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Mindless Futurism @TTT

Mindless Futurism

Adnan Hadzi presented Mindless Futurism at the “Taboo – Transgression – Transcendence in Art & Science” conference.

In order to lay the foundations for a discussion around the argument that the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies benefits the powerful few, focussing on their own existential concerns, the paper will narrow down the analysis of the argument to social justice and jurisprudence (i.e. the philosophy of law), considering also the historical context. The paper explores the notion of humanised artificial intelligence in order to discuss potential challenges society might face in the future. The paper does not discuss current forms and applications of artificial intelligence, as, so far, there is no AI technology, which is self-conscious and self-aware, being able to deal with emotional and social intelligence. It is a discussion around AI as a speculative hypothetical entity. One could the ask, if such a speculative self-conscious hardware/software system were created at what point could one talk of personhood? And what criteria could there be in order to say an AI system was capable of committing AI crimes? The paper will discuss the construction of the legal system through the lens of political involvement of what one may want to consider to be powerful elites. Before discussing these aspects the paper will clarify the notion of “powerful elites”. In doing so the paper will be demonstrating that it is difficult to prove that the adoption of AI technologies is undertaken in a way which mainly serves a powerful class in society. Nevertheless, analysing the culture around AI technologies with regard to the nature of law with a philosophical and sociological focus enables one to demonstrate a utilitarian and authoritarian trend in the adoption of AI technologies The paper will then look, in a more detailed manner, into theories analysing the historical and social systematisation, or one may say disposition, of laws, and the impingement of neo-liberal tendencies upon the adoption of AI technologies. The regulatory, self-governing potential of AI algorithms and the justification by authority of the current adoption of AI technologies within civil society will be analysed next. The paper will propose an alternative, some might say practically unattainable, approach to the current legal system by looking into restorative justice for AI crimes, and how the ethics of care, through social contracts, could be applied to AI technologies. In conclusion the paper will discuss affect and humanised artificial intelligence with regards to the emotion of shame, when dealing with AI crimes.

The conferences “Taboo – Transgression – Transcendence in Art & Science” include theoretical presentations and artists’ talks focusing (a) on questions about the nature of the forbidden and about the aesthetics of liminality, as expressed in art that uses or is inspired by technology and science, and (b) on the opening of spaces for creative transformation in the merging of science and art.A brainchild of Dalila Honorato, Assistant Professor at the Ionian University, the first two conferences, TTT2016 and TTT2017 were held in Corfu, Greece, organized by the Department of Audio & Visual Arts and supported by public and private institutions, mostly local. In the first two years the conferences were attended by Stelarc, Roy Ascott, Adam Zaretsky, Manos Danezis, Polona Tratnik, Gunalan Nadarajan, Irina Aristarkhova, Marta de Menezes, María Antonia González Valerio, Andrew Carnie, and Kathy High as guest speakers. The third TTT conference, TTT2018, took place in Mexico City, hosted by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and the Centro de Cultura Digital as part of the N Festival. At the invitation of Marta De Menezes, Ana Ventura Miranda, and María Antonia González Valerio, the conference was co-organized by the Research and Creation Group Arte+Ciencia, UNAM (MX), Arte Institute (USA), Cultivamos Cultura (PT) as well as the Department of Audio & Visual Arts, Ionian University (GR).Since its beginning TTT seeks to provide a comfortable setting for the interaction of its participants and the students of the academic institution hosting it. This is accomplished through coordinating the conference’s agenda with the development of other activities such as art exhibitions, screenings, live performances, book presentations, poster exhibitions, and workshops developed within the hosting institution in collaboration with other organizations.In 2016 and 2017, among other events, TTT teamed up with the Audiovisual Arts Festival and the Municipal Gallery of Corfu to host the exhibitions “Stelarc: Alternate Anatomies”, “iGMO: Adam Zaretsky”, and “Body Esc” which included works by artists Andrew Carnie, Alkistis Georgiou, Marne Lucas, Joseph Nechvatal, Kira O’Reilly & Manuel Vason, Nikos Panayotopoulos, Ayse Gul Suter, Hege Tapio, and Adam Zaretsky. TTT2018, coordinated in partnership with the program of the FACTT 2018 – Festival Art & Science Trans-disciplinary and Trans-national within the N Festival, included in its agenda the opening of the exhibition “Espacios de Especies” with artworks, among others, by Brandon Ballengée, Andy Gracie, Bios ex Machina, Jaime Lobato, Kathy High, Lena Ortega, Marta de Menezes, Plataforma Bioscénica, Robertina Šebjanič, and Victoria Vesna. The conference in Mexico was preceded by the TTT Satellite Physiological Bioart – Body Performance Live Art Event “BioCuerpos Perfor|m|ados”, organized by the Grace Exhibition Space in collaboration with Casa Viva Gallery, Paranoid Visions UTA, and Anemonal, with performances, among others, by Boryana Rossa, Alexander Romania, Praba Pilar, Adam Zaretsky, Alejandro Chellet, Marita Solberg, Jacco Borggreve, Margherita Pevere, Cecilia Vilca and Lorena Lo Peña.The conference proceedings of 2016 and 2017, available as free e-books published by the Department of Audio & Visual Arts – Ionian University, can be accessed via the official TTT website. Both are edited by Dalila Honorato and Andreas Giannakoulopoulos, Associated Professor at the Ionian University and webmaster of the conferences’ webspace. Selected texts from the TTT2017 and TTT2018 were published in the Special Issue vols. 15:2 and 16:3 of the journal Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, at the invitation of Roy Ascott (editor-in-chief) to Dalila Honorato (guest-editor). The free digital edition of the proceedings of TTT2018, edited by Dalila Honorato, María Antonia González Valerio, Marta de Menezes and Andreas Giannakoulopoulos was released in November 2019 by the Ionian University Publications.The fourth international conference “Taboo – Transgression – Transcendence in Art & Science”, taking place November 26–28, 2020, would be in Vienna, hosted by the University of Applied Arts Vienna, at the invitation of Ingeborg Reichle, Professor and Chair of the Department of Media Theory. Due to the COVID-19 crisis the conference will be exclusively online: TTT2020 Vienna/Online.The TTT conference series is supported by its Steering Committee whose members include Roy Ascott, Plymouth University (UK), Andreas Floros, Ionian University (GR), Dalila Honorato, Ionian University (GR), Gunalan Nadarajan, University of Michigan (USA), Melentie Pandilovski, Riddoch Art Gallery (AU), Stelarc, Curtin University (AU), Polona Tratnik, Alma Mater Europaea (Slovenia), and Adam Zaretsky, Marist College (US).

