RE:SOURCE 2023 - The 10th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology Proceedings, 2024
Considering that issues of sustainability in contemporary
art practices are still fairly little d... more Considering that issues of sustainability in contemporary art practices are still fairly little discussed among art professionals such as artists, curators, and scholars, this article sheds light on a complex and urgent problem that involves the entire art world with its developed traditions and structures. However, due to the scale of this issue, the authors have limited the focus of this article to the mobility of artworks, artists, and the wider public. Simultaneously as pointing critically to the extensive mobility and travelling patterns commenced by the wide international art world, the article asks about the role and responsibility of an artist in this and speculates on what ways artworks and their formats can have an impact. The article provides insights into a selection of existing art genres, their formats, delivery, and methods. The first part introduces the concept of art tourism with examples of its impact on environmental sustainability. The latter part presents a selection of artworks from the past and present, which, perhaps unintentionally, address or involve sustainability issues through innovative and alternative approaches related to the presentation and accessibility of the artworks. The selection of artworks in the article intends to constitute a starting point for reflections on the tensions and contradictions of what we define as sustainable within the arts. The article maps out existing and historical approaches for presenting art, which seem not to require travel to be able to see or visit the works. In other words, rather than aiming to provide concrete solutions for the current environmental situation or to analyse in-depth the presented individual artworks and their ‘correctness’ or supposed impact on the climate crisis, this article provides an inspirational selection of genres, formats, and methods, which have been emerging throughout the decades with alternative strategies. In our perspective, these examples and methods can be considered as models for future developments in the arts that take sustainability issues into account.
The following pages showcase artistic research outcomes through artefacts, physical artworks, and... more The following pages showcase artistic research outcomes through artefacts, physical artworks, and practice-based projects from the past two decades. These works are the result of my extensive investigations into human enhancement and the relationship between humans, technology, and the environment within technological frameworks. The projects span categories such as wearables and wearable technology, art and technology, critical and speculative design, and art and science. The selection primarily covers projects from the past 20 years of my 35+ year career, all of which have been publicly exhibited-often in art museums, galleries or art events. These projects have also been discussed and contextualized in my written articles, public lectures, and have been cited by other scholars. Over the last two decades, I've also been deeply engaged in academia, managing research projects, teaching, leading doctoral programs, and initiating conferences, lectures, and various collaborations.
Consciousness Reframed - The Chimeric Mind - Conference, 2024
The article presents an artistic case study that experiments with a algorithms and narrative in h... more The article presents an artistic case study that experiments with a algorithms and narrative in hybrid ecology. The immersive artwork, the R-Bus, explores our perception of reality. Traditionally, reality is thought to be things we can comprehend with our biological faculties. The R-Bus suggests that today reality is much more than what we physically perceive. By producing a physical and sonic experience within our algorithmic universe, it offers an insight to the data saturated world and encounter between biological and technological entities. The R-Bus is a model in hybrid ecology, which explores creation of new narratives and human desires.
In the field of the visual arts and humanities, artists working with biological and biotech arts ... more In the field of the visual arts and humanities, artists working with biological and biotech arts are at the forefront of understanding with a wide perspective the potentialities and the societal implications of science and technology developments. Artistic projects emerging from biological and biotech arts are often presented with aesthetics adopted from laboratories and scientific experiments; they incorporate petri dishes, glassware, hardware components, and clinical machine parts. Among the numerous artworks with these kinds of typical laboratory aesthetics are also examples that stand out with their different aesthetics, which, when looked at from a traditional high-art perspective, could be seen in the light of the definition of kitsch. Kitsch is commonly claimed to attest to "poor taste," excessive cuteness, or sentimentality. However, when these artworks are investigated through a wider societal perspective, the works seem to have additional layers which affect, challenge, and play with kitsch aspects.
