium on Artistic Research explores the dynamic interplay between more-than-human forces and culturally resilient structures. Drawing inspiration from Nora N. Khan's contrasting concepts of "hurricanes and scaffolding", we invite researchers in the field of art to identify the frameworks, practices, perspectives and themes that art can bring to the broader discourses of society, environment, technology and politics.
The symposium is organised in close collaboration between the Swedish Research Council and UmArts Research Center, and will take place on the Arts Campus, 4-6 December 2024, in partnership with Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå Institute of Design (UID), Umeå School of Architecture (UMA), Department of Creative Studies and Bildmuseet. The symposium offers a platform for participation and engagement where different kinds of contributions together may enrich a critical and creative dialogue on artistic research. There will also be events taking place across the city.
Within the lively debate of Artistic Research, the symposia will identify critically reflexive frameworks that the arts bring to the wider discourses of society and politics, starting with the concept of hurricanes and scaffolding.
11.00-13.00 Registration, Bildmuseet groundfloor
(lunch not provided)
13.00-14.30 Welcome, UID
The Swedish Research Council, UmArts and the Arts campus welcome all participants to ‘Hurricanes and Scaffolding’.
Sarah Cook (Scotland) is a curator and an UmArts/WASP-HS Guest Professor in Art & AI in partnership with TAIGA, Umeå School of Architecture and Bildmuseet. AI is ubiquitous, but how do the histories and tactics of media arts enable a critical framework for tackling the social and ethical challenges of artificial intelligence and machine learning?
14.30-15.00 Coffee beak
Session A- Panel debate, UID
Volatile Ecologies: Lichens, Reindeer, Olfaction and Environmental Change.
Panelists: Markus Fjellström, Sue Hauri-Downing, Tim Horstkotte, Mari Keski-Korsu. Moderator: Tarsh Bates (UmArts Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Design and Molecular Biology).
Session B- Talks: The Wickedness of AI, UMA
Oracle of the Maroons - A Black Poetics Intervention, Clareese Hill
From Automated Labour to the Labour of Automation, Linda Hilfling Ritasdatter
My Umi Says - an Ai ritual collaboration, Mikey Georgeson
Reconfiguring the Body-Data Paradigm: Subverting Emotional AI, Mona Hedayati
A portrait of the AI as a young Cyber Oracle, Paul Wiersbinski
From the illusionist Artificial Intelligence to the authentic, Seda Özçetin
Session C- Show and tell, UmArts/Smedjan
Caring for co- with knitting practices. Charlotte Østergaard, Marie Ledendal
Care, comb, connect... Learning to care. Helga Halldórsdóttir
Persian Carpets as Sites for Storytelling, Memory, and Artistic Interaction: A Practice-Research Investigation. Maryam Nazari
The artisanal value of the material. Model - Chewed paper. Nina Svensson
Vulnerable Methodologies – drawing women in diaspora. Tatiana Spinelli, Paulo Almeida
Shaping the water-line(n). Kathryn Walters
Session D- Conversation, Rainbow room
Fika-seminar on emerging design practices in the aftermath of previous makings. Åsa Ståhl, Maria Göransdotter, Li Jönsson, Thomas Laurien, Kristina Lindström, Gaja Mežnarić Osole, Danica Sretenovic
16.30-17.00 Short break
Session F- Conversation, Flexhallen
Monstrosity, divination and the post-digital, Helen Kaplinsky
Session G- Conversation, UID
Buen Vivir at Home: body-place-earth, Juliana Restrepo-Giraldo
Session H- Conversation, UmArts
Testing artistic schemes in new contexts with multi-disciplinary teams
Alina Östling, Hayley Ho, Magnus Eriksson, Elsa Vaara, Tatjana Apanasevic
Session I- Conversation, Nyfiket/Curiosum
Sometimes It Is Just Enough with One Word, Per Anders Nilsson, Palle Dahlstedt
Session J- Conversation, Rainbow room/UID
Situated Technoecologies: a Conversation in the Contact Zone of Art, Technology and Posthumanities, Alessandra Di Pisa, Cecilia Åsberg, Robert Stasinki
Session K- Conversation, UMA
Artistic Research: Navigating the Nexus of Food, Identity, and Activism, Chinasa Ezugha
Session L- Conversation, Seminar Room, UMA
Matter and imagination, Sebastian Andersson, Björn Ola Lind
Session M- Installation, UmArts Studio
The Suck, Daniel Shanken
(Only 100 seats)
The Book of the Dead, reenacting historic documentary poetry through AI fabulation by David Kelley
Voices of Inception by Becky Beamer
The upcoming Polar Silk Road by Elena Mazzi
New Reactive Earth - Transtopian worldbuilding by Lina Persson
Spectral Index by Stephen Cornford
Susan Schuppli (London) is an Artist, Writer and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London. Susan Schuppli’s scholarly and creative work investigates how the concept of the ‘material witness’ (MIT Press) can be used as theoretical framework for analysing materials and events analysis.