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ILUM @ELIA Biennial

Immersive Lab

Adnan Hadzi presented the Immersive Lab University of Malta (ILUM) project at the ELIA Biennial. In the Immersive Laboratory University of Malta (ILUM), as well as in the Visual Narratives Laboratory (VNLAB) of Lodz Film School, researchers, artists, and filmmakers investigate and create different kinds of immersion. Researchers from Malta will focus on the insights with state-of-the-art immersive experience (IX). After the presentation, participants will be invited to join the walk-through of Lost in a garden of clouds, virtual show of works that are engaging with aspects of the climate emergency and its negationism, with the places where natural or urban ecosystems connect with the digital ones and with the exploitation of natural resources and chemical pollution.

Expanding the Arts

An online extravaganza that will energise, inspire and kindle connections throughout the entire arts education community. In partnership with Zurich University of the Arts, thought leaders from the arts and academia, producers and practitioners, will explore the brightest, boldest transdisciplinary ideas, question the art of the possible and where boundaries lie. Be part of a rich tapestry of provocation, interrogation and co-creation crossing over 40 presentations, walk-shops, workshops and a myriad of opportunities to connect with collaborators. Together let’s re-imagine Arts Education as a catalyst for change in the post-COVID world.

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Community Conversations 3: i-docs and multi-perspectival thinking

i-docs and Multi-Perspectival Thinking

In this webinar i-Docs Co-director, Judith Aston, and Stefano Odorico, Director of the International Research Centre for Interactive Storytelling (IRIS), will present their ongoing work on i-docs and multi-perspectival thinking. Central to this work is their research into polyphony, as a means through which to promote intercultural dialogue and exchange in a context of increasing polarization.

The aims of the webinar are: to introduce the main issues and debates that this research is bringing up, to provide some examples which point towards ‘polyphonic documentary’, and to open up a channel within the i-docs community for ongoing discussion on the application and relevance of polyphony to documentary practice.

This event will address a series of questions as follows:

  • What is polyphony and how has it been playing out to date within documentary practice?
  • How does this relate to ongoing debates about documentary authorship and co-creation?
  • What do Bakhtin’s ideas on polyphony bring to the party and what is their relevance?
  • How is the relationship between thinking and feeling being negotiated in this research?
  • What is the role of i-docs in a polyphonic context and how can this inform our practice?