Artnodes E-JOURNAL ON ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 2022
Life in the era of biotechnology opens up opportunities but also poses challenges related to our ... more Life in the era of biotechnology opens up opportunities but also poses challenges related to our values and questions regarding the way we want to see coexistence on our planet, which is inhabited by many species. The parasite is our case study and an interesting concept that we inherit from biology but which is also addressed in humanism and philosophy. As humans, we commonly understand the concept of a parasite as a negative one that suggests someone or something which benefits at our expense. However , French philosopher Michel Serres had a different view of the parasite. According to him, the parasite is based on relationships between different entities, and there is often noise in these relationships. Serres refers to biologist Henri Atlan, who has argued that said noise forces the system to reorganize itself in a way that incorporates the noise into the complex system. The idea of noise as an integrated part of the system is quite far from today’s thought processes with the develop-ment of bio/ technology that typically aims to be noiseless and error-free and have aesthetically attractive results. Therefore, although parasites are often associated with terms such as inhospitable, undesirable, and disgusting and are seen to be located outside of art and technology, in this paper, we argue that the concept of something parasitical is tightly inter-twined with our contemporary biotechnical lives. The article relates Serres’ parasitic thinking to an artistic mediation of the biological parasite: the tick.
Polititcs of the Machines 2021 - Rogue Research Conference Proceedings, 2021
This article investigates two technology- and science-based methods and their potentiality and us... more This article investigates two technology- and science-based methods and their potentiality and use in contemporary art, specifically in image-making traditions. Firstly, the article will briefly present digital image creation processes involving Artificial Intelligence (Al) and GANs, and secondly it will introduce a possibility for science-based image modification using a lab-based CRISPR-Cas9 system. Both methods have become available for artistic use with an increase in DIV and open science developments. These scientific methods impact the produced result aesthetically, according to the context and through associations. The question this paper focuses on is what kind of images are created with these methods? How is the meaning conveyed with these types of images? And what is the artistic point of making images with such technology-based processes?
INTRO A jester, a narr, or a fool is a historical figure mainly associated with medieval Europe, ... more INTRO A jester, a narr, or a fool is a historical figure mainly associated with medieval Europe, although it has a longer history worldwide. The well-known tradition in medieval royal courts was to employ entertainers, among them a court jester. He was a distinctly dressed figure who was allowed to speak controversial issues and even make fun of the king. It was believed that the sharp eye and the tongue of a jester disguised in humor were often pointing to ‘the truth’ in the issues concerned. The jester was an entertainer but also an adviser and a critic of the world. An appreciated figure with low social status, but more freedom to speak out on problematic issues.
One of the typical binaries existing in western society is the division between natural and artif... more One of the typical binaries existing in western society is the division between natural and artificial. But similarly biological and technological are often seen as oppositions. In today’s world, it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between naturalbiological entities from artificially constructed ones with human cognitive abilities. This is due to the development of biotechnological methods to manipulate or construct new kinds of living organisms that are purposely designed by humans. Likewise, artificial intelligence-systems are being developed to become more autonomous and life-like with their sensing and learning abilities. These developments point out that our perceptions of the concepts of natural and artificial are radically changing. Traditionally natural is understood as something coming from nature and not made or caused by humans; and artificial is understood as the opposite – not natural, but produced, created or caused by
In this paper, we describe TRATTI, an art piece that can clearly be characterized as Device Art. ... more In this paper, we describe TRATTI, an art piece that can clearly be characterized as Device Art. It is a funnel shaped bullhorn to be worn in front of the belly. Children can walk around with the TRATTI. First, they record their voice into the device. Then, they can point the TRATTI anywhere they want. The TRATTI constantly snaps images from its surroundings and plays back the recorded voice samples manipulated through the image, through the environment. TRATTI is technologically based on mobile phone technology and it reflects a number of key features of mobile phone technology. TRATTI is a loud and disturbing piece of real-time art, a very personal musical instrument playing the voice of the musician, according to her standpoint in the world
Through collaborative media arts practice we explore texture morphing soft robotics as an artisti... more Through collaborative media arts practice we explore texture morphing soft robotics as an artistic medium of expression. We present an installation, Homo Viridis, that features a soft robotic interface developed to mediate signals between a vascular plant and a human body. The exposition paper discusses how Homo Viridis stages a situation of hybridity where individual, more-than-human subjectivities are mentally and physically intertwined. In conclusion, the paper reflects on how connecting organisms through soft robotic interfaces can actualize visions of a novel being - a ‘posthuman entity’. We argue that such a being might be physically composed of organic and synthetic elements that come together, but that it can also exist as a conceptual persona that may initiate discussions on what humans can become.
