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VIRTUALITIES AND REALITIES
RIXC Art Science Festival
and the 2nd Open Fields Conference
Riga, October 19 – 21, 2017

http://festival2017.rixc.org

VIRTUALITIES AND REALITIES is the theme of this year's RIXC Art Science festival in Riga, Latvia, that aims to establish a space for artistic interventions and conversations about the complex implications of immersive technologies.

RIXC Festival is internationally renowned gathering for artists and scholars working at the intersection of arts, digital humanities and science. This year's festival programme features Public Keynotes, the 2nd Open Fields Conference, Exhibitions, Performances and AR/VR Showcases.

The main festival events will take place from October 19–21, 2017, on the main axes of in Riga's art venues – the Conference will take place in the Art Academy of Latvia, and the Latvian National Museum of Art, while the exhibitions – in kim? Contemporary Art Centre and RIXC Gallery spaces.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Monika FLEISCHMANN & Wolfgang STRAUSS / research artists & scientists, DE
Ellen PEARLMAN / Parsons / New School / Art-A-Hack / ThoughtWorks / New York, USA
Chris SALTER / Concordia University, CA
David ROTHENBERG / New Jersey Institute of Technology / USA

VIRTUALITIES AND REALITIES

Immersive technologies coupled with superior virtual environments, artificial intelligence algorithms, faster processors, and biometrics are launching a new era in virtual experiences, entertainment and story-telling. At the same time these technologies have the potential for reinforcing stereotypes, contributing to massive economic and social disruptions, and implementing new systems of invasive monitoring and control.

 What do these new developments in VR/AR mean for education, entertainment, social policy, and systems of codified knowledge? Like their predecessors the telephone, television, and mobile phone, what are the impending new vistas and reduced horizons?

Biometrics and the uploading and tracking of personal data spans areas from healthcare to advertising, with implications for law, criminal justice, entertainment (gaming), education and sports. Machine learning and algorithms are harvesting and making use of big data in new and startling ways. Some of it allows pinpoint accuracy in determining issues of public health, economics, climate change, story-telling, political leanings and the migration of populations. What does all this data combined with new technologies mean? What are some current and future artistic strategies that deal with this? Combined with the acceleration of VR/AR and technologies of immersion, how will societies react?

Taking place in the framework of RISK CHANGE EU Creative Europe’s project, various festival events will explore relations between “virtualities” and “realities” in our post-media society. The Open Fields conference will discuss the socio-cultural and neurobiological impacts of virtual and augmented reality, and other immersive technologies. The conference participants will also look at the places and movements from a socio-political perspective, the mapping and charting of migrating cultures particularly people and their data traces.

The conference will be complemented by the festival exhibition that will explore the changing role of art in society, its transformative potential, and its relations to the sciences, especially focusing on neomateriality, new aesthetics and other critical qualities of the post-digital.

 

Programme (summary, for detailed programme please see below)

THURSDAY, October 19, 2017

Opening Day

15.00 – 16.30 Registration

16.30 – 18.00 OPENING KEYNOTE LECTURES

Monika FLEISCHMANN and Wolfgang STRAUSS / DE

David ROTHENBERG / US

Venue: The Latvian National Museum of Art (Address: Jana Rozentala laukums 1, entrance from park)

19.00 – RECEPTION and FESTIVAL EXHIBITION OPENING

Venue: kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Sporta iela 2

FRIDAY, October 20, 2017

Conference Day 1. VIRTUALITIES AND REALITIES I: IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND ARTISTIC RESEARCH
10.00 – 11.30 Plenary Session: Thematic Keynotes and Featured Presentation:
By Media Lab of AALTO University (Helsinki/FI)

Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia / Address: Kalpaka bulvaris 13 (from the park side).

12.00 – 16.30: Parallel Sessions

Venues: The Art Academy of Latvia, and The Latvian National Museum of Art

17.00 – PUBLIC KEYNOTE LECTURES:

Ellen PEARLMAN / US

Chris SALTER / CA

Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia,

SATURDAY, October 21, 2017

Conference Day 2. VIRTUALITIES AND REALITIES II: AUGMENTED / VIRTUAL REALITY AND DATA AESTHETICS
10.00 – 11.30 Plenary Session: Thematic Keynotes and Featured Presentation
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia
12.00 – 16.30 Parallel Sessions

Venues: the Art Academy and the National Art Museum

17.00 – Closing Session: OPEN FIELDS BOOK-REVIEW, presentations by authors (Pecha Kucha format), and “RENEWABLE FUTURES” (Acoustic Space Vol. 16) book discussion.

