STARTS @ ARS-E festival 2020

From Planet B to the Garden of delights

S+T+ARTS is a platform aiming to foster alliances of technology and artistic practice that effectively implement European policymaking to nurture innovation and that also benefit the art world. It supports collaborations between artists, scientists, engineers and researchers to develop more creative, inclusive, and sustainable technologies, and focuses on people and projects that contribute to mastering the social, ecological and economic challenges faced by the European continent.

S+T+ARTS partners have been organsing several encounters for this year online festival, that will discuss innovations, challenges and achievements of art-tech and sci-art projects, and will showcase the outstanding works of artists.

Here are a few highlights:

S+T+ARTS DAY, September 9th

All times are CEST

+ Art thinking as catalyst, 10h15 – 11h00

Art Thinking encapsulates the notion that artistic approaches and creative thinking can be applied to tackling the development of strategies to solve real social challenges. Four experts in the field share their diverse perspectives and shine a light on the potential of art thinking to nurture a different approach to ideation and innovation processes.

Speakers: Camille Baker (CA/UK), Alejandro Martín (ES), Jurij Krpan (Si), Veronika Liebl (AT)

+ Art thinking Forum: Humanizing technology, 11h05 – 12h25

Art Thinking is a platform for discussing the role of art in the future, in the context of industry, society, and ecology. The forum is supported by the innovative communication design company Hakuhodo. In tandem with Ars Electronica’s interest in emerging technologies and their effect on society, their forward-thinking creative approach strongly complements the topic of the panel: future arts, and how cutting-edge and creative artistic examples can be used to humanize technology and improve society.

Moderator: Hideaki Ogawa (JP)
Speakers: Alexander Mankowsky (DE), Olga Kisseleva (RU), Mara Balestrini (IT)

+ STARTS Prize Forum: Olga Kisseleva, 12h30 – 12h55

Olga Kisseleva (RU)

As part of the STARTS initiative, the STARTS Prize awards the most pioneering results and collaborations in the field of creativity and innovation at the intersection of science, technology and the arts. The STARTS Prize Forum 2020 presents the people behind the projects, their approaches and perspectives, their methods and the outstanding projects that resulted from these interdisciplinary collaborations. Olga Kisseleva (RU), winner of this year’s Grand Prize for Innovative Collaboration, and Andrea Ling (CA), winner of the Grand Prize for Artistic Exploration, give insight into their practice.

Olga Kisseleva (RU), winner of this year’s Grand Prize for Innovative Collaboration, introduces EDEN Ethics – Durability – Ecology – Nature which began in 2012 and has continued to the present day. The project touches on a range of issues, including the protection of endangered plant species and interspecific communication between living subjects that are placed in the “inhuman”category.

+ Salon Universitas, Sept 9th, 13h00 – 13h55

Researchers at LIT (Linz Institute of Technology) of the Johannes Kepler University have succeeded in creating transdisciplinary innovation projects that will be showcased at this year’s Ars Electronica Festival.

The participating institutes-initiated collaborations with international and regional artists, designers, research organizations and companies in order to develop collaborative prototypes, while making their research accessible to a broad public. This session brings together four of the exhibited teams – the LIT Robopsychology Lab, the JKU Linz School of Education, the LIT Soft Material Lab and the Institute for Integrated Circuits and their collaborative partner g.tec Medical Engineering – to discuss their creative process and prototype development.

Moderator: Christopher Lindinger (AT)
Speaker: Melanie Baumgartner (AT), Florian Hartmann (AT), Christoph Guger (AT), Markus Hohenwarter (AT), Alicia Hofstätter (AT), Corinna Hörmann (AT), Martina Mara (AT), Kathrin Meyer (DE)

+ Mapping Collaborative Practice, 14h00 – 15h15

Interdisciplinary collaboration across the arts and sciences can create friction and uncertainty between creative partners from different backgrounds.

How can we overcome these moments, and are they integral to any collaborative or emergent process? What role does art and science collaboration have in addressing global challenges in 2020? Chaired by Richard Glover and Martin Khechara, participants and researchers of the University of Wolverhampton’s STARTS Methodologies research project take part in this digital exchange of ideas.

Moderators: Richard Glover (UK), Martin Khechara (UK)
Speakers: Giulia Tomasello (IT), Tommaso Busolo (IT), Christian Cherene (ES), Norma Deske (DE), Pei-Ying Lin (TW), Miranda de Graaf (NL)

+ S+T+ARTS Prize exhibition tour, 15h15 – 15h30

The annual STARTS Prize Exhibition presents a selection of current best practice examples at the intersection of science, technology and the arts. Kristina Maurer and Karla Spiluttini take the viewers on a journey through this year’s exhibited projects in Kepler’s Garden. From circular economy to the relationship between ecology and technology, through digital humanism and empathic approaches to artificial intelligence, the exhibition shows the outstanding diversity of artistic practice in the STARTS field.