The premise of this research is that multi-perspectival thinking is a necessary and urgent skill to be promoting, in order to create a solid base from which to address the many challenges that we are facing in these complex and uncertain times.

Observers and active participants are equally welcome!

More on the convenors:

Headshot of Judith Aston

Dr Judith Aston is Co-founder of i-Docs and an Associate Professor in Immersive Media at the University of the West of England in Bristol. She has an interdisciplinary background in anthropology, geography, interaction design and media practice. As an active member of the University’s Digital Cultures Research Centre, she is also an experienced tutor and PhD supervisor. At the heart of her work is the desire to put evolving media technologies into the service of promoting multi-perspectival thinking and understanding. She has published widely on this and her current collaboration with Dr Stefano Odorico on ‘The Poetics and Politics of Polyphony’ is the latest manifestation of this ongoing endeavour.

Headshot of Stefano Odorico

Dr Stefano Odorico is a Reader in Contemporary Screen Media at Leeds Trinity University where he is the director of IRIS (International Research Centre for Interactive Storytelling). He has published numerous works on film and media theory and practice, documentary studies, and interactive documentaries. He is the vice-chair of the MeCCSA (Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association) practice network and he is a co-founder and member of the editorial team of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. He is currently collaborating with Dr Judith Aston on a project focusing on polyphonic documentary theory and practice.

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Social Justice & AI @ISEA

At ISEA 2020 Adnan Hadzi discusses the argument that the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies benefits the powerful few, focussing on their own existential concerns. ISEA 2020 was held completely online. The paper will narrow down the analysis of the argument to jurisprudence (i.e. the philosophy of law), considering also the historical context. We will discuss the construction of the legal system through the lens of political involvement of what one may want to consider to be powerful elites. Before discussing these aspects we will clarify our notion of “powerful elites”. In doing so we will be demonstrating that it is difficult to prove that the adoption of AI technologies is undertaken in a way which mainly serves a powerful class in society. Nevertheless, analysing the culture around AI technologies with regard to the nature of law with a philosophical and sociological focus enables us to demonstrate a utilitarian and authoritarian trend in the adoption of AI technologies. The paper will conclude by proposing an alternative, some might say practically unattainable, approach to the current legal system by looking into restorative justice for AI crimes, and how the ethics of care could be applied to AI technologies.

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Machine Learning and Environmental Justice

Living Data and AI

Adnan Hadzi presented Machine Learning and Environmental Justice at the the RIXC Art and Science festival: ECODATA.

The RIXC Art-Science Festival: ECODATA aim is to explore the ‘ecosystematic perspective’. More than just rising awareness that living organisms are highly interdependent on each other and their environments, this year’s festival edition aims to reveal a web of connections that interweaves biological, social and techno-scientific systems, living and digital data, artistic and scientific approaches. 

ECODATA exhibition is the central axis of the festival, which forms the rest of the program, made in collaboration with Ecodata–Ecomedia–Ecoaesthetics” research group led by researcher and theorist Yvonne VOLKART, (Basel, Switzerland). The purpose of this exhibition is to bridge the gap between technological and ecological as well as to incorporate technological issues into ecological art. This year’s exhibition will feature twenty artworks by internationally acknowledged artists working in the field of media art, science and ecology.

ECODATA Exhibition
Guided Tour Through the Exhibition
ECODATA Opening Keynote Session: Art and Science Discussion
ECODATA Artist Talks
CODATA and A/I (artistic intelligence): Opening Performance by the Digital Dramaturgy Labsquared
ECODATA Exhibition Opening
Session 1: Technologies of Ecological
Session 3: BioSensing and Ecosystematic Perspective (1)
Session 4: EcoAesthetics
Thematic Session 5: Atmospheric Experience
ECODATA Thematic Keynote Talk
Session 6: BioPolitcs and BioDigital Poetics
Session 8: EcoAesthetics and Data
Session 9: Living Data and AI
Closing Session 10: GREEN REVISITED – Encountering Emerging Naturecultures
Closing Keynote Talk
Closing Program (Part 2): PLA(N)Tform Online Exhibition
Closing Program (Part 1): FOREST GARDEN GREENHOUSE Concert
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The General’s Stork

The General’s Stork

Our friend Heba Y. Amin launched her book ‘The General’s Stork’, accompanying her Solo Show ‘When I see the future, I close my eyes‘.