Venues: the Art Academy

21.00 – Satellite Event: PERFORMANCE NIGHT

Venue: RISEBA Media and Architecture Center H2O6, Durbes iela 6

Preliminary Programme (detailed time schedule)

THURSDAY, October 19, 2017

Opening Programme

15.00 – 16.00 Cofee and Registration

16.00 – 18.30 OPENING KEYNOTE LECTURES

Monika FLEISCHMANN and Wolfgang STRAUSS. Immersive Spaces for Thinking and Acting through Senses and Sensors

David ROTHENBERG. What’s It Like To Be A Nightingale? Adventures In Interspecies Music
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia / Address: Kalpaka bulvaris 13 (from the park side)

19.00 – Reception and VIRTUALITIES AND REALITIES Festival and Exhibition Opening programme.

Venue: kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Sporta iela 2

FRIDAY, October 20, 2017

Conference Day 1. VIRTUALITIES AND REALITIES I: IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND ARTISTIC RESEARCH


09.30 – 10.00 Coffee and Registration

10.00 – 11.30 Plenary Session. IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND ARTISTIC RESEARCH (90 min)
Thematic Keynotes and Featured Presentations by AALTO University (Helsinki/FI)
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia / Address: Kalpaka bulvaris 13 (from the park side)
Moderator:
3 Speakers (20 min/each, incl. VR demonstrations + questions):

Lily DIAZ. Interactive Diorama, Case Study Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of 1632 by Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
Daniel LANDAU. Time-Body Study (presentation and live experiments)

11.30 – 11.45 Coffee Break

11.45 – 13.00 Parallel Session A1. Immersive Environments: Time, Space And Visuality (75min)
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia / Address: Kalpaka bulvaris 13 (from the park side)
Moderator:.
4-5 Speakers (14 min + 1 question):
Jorge SOBEJANO, Alvaro MOLINS. Black Islands
Camilla JALLER. A Sense of Time in Transit Spaces - Video projection artworks in public train station buildings
Jonah BRUCKER-COHEN. Socializing Public Spaces With Shared Input From Mobile Devices
Hiba ALI. Deconstructing Network Visualities
David SCHMUDDE. Manifesting Human Relationships in Art and Technology

11.45 – 13.00 Parallel Session B1. Immersive Environments: Body and Perception (75 min.)
Venue: The Latvian National Museum of Art (Address: Jana Rozentala laukums 1, entrance from the park side)
Moderator:
5-6 Speakers (12 min + 1 question)
Miguel ALMIRON, Guillermo CROSETTO. Virtual Reality, the empathic machine?
Richard MERRITT. Ethereal Empathy: Creating Spaces for Intersectionality
Asim HAMEED. Body: a site of virtualization.
Hannah DRAYSON. Habit tracking mobile apps, affect management and the paradigm of altered-states-computing
KORSTEN & DE JONG.

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch . The Art Academy of Latvia

14.00 – 15.15 Parallel Session A2. Brainwaves and Immersive Data Visualizations / Biometrics (75 min)
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia / Address: Kalpaka bulvaris 13 (from the park side)
Moderator:
4-5 Speakers (14 min + 1 question)
Karen LANCEL. E.E.G. KISS – Kissing the intimate uncanny
Chris HALES. Interactive Stories for the Brain: Interaction and Response in Brainwave-Influenced Non-linear Films
Sean MONTGOMERY. Synergy in Art and Science: From Groundwater to Brainwaves /  Hive Mind
Jukka HAUTAMAKI. Interfacing in live electronics performances.
Ludwig    ZELLER. The Institute of Sonic Epistemologies. Speculative Design and Sonic Fiction through Binaurally Mixed Environments

