AIR
S+T+ARTS AIR is a project that harnesses the power of art, science, and technology to address the pressing challenges facing our society. It encapsulates the shared essence and concerns of all Europeans and everything on our planet – the air we breathe.
ABOUT AIR
Air symbolizes environmental quality, a common space for interaction, and a medium for expression that transcends borders and social divisions. It signifies sustainability, influencing the quality of life, relationships, and the utilization of our ecosystem. Furthermore, air represents beauty, a unique and ephemeral element that shapes our environments and interactions.
In today’s technology-driven world, where citizen participation and human connection often take a backseat, the European Commission recognizes the vital role of cultural and creative industries in enhancing Europe’s competitiveness and driving innovation. By integrating art, science, and technology, we can unlock the transformative potential of the cultural sector, stimulating critical thinking and offering fresh perspectives on the future of our society in the face of technological advancements and environmental impacts.
Our consortium consists of eight partners from five EU countries, working in technology, research, industry, and culture with the ultimate goal to establish four S+T+ARTS Centers and Hubs in Germany, Spain, Italy, and Slovenia, serving as catalysts for artistic experiments in residencies. We will facilitate knowledge transfer sessions, workshops, and the production of the AIR festival, providing a platform for artists and stakeholders to showcase their innovative solutions and ideas.
These centers will promote the concept of art-driven innovation in the domain of air and facilitate artistic experiments through residencies. They will foster citizen participation, critical thinking, prevention capacity, and resilience by facilitating collaborative reflections on the theme of air. Additionally, they will create a new space for impactful research and innovation through horizontal collaborations among the arts, science, and technology.
DURATION: April 2023 – November 2024
Download the project’s AIR INTERVIEW CATALOGUE: “In-depth interviews with the artists.”
The AIR interview catalogue serves as a comprehensive reflection on the innovative and thought-provoking journey of our ten S+T+ARTS AIR Residency artists, who spent the last ten months delving into the concept of air from various multidisciplinary perspectives. This booklet captures a series of in-depth interviews where each artist shares their unique experiences and insights gained throughout the residency, revealing how the concept of air intersects with their creative practices, scientific explorations, and technological innovations.
Take a look at our AIR teaser
S+T+ARTS AIR teaser offers a glimpse into the innovative collaborations between artists, scientists, and technologists as they explore the themes of Resilient Interspecies Urban Ecosystems and Human-AI Ecosystems.
THE RESIDENCIES
Artists, in collaboration with scientists and researchers, are exploring the multifaceted concept of air and its profound impact on our lives and environment. Through their creative visions and interdisciplinary approaches, they are pushing the boundaries of art, science, and technology to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
Each project delves into one of two compelling directions: Resilient interspecies urban ecosystems and Human-AI ecosystems. These themes challenge our understanding of sustainable futures, offering innovative and artistic perspectives on how we can navigate and shape our world.
Our artists are not only pushing the boundaries of creativity but also collaborating closely with scientists to bring their visions to life. These interdisciplinary collaborations aim to make the invisible visible, fostering deeper connections between human experiences and the natural and technological environments that surround us.
Through their experiments, we witness the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration to inspire new ideas, foster knowledge transfer, and create a lasting impact on our world.
Making Invisible Conversation Visible
Antoine Bertin’s Making Invisible Conversation Visible investigates the informational, relational, and essential nature of air through the lens of bio-acoustic research and artistic exploration. It approaches air as an acoustic medium of interspecies relations, using digital listening to give a voice to biodiversity, not just humans.
Breathing architecture
The core team of the project is composed by artist Filippo Nassetti, scientists at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and High. Breathing Architecture proposes to reframe the internal structures of the body as artistic subjects, by developing new visual languages and aesthetics, powered by advanced technology, expanding on the strictly medical, functional lenses through which they are often looked.
DADAsets
Jonathan Reus aims to create the DADAsets work that playfully and artistically foregrounds less visible labor and relationships around voice AI. The dominant narrative of Generative AI is often focused on the shock and awe of its visible results. The goal of DADAsets is to decenter the spectacle and instead foreground AI’s total dependence on a complex ecosystem of training data, often obscured and involving huge amounts of hidden labor.
The body and the city
The focus of the project is the exploration of personal space in cities. How much personal space is available to the inhabitants of the city? Where can people go and where do they go? What is personal space and how do people negotiate personal space in crowded places where there is not enough space? Michail Rybakov describes the project as a kinesphere, which is the space around your body that shows how far you can reach, how far you can move in all directions from that particular point.
Electric Atmospheres
Electromagnetic waves were discovered by Heinrich Rudolf Hertz in the 1880’s and are the core of the project Electric Atmospheres made by Richard Vijgen. Today, the foundation underpins modern communication technologies, from Wi-Fi and cell phone networks to Smart Cities and the Internet of Things. What if we could see this the elecromagnetic waves? What does the world look like when you visualise the interaction between architecture and information?