10.00-10.30 Coffeebreak, Bygden
Session N- Panel Debate, Flexhallen
Hurricane remediation panel
Panelists: Karla Claudio Betancourt, Raquel Torres Arzola, Carlos Andrés Rodríguez. Moderator: Luis Berríos-Negrón (UmArts Research Fellow in Art and Architecture in partnership with Umeå School of Architecture and Bildmuseet).
Session O- Talks: Speculative Approaches in Research, UMA
Meeting The Lough On Its Own Terms: a speculative science fiction where the infrastructures of neo-liberalism meet the microbial (Lough Neagh, NI). Ami Clarke
Fantasies of seamless interoperability: a long duration conversation and a book. Hanna Husberg, Agata Marzecova, Liu Xin
Reasons for Persons, or the Good Successor Problem. Kanad Chakrabarti
The experience of adding mysterious and aesthetic aspects to the cell images in the project of "cells dance with us”. Majid Sarnayzadeh
Lands of otherness. Myrto Charalampous
Encoding Culture: The Swedish Cultural Canon through the lens of Multimodal Dataset Curation. Paola Torres Núñez Del Prado, Martin Seipel, Måns Helldin
Session P- Talks: Experiments in Art and Technology, UID
Speculative Annotation. Agnieszka Knap
HEAVY STUFF designs for bodily engagement through movement and resistance. Andreas Lindegren, Maja Nylén, Bernhard Woschizka, Joseph La Delfa
The Maya Numerical Systems and Their Potential in New Technologies. Edgar Omar Rojas Ruiz
A Little Less Blue Skies, A Little More Red Sunsets. Ivar Veermäe
Exploring sonic worlds in Alluvial Gold. Louise Devenish
Salon of Open Secrets. Stefanie Wuschitz, Patricia Reis
Session P1- Conversation, Smedjan/UmArts
Reflections of Norrbotten: Art's Narratives of Identity and History
Silvia Colombo, Mariangela Mendez Prencke
Session P2- Conversation, Seminar room UMA
Bad Reading. Om konstnärlig läsning och neurodiversitet, Elisabeth Hjorth, Anna Nygren
12.00-13.00 Lunch, Bygden
Session Q- Talks: Diversity of Artistic Research, UMA
Waves of movement through suspension then release: Finding the voice of Afro-Emiratis. Ameena Aljerman Alali
Modernism in the wild: Ricklundgården in the 1940s, re-evaluating modernism in the Kultsjöån, Västerbotten, Sweden. Anna Harding
Intricately woven into the fabric of spacetime: quantum art as an emerging field of critical practice. Bilyana Palankasova
Re-creating materials – soil as an artistic element. Cristiana Macedo, Teresa Almeida
Towards an Ontopoetics of Sound. Esaias Järnegard
Walking on the Plateau: towards the artistic-based research when inserted in the Infrastructural Critique and the climate crisis context. Orlando Vieira Francisco
Session R- Panel Debate, Flexhallen
Interaction and Agency in Contemporary Sonic Art Performance
Panelists: Stefan Östersjö , Cat Hope, Palle Dahlstedt. Moderator: Michael Lukaszuk (UmArts Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Media Arts, Department of Creative Studies & Department of Informatics). .
Session S- Talks: Complex Entanglements, UID
GROUP PROBLEMS: Learning to Live Together at Scale. Christine Shaw
Nuclear Undercommons. Ele Carpenter
Design and Grace. Erik Sandelin
Creating ‘Hope’ – A contemporary artwork for a medieval room. Erika Lagerbielke
A symbiotic artist.Perspectives of interspecies cooperation in the field of visual arts. Jarek Lustych
Complex entanglement: weaving as dissonant heritage - a case study. Karl Logge
Session T- Show and Tell, UmArts
Trojan storks. Annabel Frearson
Under the floorboards – undoing spaces of/for art into spheres of togetherness. Karolina Janulevičiūtė, Monika Janulevičiūtė, Ulijona Odišarija, Emma Bang
Hurricane of the North: a transhemispheric reading of Carlos Raquel Rivera. Luis Berríos Negrón
Remembrance in white. Monika Junker
DE-DOC-DONKEYWORK – Decolonising Documentary Art Practices and the Global Crisis for Donkeys. Ronny Hardliz
(Holding) the Thin Layer. Thomas Laurien
14.30-15.00 Coffee break
Session U- Panel Debate, UID
Performative AI
Panelists: Martin Murer, Marco C. Rozendaal, Heather Wiltse. Moderator: YoungSuk Lee (UmArts WASP-HS Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Design and Artificial Intelligence).