14.00 – 15.15 Parallel Session B2. Neomateriality and Post-Digital Aesthetics (75 min)
Venue: The Latvian National Museum of Art (entrance from the park side)
Moderator:
5-6 Speakers (12 min + 1 question)
Winnie SOON, Sarah SCHORR. Screen Shots: Critical Codes of Capture
Raivo Kelomees. From Net Art to Post-Internet Art: The Cyclical Nature of Art Movements
Doville DAGIENE. Anthropology of memory and imagination: time and place in photography
Violetta DESAGA. Transcendence in Immanence
Ilva SKULTE, Normunds KOZLOVS. AAO1
Cristina    COCHIOR. In The Company Of Bots

15.15 – 15.30 break

15.30 – 16.45 Parallel Session A3. Interactivity and Virtuality in Post-Digital Age (75 min)
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia / Address: Kalpaka bulvaris 13 (from the park side)
Moderator:
4-5 Speakers (14 min + 1 question)
Kathryn BLAIR. A Research Creation Process for Interactive Works
Varvara GULJAJEVA. Beyond interactivity. The unsolved question of interactive art.
Philipp KOHL. Gear talk
Vanessa Sonia SANTOS. Investigating Locative Art through a methodological bricolage
Vytautas MICHELKEVIČIUS, Lina MICHELKEVIČE. Other Virtuality: Tracing the Real in Maps and Diagrams within Artistic Research

15.30 – 16.45 Parallel Session B3. Tracing and Charting Migrating Cultures (75 min)
Venue: The Latvian National Museum of Art (entrance from the park side)
Moderator:
5-6 Speakers (12 min + 1 question)
Stefanie RAU. Feeding back (or: And still we keep holding on to our spoons)
Greta HAUER. Proximity Of The Enemy
Orr MENIROM. Clinton and Sanders Looking at the World and Naming Things for the First Time
Jaana KOKKO. What There is to See (About Film, 24 min, 2017)
Vanessa GRAVENOR. Disassociate Reality
Mikko LIPIAINEN. The Potential of Augmented Reality Technology for Building Sites for Translocal, Transcontinental and Intercultural Dialogue: The Case of Digital Ghost of Resistance Monument Project

16.45-17.00 Coffee Break

17.00 – 19.00 PUBLIC KEYNOTE LECTURES
Venue: The Latvian National Museum of Art (entrance from the park side)

Ellen PEARLMAN.

Chris SALTER.

20.00 Dinner (for tickets)

SATURDAY, October 21, 2017

Conference Day 2: VIRTUALITIES AND REALITIES I: AUGMENTED / VIRTUAL REALITY AND DATA AESTHETICS

09.30 – 10.00 Coffee and Registration

10.00 – 11.30 Plenary Session. Augmented & Virtual Reality, Digital Art Archives and Bio-Digital Games (90min)
Moderator:
3 Speakers (25 min + 1 question)

Livia NOLASCO-ROZSA. Knowledge of the Virtual

Vincenzo SANSONE. Augmented Reality between a philosophical meaning and a technological one. Some questions about the semantic shift of the concept of AR

Raphael KIM. Bacterial Candy Crush? Exploring Bio-Digital Games Beyond Entertainment & Education
Kristin BERGAUST. Oslofjord Ecologies: Experience, Artistic Research and Education.

11.30 – 11.45 Coffee Break

11.45 – 13.00 Parallel Session A1. Augmented and Virtual Reality: New Artistic Strategies (75min)
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia / Address: Kalpaka bulvaris 13 (from the park side)
Moderator:
4-5 Speakers (14 min + 1 question)
Christopher MILLER. The Virtual Class
Sandra ALVARO. Behind the black mirror
Jānis GARANCS. Induced spaces as an effort of new sense/making - interfacing finacial trading in 3D/VR
Hanna HAASLAHTI. Cosmetic Space
Natalia EGOROVA, Sergey SIMONOV, Daniil BAKALIN. The experience of interpretation of biological object in the context of contemporary art
Aoun CARLOTTA. soft-()-face: extra/inter/outra

11.45 – 13.00 Parallel Session B1. Digital Art Archives and Curating Practices (75min)

Venue: The Latvian National Museum of Art (entrance from the park side)
Moderator:

5-6 Speakers (12 min + 1 question)

Janina HOTH. Digital Archive as Display for Digital Art

Aleksander KOMAROV, Maxim TYMINKO. PXFLUX an online platform and toolset for the exhibition, promotion, distribution and collection of time based, computational, digital art.