+ Fashion, Technology, Responsibility, 15h30 – 16h00

On Sept 9th 2020, STARTS Lighthouse pilot Re-FREAM kicks off this session with a keynote questioning our attitude to the clothes we wear and how we can rethink the systems and conditions of their production. The keynote is followed by three artist teams presenting the outcomes and prototypes realised within their residencies in the context of Re-FREAM.

Keynote: “Uncomfortable Clothes” is a series of talks on the complex dimensions of fashion, technologies and clothing and their constitution, starting with this partner event of the Ars Electronica Festival.

Moderation: Christiane Luible-Bär (AT)

Speakers: Nina Wenhart (AT), Giulia Tomasello (IT), Fabio Molinas (IT), Michael Wieser (AT), Viktor Weichselbaumer (AT)

+ STARTS Prize Forum: Andrea Ling, 17h10 – 17h30

Andrea Ling (CA)

As part of the STARTS initiative, the STARTS Prize awards the most pioneering results and collaborations in the field of creativity and innovation at the intersection of science, technology and the arts. The STARTS Prize Forum 2020 presents the people behind the projects, their approaches and perspectives, their methods and the outstanding projects that resulted from these interdisciplinary collaborations. Olga Kisseleva (RU), winner of this year’s Grand Prize for Innovative Collaboration, and Andrea Ling (CA), winner of the Grand Prize for Artistic Exploration, give insight into their practice.

Andrea Ling, winner of this year’s Grand Prize for Artistic Exploration, introduces her winning project “Design by Decay, Decay by Design”, a series of artifacts that exhibit designed decay developed for the 2019 Ginkgo Bioworks Creative Residency on how to design a world without waste and talks about her artistic and creative process.

+ Art & Tech for Urban resilience, 17h30 – 19h25

The concept the ultra-technological and connected “smart city” has given way, in the light of climate change and health crisis, to that of the resilient and sustainable city.

This urban ideal implies a transformation of the existing ecosystem and of our habits so that a more resilient society can emerge with enhanced accessibility, social inclusion, and citizen wellbeing. What place should be given to the dialogue between art, science and technology in this transition process? How can artists help to create new collective imaginaries and participatory systems, spaces for reflection and criticism for the future of our cities? How can urban planners and policy makers be inspired by these scenarios and reflections on urban citizenship in the light of digital innovation?

The talk is connected to both STARTS exhibitions in Brussels (atBOZAR) and Romainville (atFiminco Fondation) and to the Ars Electronica Festival 2020.

17:30 CET // Inspirational keynote by Francesca Bria
S+T+ARTS FOR CITIES: Building smart cities from the ground up with citizens

Marie Albert– Head of European Projects – French Tech Grande Provence
Paul Dujardin– CEO and Artistic Director BOZAR

Francesca Bria– Advisor on digital strategy, technology and information policy, President of the Italian National Innovation Fund, Honorary Professor in the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at UCL London, and Senior Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nation (UN-Habitat) on digital cities and digital rights.

18:00 CET // Panel Discussion: Art & tech for urban resilience

How can the dialogue between art, science and technology renew our vision of cities and contribute to sustainable innovation in urban environments?

Moderator: Anastasios Tellios, Associate Professor at School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH)

Speakers:

Mar Santamaria VarasandPablo Martinez Diez– STARTS Project Ciutat Vella’s Land-use Plan
Joachim Pflieger– General Manager at Fiminco Fondation (hosting a STARTS exhibition in September 2020)
Prof. Vittorio Loreto– Director at Sony CSL Paris
Stéphanie Lepczynski, Political counsellor for scientific research in the cabinet of the Brussels Capital Region’s Secretary of State for Economic Transition and Scientific Research

19:00 // Talk: Mobility – moving to new imaginaries

Fiminco Fondation, a new contemporary art space based in Romainville (east of Paris), and Sony CSL, the Computer Science Lab of Sony Group in Paris will present their S+T+ARTS Residency collaboration project. A 5 months residence program between an artist and the Sony CSL research team, taking place in 2021 at Fiminco Foundation, to explore the topic of mobility through artistic practices. The presentation will include details on the ongoing call for artists and be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

Moderator: Marie Albert– Head of European projects, French Tech Grande Provence

Speakers:

Joachim Pflieger– General Manager at Fiminco Fondation (hosting a STARTS exhibition in September 2020)
Prof. Vittorio Loreto– Director at Sony CSL Paris

A Theory of Change, 20h15 – 20h30

Anne Nigten (NL)

The STARTS Prize is an annual European prize for innovative projects at the interface of Science, Technology, and the ARTS. This article reflects on the most striking outcomes of a study that was conducted in the spring of 2020, to evaluate the first three STARTS Prize editions. The STARTS Prize aims to promote art as a catalyst for change and innovation in the fields of technology, science and the social sphere. It has mobilized an impressive number of artists, designers and engineers and built a strong brand in recent years.

Reseacher Anne Nigten was tasked with conducting a study to reflect upon the results of the STARTS Prize so far, as the prize’s first five years are coming to an end.

S+T+ARTS Gardens

AI x Music