2017 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI), Nov 1, 2017
Plants are very efficient computing machines. They are able to sense diverse environmental condit... more Plants are very efficient computing machines. They are able to sense diverse environmental conditions and quickly react through chemical and electrical signaling. In this paper, we present an interface between plants and machines (a cybernetic plant), with the goal of augmenting the capabilities of plants towards the creation of plant biosensors. We implement a data acquisition system able to stimulate the plant through different electrical signals, as well as record the electrical activity of plants in response to changing electrical stimulations, light conditions, and chemicals. The results serve as a proof of concept that sensing capabilities of plants are a viable option for the development of plant bio-machines. Different future scenarios (some speculative) are discussed. The work herein is carried out as a collaboration between the EU project Flora Robotica and the EU project NASCENCE.
Artificial life simulations are an important tool in the study of ecological phenomena that can b... more Artificial life simulations are an important tool in the study of ecological phenomena that can be difficult to examine directly in natural environments. Recent work has established the soundscape as an ecologically important resource and it has been proposed that the differentiation of animal vocalizations within a soundscape is driven by the imperative of intraspecies communication. The experiments in this paper test that hypothesis in a simulated soundscape in order to verify the feasibility of intraspecies communication as a driver of acoustic niche differentiation. The impact of intraspecies communication is found to be a significant factor in the division of a soundscape's frequency spectrum when compared to simulations where the need to identify signals from conspecifics does not drive the evolution of signalling. The method of simulating the effects of interspecies interactions on the soundscape is positioned as a tool for developing artificial life agents that can inhabit and interact with physical ecosystems and soundscapes.
This dissertation explores the use of irony in networked wearable technology art as a strategy to... more This dissertation explores the use of irony in networked wearable technology art as a strategy to emphasise the complexity of conjunction between techno-organic human and the techno-organic world.
The research addresses the relationship between technologically enhanced human and networked hybrid environment, and speculates on the impact of technological enhancements to the subjective construction of Umwelt through ironic interventions. The project employs both artistic practice and critical theory.
The practice-based part of the dissertation is comprised of three wearable technology artworks produced during the study. These concrete artefacts employ irony as a means to expose the techno-organic relationship between humans and their environment under scrutiny. The works highlight the significance of technological modifications of the human for the formation of subjective worldview in an everyday hybrid environment.
The theoretical part navigates between the fields of art, design, technology, science and cultural studies concerning the impact of technology and networks on human experience and perception of the world.
In the background of this research is biologist Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of the Umwelt, which is a subjective perception created by an organism through its active engagement with the everyday living environment. This dissertation focuses on the Umwelt that is formed in an interaction between hybrid environment and the technologically enhanced human, the Hybronaut.
Hybrid environment is a physical reality merged with technologically enabled virtual reality. The Hybronaut is an artistic strategy developed during the research based on four elements: wearable technology, network ability, irony and contextualised experience for the public.
Irony is one of the prominent characteristics of the Hybronaut. Irony functions as a way to produce multiple paradoxical perspectives that enable a critical inquiry into our subjective construction of Umwelt. The research indicates that ironic networked wearable technology art presents an opportunity to re-examine our perception concerning the human and his environment.
--------------------------
The dissertation was submitted and approved 2012.
The main supervisor was Professor Roy Ascott and the research was done within the Planetary Collegium, which was the first PhD program focused on art, technology and science cross-overs.
-------------------------
Digital technology and culture continue to radically change the conditions for art’s production, ... more Digital technology and culture continue to radically change the conditions for art’s production, distribution, interfaces, and forms. With a point of departure in the book Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art (Intellect, 2019) that examines how digital technology and culture influence contemporary art, this conversation addresses the topic of ‘art’s new making’ by asking: What drives creative artistic pursuits today? How can we understand art’s ecologies when involved in making the ‘new’? What might the pursuit of art’s ‘new’ making promise, demonstrate, and feed forward?
Participants of this conversation include (in order of response) Laura Beloff, Elizabeth Jochum, Saara Ekström, Morten Søndergaard and Mette-Marie Zacher Sørensen. It is initiated and introduced by Tanya Ravn Ag and edited by Vanina Saracino.
The author’s artistic experiment The Hearing Test focuses on detection
of high frequency clicking... more The author’s artistic experiment The Hearing Test focuses on detection of high frequency clicking sounds that are emitted by the tips of plants’ roots. Scientists have claimed that plants’ roots produce high frequency clicks between 20 and 300 kHz by bursting air bubbles. But while the phenomenon has been described, its cause remains unexplained. This lack of knowledge opens up possibilities for multiple interpretations and invites experimental approaches as well as speculation concerning plant intelligence, the role of species-specific hearing and sound as evidence. The article is an extended reflection on the experiment.