Eva Eicker writes about the show: In her first UK solo show, Egyptian artist Heba Y. Amin presents ongoing projects combining various media such as video, appropriated archival photographs, performance and real footage. The title When I see the future, I close my eyes lends itself from the song ‘Excellent Birds’ (by Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson) for Nam June Paik’s reflection of digital media Good morning, Mr Orwell (1984). In her research-based practise, Amin is tackling the history of the technological influence on politics and the construction of territorial power with a focus on the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. This work could not be more relevant than during these times of global political threats.Inspired by the news in 2013 when Egyptian authorities detained a migratory stork for espionage because of an electronic device fitted to its body – Amin combines colonial narratives with the records of modern technology. In the video work As Birds Flying (2016), she depicts savannahs and wetlands, including settlements in Galilea (Northern Israel), which were captured in found drone footage. The audio presents dialogues from Egyptian actor Adel Imam’s film Birds of Darkness and discusses political tension, censorship, democracy and surveillance, such as “The government wants credibility, but no one trusts them.” Opposite this work, the artist presents wallpaper composed of appropriated archival aerial shots of Palestine and its history over time, again mimicking the (spying) bird’s perspective. The General’s Stork (2016-ongoing) shows a stork’s life and its famous owner Lord Edmund Allenby in Cairo, the British High Commissioner for Egypt and the Sudan from 1919 to 1925. In the photographs the artist appropriates the bird’s colour: flipping from b/w to colour. The work immediately gains a manipulated artificiality, intensified by the stork’s tall, out-of-proportion (but factual) appearance. Here she mashes up reality and appropriation, culminating in a speculative yet satirical approach. “What does it read like in a different context? I wanted to erase and dominate the narrative”, Amin remarked when we met.This ties over to her second project, Operation Sunken Sea (2018-ongoing); installed as a long table with flat lightboxes in a dimly lit space, the work evokes a governmental feel to it. At one end of the room is a b/w portrait of the artist – powerful, tall, a quasi-persona of a dictator. Opposite on the rear wall is a video projection of Amin’s speech recorded in Malta 2018 in front of a live audience. Stitching together quotes from famous dictators ranging from Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini to Former Premier of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev – the artist is mimicking dictators and proposes a solution to the so-called migration crisis by relocating the Mediterranean Sea within the continent of Africa. Occasional and affirmative sounding (if not very staged) cheering interrupts the overall silence of the piece or space, suggesting a focussed and serious listening is required. The lightboxes feature archival material supporting and recording the early twentieth century utopian visions of draining the Mediterranean Sea supported by various world leaders and scientists. This also includes a re-staging of Herman Soergel’s portrait, where Amin poses as the German engineer claiming to unite Europe and Africa as one continent to gain power, which the New York Times called at the time a “utopian phantasm” (14.4.1929). In 1956 a confidential CIA recommendation to Eisenhower proposed to funnel water and ‘create’ peace in the Middle East, stating it hoped “it would keep Nasser’s mind on other matters, because he needs some way to get off the Soviet Hook.”It is easy to become completely absorbed by the sheer visual and audio absurdity of human megalomania. While the politicians seek justification for their action or settlements with the proof of technology or photographs – the artist is taking them out of context opening the discourse: “Can you look at them and remove the context?”The third work, the multi-channel video installation Project Speak2Tweet (2011 – ongoing) features anonymous voice messages left at an online platform initiated by a group of programmers as response to the Egyptian Governments’ Internet shutdown during the 2011 uprising. Posted on Twitter, the uncensored messages by activists and the public resulted in moving messages to update families and friends. Here the artist gives a voice to the people – and the world was listening. Most touching is a man leaving a message not knowing if he will return from his trip to Cairo’s central square. Brilliantly installed as a metal construction, the visitor navigates looped snapshots of destroyed urban structures in Cairo as though meandering through a prison-like interior representing a corrupt dictatorship.For a short-lived moment, this work resonates as a good example of technology in juxtaposition to the other two bodies of work. This is nothing like the unstable-democratic realm and the ideal of ‘never trust the internet’, which we are adopting as norms. The messages are not publicly accessible anymore, and saved on the Twitter server.Eventually the paranoia of stork-espionage was discredited and evidently the bird was part of migration research by zoologists. Subsequently released, the bird was apparently caught and eaten. Without simplifying the complex themes, the exhibition equally manages not to overload the experience in the space and offers plentiful resources. The artist brilliantly dissipates the distinction between the truth and narrative in her projects by manipulating archival material and mimicking the political language and fascist mannerisms to open up debates. One is also left with a bitter aftertaste – the shifting between absurdity and reality is aching. The satirical element is overshadowed by the fact this is not shocking rhetoric anymore: we have become very numb to the increasing politicisation of news and media.