Session V- Panel Debate, UMA
Sustainable Placemaking in Sápmi & the Nordics
Panelists: Gier Tore Holm, Katarina Pirak Sikku, Marit-Shirin Carolasdotter, Sandi Hilal. Moderator: Lisa Nyberg (UmArts Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Fine Art).
Session W- Show and Tell, UmArts
"Stente: Residual Zones" Project: “Stone tea” and other methodologies to inhabit the space. Francesca Melina
The Foreign Familiar. Frederik Petersen
WACHAU ROUTES: Arts- based landscape on a riverine landscape. Iris Andraschek
Nostalgic Solarities. Suzanna Törnroth, Andrea Luciani
PHANTOM SENSATIONS - nourishing the unknown. Loose limbs and missing links, searching for new dynamics of the planning realm. Åsa Cederqvist, Ebba Hallin, Pelle Backman
Circus as mobile architectures. Marie-Andrée Robitaille
Session X- Installation presentations and Poster presentations, Art Academy Gallery
Correspondences between Sonic Art and Horticulture. David Velez
Artificial Super Intelligence: Cyclical Fears. Mariia Muzalevskaia, Barys Paulau
Sheltered - an embodied experience of climate change through an Arctic environment. Tim Bishop, Keith Larson
A hurricane is also a prompt. Emergencies as the state-of-my-art. Pia Galvez
VISUALIZING CONTESTED GEOGRAPHIES - The Polar Silk Road in contemporary art practices. Elena Mazzi
Performance by Michael Lukaszuk, UmArts Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Media Arts, Department of Creative Studies and Department of Informatics.
Mobile Phone Orchestra Performance, Anders Lind
Session Y- Talks: Scaffolding, UID
Infrastructural poetics: Publishing as scaffolding. Cecilia Grönberg, Jonas (J) Magnusson
What is data anyway? Danielle Wilde, Markéta Dolejšová
Interconnectedness with Forest. The Impact of Mindfulness for an Art-Based Practice on Collaboration with Trees in Nordic-Baltic region. Julija Pociūtė
+ Change collection - working heterogeneously together for agency in artistic practice. Mathilda Tham, Zeenath Hasan, Yanki Lee, Juliana Restrepo Giraldo, Marie Sterte, Åsa Ståhl, Christina Zetterlund
LasTesis’ A Rapist in Your Path: Performing Affective Solidarities for a Brieftopia Free from Gender-Based Violence. Michelle Mejia
Nature Culture Reserve Marhult. Timo Menke
Session Z- Panel Debate, Flexhallen
Generative Influence
Panelists: Andrea Khôra, Paola Torres Nuñez Del Prado. Moderator: Daniel Shanken (UmArts WASP-HS Post-doctoral researcher in Architecture and Artificial Intelligence).
Session Å- Show and Tell, UmArts
Conversations with Computa: how a speculative monologue on AI from 1966 was transformed into an opera. Carl Unander-Scharin, Åsa Unander-Scharin
The Conspiracy Capitaliser. Robert Collins
A brave new world. Sergio Marchesini, Raffaella Rivi
Converging on Interpresence - Artistic research in experiences of being together. Stoffel Kuenen, Gabriel Bohm Calles, Niclas Kaiser
A mixed initiative approach for comic creation in an artistic practice and beyond. Yana Knight
OKDementiaTM: What design can do to dementia? Yanki Lee
Play/Destroy: The Sound Destruction Machines. Yann Seznec
Stochastic Pirate Radio (KSPR): A look to the future of radio in the world of generative AI. Bob Sturm, Marco Amerotti, David Dalmazzo, Laura Cros Vila, Luca Casini, Elin Kanhov
Session Ä- Talks: Mapping/structures, UMA
The Assembly. Anca Rujoiu
UNVEILING THE TEXTILE MAP AS A TOOL FOR SPATIAL UNDERSTANDING. Isabel Arteaga-Arredondo
'Doing' research: linking artistic research and humanities through a transversal method. Mikael Andersson
Sound of Democracy. Sandra Kopljar, Philip Dodds, Mark Nicholas Grimshaw-Aagaard, Sanne Groth, Clara Gustafsson, Marie Koldkjær Højlund, Kristoffer Mattisson, Dalia Mukhtar-Landgren, Enrico Ronchi
Swedens Timber Empire. Toms Kokins
Session Ö- Conversation, Rainbow Room
Workers’ Inquiry and Self-Representations within Logistics Networks as Transnational Collaborative Artistic Research Process. Benjamin Gerdes
10.30-11.00 Coffeebreak, UID entrance
Reports from the panels, conversations and discussions, END of Symposium
12.00-13.00 Lunch, Bygden (not provided)
13.00 - 15.00 Tours of Bildmuseet, exhibitions around Umeå, check out and travel.