Dijana PROTIC. Exploring Curating Practice on Example of Media Scape
Elke REINHUBER. Tangible / Intangible – the Digital Preservation of Yunnan Garden
Andrew Gryf PATERSON. Towards autoarchaeological archiving of artist-organiser practice - tbc.

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
The Art Academy of Latvia

14.00 – 15.15  Parallel Session A2. 360-Degree Video and Interactive Storrytelling (75 min.)
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia
Moderator:
4-5 Speakers (14 min + 1 question)
Aigars CEPLITIS. The Tension of Temporal Focalization and Immersivity in 360 Degree 3D Virtual Space
Luis BRACAMONTES. Teleacting the story: User-centered narratives through navigaze in 360º video
Adnan HADZI. after.video – displaying video as theory and reference system
Oksana CHEPELYK. Virtual Reality and 360-degree Video Interactive Narratology: Ukrainian Case Study.
Arnas ANSKAITIS. The Rhetoric of the Alphabet

14.00 – 15.15 Parallel Session B2. Neomateriality and Open Design, Sociality and Algorithms (75 min)
Venue: The Latvian National Museum of Art (entrance from the park side)
Moderator:
5-6 Speakers (12 min + 1 question)
Paola GUIMERANS. E-textiles, Fine Arts and Open Design Culture
Hanns Holger RUTZ, Ron KUIVILA. Aiming for the implausible: How algorithms come to matter at the margins of one’s attention
John-Patrick AYSON. The Necessary (augmented) Reality of The Common (dis)Functional Object
Giorgio RUGGERI. Tracing the Role of Design in Online History Platforms
Paula VĪTOLA. Demystifying the network
Mitch GOODWIN. The Liquid Electric - tracing nature’s machine code

15.15 – 15.30 break

15.30 – 16.45 Parallel Session A3. Augmented Environments and Data Aesthetics (75 min)
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia / Address: Kalpaka bulvaris 13 (from the park side)
Moderator:
4-5 Speakers (14 min + 1 question)
Eva SJUVE. Creative process in augmented atmospheric environments and generative auditory systems
Jenny RODENHOUSE. The Enchanted Forest:  Satellite Canopies and Digital Understories
Anna NACHER. Between "dance of agency" and distributed agency of techno-ecological artistic practice
Misha RABINOVICH. Shareable Biome
Morten ROCKFORD. Fear and Loathing in GTA V (Conceptual in-game photography)
Tracey BENSON. Changing tides: Migration, Ecology and Deep time
Martin HOWSE, Jamie ALLEN. Shift Register: Earth Observatory - tbc.

15.30 – 16.45 Parallel Session B3. Anthropocene and Techno-Ecological Perspective  (75 min)
Venue: The Latvian National Museum of Art (entrance from the park side)
Moderator:
5-6 Speakers (12 min + 1 question)
Maryna MAKARENKO. Utopian gender narratives: reality of fiction in techno-scientific era? / JELLYFISH, film-performance
Michael DOTOLO. Aesthetics in Yoga
Christina DELLA GIUSTINA. you are variations, towards version 08
Vygintas ORLOVAS. Anti-ecology of digital sounds: a case analysis of Vaporwave
Maija DEMITERE. Data vizualizations – using slow media art to promote deep sustainability

 

16.45-17.00 Coffee Break
17.00 – Closing Session: OPEN FIELDS BOOK-REVIEW, presentations by authors (Pecha Kucha format), and “RENEWABLE FUTURES” (Acoustic Space Vol. 16) book discussion.
Venue: The Art Academy of Latvia

21.00 – Satellite Event: PERFORMANCE NIGHT

Venue: RISEBA Media and Architecture Center H2O6, Durbes iela 6

 

Support: EU Programme Creative Europe, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, Nordplus, LG Electronics Latvia, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Goethe-Institut Riga, U.S. Embassy in Latvia, Fulbright World Learning Specialist, Embassy of Canada to Latvia, the Mondriaan Fund, Capital, Reverie TG, Risk Change project, kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Latvian National Museum of Art, Art Academy of Latvia, University of Liepaja, Art Research Lab of Liepaja University, RISEBA, Studija, LSM.LV, Arterritory, Rīgas Laiks, ESSE, PK Riga Hotel, Caffein

CONTACTS

rixc@rixc.org

+371 67228478 (office)

+371 26546776 (Rasa Smite)