Regional S+T+ARTS Centre: AIR
Artistic Innovation for European Resilience
The AIR project, part of the S+T+ARTS initiative, explores the essential role of air as a medium to address critical environmental and societal challenges. This project investigates innovative solutions for sustainable futures by merging art, science, and technology. By examining themes like resilient ecosystems and human-technology interactions, AIR aims to inspire transformative ideas and foster a deeper understanding of sustainability. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, the project envisions a future where creativity and innovation contribute to addressing urgent global challenges, enhancing resilience, and shaping a more sustainable world.
Meet the 10 open call winning artists AIR is supporting through the S+T+ARTS residencies.
We are excited to showcase the remarkable projects and innovative explorations by the winners of the S+T+ARTS AIR open call. These artists, working alongside scientists and researchers, delve into the complex concept of air, examining its profound influence on our lives and environment. With their creative insights and cross-disciplinary methods, they expand the horizons of art, science, and technology to tackle some of today’s most critical issues.
The projects unfold in two compelling thematic areas: Resilient Interspecies Urban Ecosystems and Human-AI Ecosystems. These themes invite us to rethink sustainable futures, offering inventive and artistic insights into how we can influence and adapt to our evolving world.
Our artists are not only redefining creative expression but also collaborating closely with scientific experts to bring their ideas to fruition. These partnerships aim to reveal the unseen, deepening the relationship between human experience and the natural and technological worlds around us.
Through these explorations, we witness the transformative power of interdisciplinary collaboration, sparking new ideas, encouraging knowledge sharing, and leaving a lasting impact on our world.
Duration: April 2023 – November 2024
Consortium: Media Solution Center Baden-Württemberg (DE) (coord.) / 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).
Management Contact Person: Matvey Fridman (MSC)
Partners
The Media Solution Center Baden Württemberg e.V (MSC)
The Media Solution Center Baden Württemberg e.V (MSC) is a non-profit membership founded in 2019 by HLRS, together with the Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart (HdM), and the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM). The MSC promotes innovation in the arts and media industries by facilitating access to technologies and expertise in high-performance computing and visualisation. It contributes the knowledge and expertise of its members from the media industry and research as well as its experience in working at the interface of science and practical application in commercial environments. The structure of MSC’s members guarantees access to diverse skills and perspectives. The Media Solution Center Baden Württemberg e.V is also one of the founding members and lead partners of the EIT CC. Today we can count with more than 50 international partners in the media and creative industries, museums, foundations, company’s and research institutes.
High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS)
The High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) was established in 1996 as Germany’s first national high-performance computing center. As a research institution affiliated with the University of Stuttgart and a member of the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing, HLRS provides computing resources for academia and industry. HLRS operates HPC systems, provides advanced training, and conducts research itself. Among HLRS’s areas of expertise are parallel programming, numerical methods for HPC, visualization, cloud computing, high-performance data analytics, and AI.
Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)
BSC is the leading supercomputing center in Spain. It specializes in high-performance computing. It has a dual role: providing infrastructure and a supercomputing service for Spanish and European scientists, and generating knowledge and technology to be transferred to society. It manages the Red Española de Supercomputación (RES), was a founding and hosting member of the former European HPC infrastructure PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and now it is a hosting entity for EuroHPC JU, the Joint Undertaking that leads large-scale investments and HPC provision in Europe.BSC is a public consortium owned by the Spanish Government Ministry of Science and Innovation (60%), the Catalan Government Department of Research and Universities (30%) and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (10%).
Sony Computer Science Laboratories – Rome (Sony CSL – Rome)
The Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Sony CSL) are pure research laboratories embedded in the rich Sony galaxy. The extreme flexibility and transdisciplinarity of the approach adopted in the four labs in Tokyo, Kyoto, Paris and Rome give the chance to face diverse research fields, combining science, technological innovation, art and the public good in a single conceptual space. The specific themes range from music to language, from the future of cities to sustainable agriculture, from creative processes to humanity’s great challenges. Specifically, Sony CSL – Rome features three main research areas:the Sustainable Cities (committed to providing new tools for understanding and monitoring urban environments, contributing to making them more sustainable) the Augmented Creativity (aiming at using AI to find new paths for a better comprehension of global problems and their causal relationships to forecasting and validated scenarios.) andthe Infosphere (tackling the challenge of redesigning Information Technologies to make information accessible and social dialogue more transparent, understandable, and healthy).
Fundación Épica La Fura dels Baus
Fundación Épica La Fura dels Baus is a research center in advanced arts built on the know-how of the performing arts company La Fura dels Baus developed over more than 40 years. Based on the sum up of talents, its methodology and co-creation processes, Épica is an R+D+I laboratory promoting horizontal collaboration of Humanities, Science and Technology through creative projects that allow the transfer of knowledge to society.
Association for Culture and Education PiNA
PiNA is a Slovenian cultural and educational non-profit organization dedicated to fostering sustainable development and empowering communities. They contribute to the empowerment of non-formal education, participatory policy creation and merging art, science, and technology. Their educators blend artistic expressions with cutting-edge research at the HEKA laboratory, fostering innovation and inclusivity. Through citizens’ science and artistic presentations, they unveil captivating research insights and with expertise in participatory public interactions, they pave the way for collective visioning. HEKA’s Experiential Spatial Audio Unit KUBER, collaborates with partner institutions, bridging tech, arts, and society, resulting in immersive audio experiences, bringing outcomes such as research projects, innovative hardware and software, installations, art festival contributions and workshops, paving the way for collective visioning and co-creation.
In4Art: Institute for Art-Driven innovation
In4Art is a European-focused independent research and development organisation for artistic experimentation and responsible innovation in the fields of food, manufacturing, health, and biodiversity. We work according to our developed art-driven innovation method and are focused on the responsible use of technology. In4Art is interested in making connections between science, technology, and the arts with a potential for technological, ecological, economical a/o social innovation.
RCR LAB·A
RCR LAB·A is an open architecture laboratory space to develop creative research and transversality, born from RCR (Rafael, Carme, Ramon) architects and sharing projects with RCR BUNKA foundation. Participates in the RCR universe of sharing creativity. The aim is to wake the senses up by experiencing the space. Revealing the qualities and the capacities of a natural place (which is the initial source) to be applied in cities or urban environments. Understanding AIR as space which is the common ground of all people.
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