Samasana: Togetherness
As an artist in residence, Filippo Gregoretti will draw on his expertise as a visual artist, musician, composer, performer, storyteller, interaction designer, engineer – and interpreter of the extraordinary effects of technological advancements on the emotional, psychological, social, and creative realms – to explore research-related topics.
Garden of Entanglement
The Garden of Entanglement project delves into the vibration and resonance of urban trees under human movement, blurring the boundaries between art, science, and environmental awareness. Utilizing seismic and high-sensitivity accelerometers (PCB 393-C) alongside 3D scanning (Faro laser, Polycam) and software like Unreal Engine, Covise, Matlab, and Max/msp, the artist Hiền Hoàng aims to comprehend how trees resonate with various frequency lengths.
Impossible larynx
Maria Arnal Dimas trained a physically based model of a vocal track, combined with machine learning, we can identify and modify parameters attached to specific areas, technical and expressive singing features, but also hyper-dimension and expand the possibilities of a human voice, creating impossible vocal sounds. Through the exploration of the latent space of a voice, both symbolic and acoustically, we will be able to add a layer of understanding to AI voice generation models.
SYMBODY
The SYMBODY project, made by Natan Sinigaglia, is an endeavour aimed at exploring the intricate connections between human body movement and sound synthesis, to unravel the multifaceted aspects of human movement. It aspires to extend its influence beyond the boundaries of art, venturing into significant realms of scientific inquiry and societal progress.
Monolith
Uncharted Limbo Collective is a team of creative coders and visual artists based in Athens and London who share a background in architecture but have expanded to develop creative projects using state-of-the-art digital tools. In their project Monolith, they will explore methods for facilitating communication and collaboration between humans and what they characterize as “digital beings.”
KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
As part of the AIR project, the Knowledge transfer sessions were designed to foster meaningful exchange and collaboration between artists, scientists, technologists, and local communities. These sessions were an essential platform to share insights gained during the artistic residencies, providing a space where creativity, research, and technology intersected with the public sphere.
The primary goal of the Knowledge transfer sessions was to bridge the gap between art, science, and society by creating new pathways for mutual understanding, dialogue, and innovation. Through workshops, hands-on activities, and presentations, the resident artists shared the knowledge and discoveries developed during their residencies. These sessions aimed to demystify complex technological and scientific concepts while inspiring new ways of thinking and engaging with pressing societal challenges.
By aligning artistic experimentation with scientific and technological advancements, these sessions contributed to raising awareness, building networks, and encouraging collaborative innovation. They created opportunities for local communities and public stakeholders to engage directly with emerging research, fostering a deeper understanding of how art and technology can influence and improve our daily lives.
Ultimately, the Knowledge transfer sessions promoted the exchange of ideas, stimulated interdisciplinary collaboration, and provided a framework for sustainable knowledge-sharing practices that strengthen connections between research, creativity, and community engagement. They stand as a testament to the transformative potential of art-driven innovation in addressing the complex challenges of our modern world.
VIDEO
THE AIR FESTIVAL
In today’s rapidly evolving, science-driven society, meaningful connections between science, technology, and art are crucial. The AIR Festival was a groundbreaking event that showcased the visionary work of 10 international artists exploring two key themes: resilient interspecies urban ecosystems and human-AI interactions. It offered innovative and artistic perspectives on shaping sustainable futures.
The Festival was organized under the S+T+ARTS AIR project, which inspires new ways of thinking and proposes innovative solutions exploring the concept of air. Artists, in collaboration with scientists and technologists, are pushing the boundaries of creativity, art, science, and technology to address some of today’s most pressing environmental and societal challenges. By attending the AIR Festival, visitors had the opportunity to witness these groundbreaking projects firsthand, engage with thought leaders, and be part of a transformative conversation that shapes our collective future.
The AIR Festival took place from October 26th to 27th 2024, in Badalona (Barcelona).
NEWS & ARTICLES
● MOTION PROMPTING _HYBRID EVENT □ S+T+ARTS AIR
October 10, 2024
●S+T+ARTS AIR: JOIN US FOR THE AIR FESTIVAL
August 27, 2024
PARTNERS
CONTACT
MANAGEMENT CONTACT PERSON
Matvey Fridman (MSC) matvey@msc-bw.com
CONSORTIUM
Media Solution Center Baden-Württemberg (DE)
High Performance Computing Centre Stuttgart (DE)
Barcelona Super Computing Center (ES)
Sony Computer Science Laboratories – Rome (Sony CSL–Rome) (IT)
Fundacion Épica La Fura dels Baus (ES) / PiNA (SI) / In4Art (NL)
RCR LAB·A (ES)
This project is funded by the European Union from call CNECT/2022/3482066 – Art and the digital: Unleashing creativity for European industry, regions, and society under grant agreement LC-01984767