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PLA(N)Tform @Ars Electronica

PLA(N)T

Our colleagues from RIXC presented PLA(N)T during Ars Electronica.

PLA(N)Tform is a virtual ‘organism’ in which digital and biological actors grow and evolve in ‘ecosystemic’ relations. It is a speculative experiment of ‘terrestrial co-existence’ transforming biological, techno-scientific and atmospheric processes into a space-time of ‘planthropocene’ – gardens for human-plant ‘involution’.

The PLA(N)Tform at Ars Electronica will evolve into a virtual garden connecting live video concert from the Forest Garden Greenhouse in Riga and Virtual BioSensing exhibition as well as ‘growing, sensing and making kin-ship’ performances in Karlsruhe.

PLA(N)Tform

The PLA(N)Tform is a virtual organism in which both natural and artificial actors grow and evolve together, in the darkness of an infinite space of potentialities. The PLA(N)Tform grows in Deleuzian and Guattarian “rhizomatic” proliferations while it is nourished by luminous seeds, each containing their own “naturally artificial” worlds. By juxtaposing the different realities in a heterogeneous plurality, the PLA(N)Tform is understood as a speculative experiment of Latour’s “terrestrial co-existence.” Epistemological and aesthetic practices, far removed from hierarchical mechanisms, merge into a space-time of planthropocene” – Natasha’s Myers envisioned gardens for plant-people “involution.”

The PLA(N)Tform at Ars Electronica will evolve into a virtual garden connecting the live video concert from the Forest Garden Greenhouse in Riga and Virtual BioSensing exhibition in Karlsruhe, featuring the artworks that eco-systematically explore the forests and underwater world creating Reversed gardens, Forest stories and Floating woodlands; grow telegraph-plants and mimosa to explore devices for tracking and visualizing the plant-movement; use photogrammetry to create virtual Nature nostalgia environments in the times of isolation; make sensing experiments to explore human-plant kin-ship; investigate herbal tea making traditions, and engage in Home-Sick Farming activities that manifest in plant-growing and sharing, and cooking performances.

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ILUM @Eleventh International Conference on The Image

Immersive Laboratory University of Malta (ILUM)

Adnan Hadzi presented ‘Immersive Laboratory University of Malta: Artistic Doctorate Visual Pedagogies’ at the Eleventh International Conference on the Image.

As communicative landscapes are increasingly driven by the visual, there is a demand to put ‘the image’ at the center of research practices and educational methodologies. In turn, there is a call for a focus on new approaches to making sense of location, use, and analysis of the image in pedagogical contexts. The 2020 special focus attempts to provoke thinking through the image by: encounters – the personal, social and inter-connectedness of experience to the viewer; place – the where and how of transmission, situatedness and reception; ecologies – appearing within the image, systems, cultures, and context; design – the nature of action in experience and interpretation, from the historical, contemporary, to imaging future worlds. What creative ecologies can be re-imagined in the shared practices of image makers and educators that leads to the development of critical thinking to transform visual experience?

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Creative Practice and Climate Crisis

Creative Practice and Climate Crisis

One of our themes for the now-postponed i-Docs conference back in March this year was ‘climate and ecological emergency’, and we had a number of excellent presentations lined up on this topic. To offer an alternate outlet for some of these presentations, we first hosted two climate conversations on Immerse – the first between Lizzie Warren and Michaela French which you can read here, and the second (to be published soon) between Bronwin Patrickson and Tom White. Now, we have invited three more i-Docs speakers for this online panel discussion about i-docs practice and climate crisis, each with an immersive media project to share – Elizabeth Miller, Lena Dobrowolska and Mitch Turnbull.

Elizabeth Miller, Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University, will present her project Swampscapes: a VR and multi-platform exploration of Florida’s most endangered ecosystem, the Everglades. It aims to reconnect viewers to the beauty of swamps and the vital role they play in filtering water, fostering life, and buffering storms. Through passionate local guides, immersive landscapes, and an interactive Swamp Symphony, the documentary project leads users into the depths of Florida’s swamps and to the people who care about them.