Whilst artistic academies and conservatoires have supported the development of the arts for many centuries, Artistic Research is a relatively new field of practice in relation to University research infrastructures. On the one hand disciplines want to protect their traditions, whilst on the other hand practices that engage with an interdisciplinary critique enable a clearer understanding of the contribution
of the arts to society. This symposia will bring together artists, architects and designers who are moving beyond individual practices that rely on the art market or state sponsorship to engage with societal infrastructures and responsibilities through research. At the same time Universities in Sweden are slowly changing the way in which they validate artistic research supported by new initiatives such as CoARA which require subject specific assessment.
The concepts of hurricanes and scaffolding will be used to identify new critically reflexive frameworks that the arts bring to the wider discourses of society, technology and politics. The hurricane being a non-human force, and scaffolding being the built infrastructure on which systems can grow. Nora N. Khan outlines her concepts of hurricanes and scaffolding in her essay 'Towards a poetics of Artificial Super Intelligence' (In: 'The Atlas of Anomalous AI' edited by Ben Vickers and K Allado-McDowell). The symposium presentations will explore human and non-human perspectives on infrastructures for new ways of thinking and making.
The conference is designed for structured engagement with these ideas through maximum participation through three presentation formats:
The keynotes will introduce critical tools and reflexive analysis for artistic research that can be used to think through the presentations throughout the conference.
Sarah Cook (Scotland) is a curator and an UmArts/WASP-HS Guest Professor in Art & AI in partnership with TAIGA, Umeå School of Architecture and Bildmuseet. AI is ubiquitous, but how do the histories and tactics of media arts enable a critical framework for tackling the social and ethical challenges of artificial intelligence and machine learning?
Susan Schuppli (London) is an Artist, Writer and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London. Susan Schuppli’s scholarly and creative work investigates how the concept of the ‘material witness’ (MIT Press) can be used as theoretical framework for analysing materials and events analysis.
Inter-disciplinary panel focusing on the challenges of placemaking on land impacted by settler-colonialism.
How emerging technologies have contributed to our understanding of contemporary performance practices.
A panel about the histories and mythologies of ‘hurricane’, from Puerto Rican and Caribbean perspectives.
Unpredictable snow melts has profound effects on multispecies migration, economies and cultures.
Creative visions for "Performative AI" that enriches art practice toward meaningful technological progress.
Exploring the ongoing influence of machine learning systems and generative AI on artistic practice.
1 June 2024 – Deadline for submission of abstracts. Submission via link.
1 August 2024 – Notification of acceptance.
September 2024 – Registration opens, and detailed programme announced.
25 November 2024 – Deadline for registration.
4-6 December 2024- Symposium at Arts Camus, Umeå University
The Symposium is free of charge, but registration is required.
Conference dinner on 5 December is included. Fika/coffee and tea are provided during the breaks.
Advance registration for sessions is required but there is an opportunity to change this choice both before and during the Symposium.
Optional:
Pre-ordered lunch at SEK 139/day
Hotel booking
The symposium will be held mainly in English and in Scandinavian languages.
For climate reasons we recommend travelling by train, please see SJ.se.
Maria Hellström Reimer, Swedish Research Council
Camilla Eeg-Tverbakk, Swedish Research Council
Cecilia Järdemar, Swedish Research Council
Johan Redström, Swedish Research Council and Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University
Ele Carpenter, Prof Interdisciplinary Arts, Director of UmArts
Ylva Fernaeus, Deputy Director of UmArts
Maria Luna Nobile, Associate Professor and Head of Research at Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå University
Anders Lind, Associate Professor at Department of Creative Studies, Umeå University
Lisa Nyberg, Postdoc at Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University
Cindy Kohtala, Professor at Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University
Clara West, Research Coordinator and Symposium Project Manager at UmArts
Department of Creative Studies