In today's world, sound occupies an ever-increasing area of cultural and artistic production; how... more In today's world, sound occupies an ever-increasing area of cultural and artistic production; however, beyond popular music, other sonic modalities are still on the fringe of institutional and cultural political awareness. This special issue aims to investigate those silent agencies that resonate in the contemporary art world and which are already structuring the modalities of sound in art and curating. Silent agencies refers specifically to the effects of crisis, and the artistic modalities operating with those effects. Moreover, it refers to a philosophical inquiry into the epistemological situation of crisis, and the 'speculative' situation of 'a world without humans'. Bruno Latour writes about the embarrassing silence from researchers on the topic of crisis, and the need to imagine and express different paths than the existing ones (Latour 2017, p. 67). In this vein, we want to investigate: How may curatorial and artistic structures of current behaviour be operationalized into real transformations of institutional and cultural political behavior? With this in mind we frame the selection of articles for this special issue. These articles address the situation and challenge silent agencies from different perspectives. With these perspectives we argue that it is possible to detect a wider set of problems facing curatorial work in the field of sound practices, ranging from the environmental and institutional impact of technological mediation, to reflecting on ways in which embodied and situated knowledge may emerge from artistic work beyond the conventional enframings of mainstream digital aesthetics and cultural industry. The framing of this article is additionally toned with the exceptional situation of the pandemic that put the world on hold in the spring of 2020, and which has affected our everyday lives and will continue to shift our perspectives of the world in years to come. We are currently living through an era that is impacted by the spread of the Covid-19 virus, which has forced people into isolation and made the planet slow down. The recent weeks spent in quarantine have affected the local environment to become noticeably quieter; there is less traffic, less planes, and less background noise in general. At the same time, environmentalists and biologists have made us aware of the ways in which strongly human-produced sounds impact e.g. birds in urban areas, and how the Covid-19 situation has resulted in an unusual period of heightened activities within urban non-human ecologies during these past months. It is important to realize that this is a global-scale situation, which is happening more or less at the same time in different parts of the world. We share this moment and situation with the rest of the planet, though different societies cope differently within it.
In this article forest is chosen as a case study that is to a large degree perceived with a Finni... more In this article forest is chosen as a case study that is to a large degree perceived with a Finnish and Nordic perspective, and mainly in the context of art. It appears timely to address the forest and its meaning today (2018-19) when the Finnish government is pushing for an increase in logging, while simultaneously there is an on-going public debate about the importance of carbon sink, that forests offer and which is an important factor in the challenges brought forth by climate change . Forest is used in the article for exemplifying technological transformations concerning the natural environment – especially, the present and the future state of natural environment where different actors and aspects are increasingly merged to form new types of organisms and systems in which technological and biological elements have become one. The proposed concept, hybrid ecology, is developed within the arts; it refers to artworks and art practices that deal with the environment and biological matter. In these works, the natural environment is no longer the romantic ideal of ‘nature’ or wilderness, but an ecology that is a complex aggregate of biological and technological parts in a world accented with socio-economic interests. The selection of artworks, which are described in the article are considered as antennas of sorts for changing environmental and societal conditions, as well as experiments in hybrid ecology. Additionally to the core focus on forest and its human-made technological transformation, there are two intertwined concepts that play a role in the formation of hybrid ecology; wilderness or wildness is an aspect that is being re-evaluated in today’s world, and ecology that is used as a framework and model that connects different actors, processes, conditions, dependencies, things and situations. These concepts form a base for the concept of hybrid ecology, which poses questions on our current situation, in which technological and rational thinking dominates natural environment to an increasing degree. The artworks presented in the article do not solely deal with a natural environment per se, but reference a larger paradigm concerning the concept of ecology and the current understanding of the term.
This article is written from the perspective of an art practitioner in experimental arts with an interest in investigating the ways in which technology and scientific development impact our understanding of the natural environment, relations to non-humans, and the human-nature relationships which emerge from these influences. This relates closely to the central theme in the author's artistic practice during the last two decades: the merger of technological and biological matter – initially focusing on the phenomenon in human enhancement, and more recently, on convergence of natural environment with technology and its technological framing imposed by humans .
The boundary between wet and dry is blurring and similarly the expectations towards solid versus ... more The boundary between wet and dry is blurring and similarly the expectations towards solid versus soft objects and machines are being redefined. These developments are impacted by many different factors ranging from developments in biotechnology and life science to innovation in new materials and their behavior, among various other areas. Also, in the humanities and in the arts there has recently been increasing interests towards material agencies and processes that are based on inorganic matter or executed by non-human organisms.