Still image from Imperfect Meshes: Stories from the Hurricane

Artist Lena Dobrowolska will share her project Imperfect Meshes: Stories from the Hurricane, in which she explores the aftermath of Hurricane Michael – a climate intensified category 5 hurricane that made landfall on the Florida panhandle in October 2018. Through a combination of photogrammetry models, field recordings, oral testimonies and a hurricane simulation placed within a VR environment, Imperfect Meshes narrates complex, invisible and long-lasting climate trauma of the hurricane.

EarthSongs

Documentary filmmaker Mitch Turnbull will present her mixed reality experience EarthSongs. Delivered via the Magic Leap One headset, EarthSongs presents an immersive exploration of natural, wild soundscapes utilising spatial computing technology, object based audio and abstract 3D interactive digital imagery. EarthSongs offers an alternative route to understand and connect with nature by deconstructing wild soundscapes and delivering a playful and artistic immersive experience. It utilises the affordances of interactive mixed reality technology to deliver a personal and intimate encounter that taps into an intuitive link with the natural world.

More on our speakers:

Professor Liz Miller

Elizabeth (Liz) Miller is a documentary maker and professor who uses collaboration and interactivity as a way to connect personal stories to larger social concerns. Her films and interactive multi-platform projects on timely issues such as water privatization, refugee rights, gender issues and environmental justice have won awards and influenced decision makers. Her work has been broadcast on international television, streamed on Netflix and featured in galleries, climate conferences and at festivals including Hot Docs and SXSX.edu. Liz is a Full Professor in Communications Studies at Concordia University in Montreal and her book “Going Public: The Art of Participatory Practice (2017) has been integrated into educational curricula. She has partnered with organizations including UNESCO, International Association with Women and Radio and Television, Witness and Wapikoni on human rights, new media and advocacy training.

Lena Dobrowolska

Lena Dobrowolska is an artist working with a combination of documentary photography, artist film, installation, room size virtual reality experiences and research. Since 2012, she has been working in collaboration with Teo Ormond-Skeaping on projects relating to climate change and the Anthropocene or what she prefers to call the Capitalocene. Her works document vulnerability to, and responsibility for climate change as well as the resilience and adaptation efforts of marginalised communities in an attempt to imagine and make possible a climate just future. Her recent research has investigated the link between climate change and displacement, non-economic Loss & Damage  and the moral and climate leadership of the Global South. Lena is the recipient of the 2019 Coalition for Art and Sustainable Development Prize (COAL) and the 2016 Culture and Climate Change: Future Scenarios Networked Residency prize. In 2019 she presented her work at UNFCCC COP25 in Madrid to climate negotiators and displacement experts.

Mitch TurnbullMitch Turnbull is a multi-nominated and award-winning natural history and conservation documentary filmmaker and XR creator with over twenty years experience in the UK & US. She has made films, live shows, media and XR content for a variety of broadcasters, studios and organisations including, BBC Studios, Oculus, Disneynature, Discovery, National Geographic, UN, RYOT and The Royal Foundation. Mitch has acted as a BAFTA VR Advisory Associate, contributed to UK Digital Catapult industry papers and is a South West Creative Technology Network Immersion Fellow with a research focus on how immersive technology can influence opinion and change behaviour.

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i-Docs Community Conversations: Co-creating in times of corona pandemic

Co-creating in times of corona pandemic

A conversation between Sandra Gaudenzi (i-Docs), Sandra Tabares Duque (audiovisual producer), Francesca Panetta (MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality) and Halsey Burgund (sound artist) about their collaborative projects Corona Haikus and Corona Diaries. Joining the discussion will also be two active participants of the Corona Haikus project: Edith Sierra Montaño (director and new media consultant) and Valentine Goddard (AI ethics expert).

Sandra Gaudenzi

During the time of COVID-19 lockdown we have seen an explosion of social media and collaborative projects, aimed at making social isolation more bearable. Some were a way to reach out and feel connected, others to document unprecedented times. The thin line between the subject and the observer has never been so blurred… who is co-creating with whom, and who is in control of what?

Sandra Tabares Duque

In this conversation, the authors of two collaborative corona projects will be joined by participants to question together: What makes a project that asks for very personal sharing, work? What makes us choose to participate in one project rather than another? What pushes us to come back?

And ultimately: how is the potential gap between the author’s initial proposition and what is really received by the participants being negotiated and steered?