The paper has a focus on liquids and flows. The author sees that there is a correlation between our visible inability to tackle current environmental, climatic and societal challenges, and contemporary artistic approaches that are focused on fluids. These experiments can be characterized as fluid, temporal and continuously evolving in their exploration across science, technology, art and liquid matter.
In the last two decades, we have witnessed a gradual shift observable in the approaches of artist... more In the last two decades, we have witnessed a gradual shift observable in the approaches of artists working with technology. This shift can be characterized as moving from the digital and virtual realm towards the physical world. More recently, this can be seen in terms of an inclusion of the biological realm into experiments and artworks that address a wide range of technological developments and their impact on society. Many of the artists working in this field – broadly termed ‘art and science’ – have a background in digital arts. This chapter traces specifically the emerging inclusion of the biological realm into the technology-based arts as a trajectory towards which the field of digital art appears to be developing.
Given that readers of this chapter probably have general knowledge about digital and technology-based art as an existing field, it focuses primarily on artistic interests that involve biological organisms and living matter in combination with technology. The trajectory is introduced through the actors and milestones in the development of Nordic new media art. It continues with examples of Nordic works, artists and active organizers who are working with a combination of digital and biological matter. The chapter divides the artistic examples into works that focus on the environment and those that focus on humans as biological organisms. Underlying the chapter is my first-hand experience in the Nordic development of new media art and my recent interest in, specifically, biological matter with digital technology. This development has two historical predecessors: one is based on the traditions of art and technology; the other is based on the traditions of landscape art and earth works. The chapter addresses our evolving understanding of concepts such as real, natural and artificial, as well as biological and technological.
RE:SOURCE 2023 - The 10th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology Proceedings, 2024
Considering that issues of sustainability in contemporary
art practices are still fairly little d... more Considering that issues of sustainability in contemporary art practices are still fairly little discussed among art professionals such as artists, curators, and scholars, this article sheds light on a complex and urgent problem that involves the entire art world with its developed traditions and structures. However, due to the scale of this issue, the authors have limited the focus of this article to the mobility of artworks, artists, and the wider public. Simultaneously as pointing critically to the extensive mobility and travelling patterns commenced by the wide international art world, the article asks about the role and responsibility of an artist in this and speculates on what ways artworks and their formats can have an impact. The article provides insights into a selection of existing art genres, their formats, delivery, and methods. The first part introduces the concept of art tourism with examples of its impact on environmental sustainability. The latter part presents a selection of artworks from the past and present, which, perhaps unintentionally, address or involve sustainability issues through innovative and alternative approaches related to the presentation and accessibility of the artworks. The selection of artworks in the article intends to constitute a starting point for reflections on the tensions and contradictions of what we define as sustainable within the arts. The article maps out existing and historical approaches for presenting art, which seem not to require travel to be able to see or visit the works. In other words, rather than aiming to provide concrete solutions for the current environmental situation or to analyse in-depth the presented individual artworks and their ‘correctness’ or supposed impact on the climate crisis, this article provides an inspirational selection of genres, formats, and methods, which have been emerging throughout the decades with alternative strategies. In our perspective, these examples and methods can be considered as models for future developments in the arts that take sustainability issues into account.
The following pages showcase artistic research outcomes through artefacts, physical artworks, and... more The following pages showcase artistic research outcomes through artefacts, physical artworks, and practice-based projects from the past two decades. These works are the result of my extensive investigations into human enhancement and the relationship between humans, technology, and the environment within technological frameworks. The projects span categories such as wearables and wearable technology, art and technology, critical and speculative design, and art and science. The selection primarily covers projects from the past 20 years of my 35+ year career, all of which have been publicly exhibited-often in art museums, galleries or art events. These projects have also been discussed and contextualized in my written articles, public lectures, and have been cited by other scholars. Over the last two decades, I've also been deeply engaged in academia, managing research projects, teaching, leading doctoral programs, and initiating conferences, lectures, and various collaborations.
Consciousness Reframed - The Chimeric Mind - Conference, 2024
The article presents an artistic case study that experiments with a algorithms and narrative in h... more The article presents an artistic case study that experiments with a algorithms and narrative in hybrid ecology. The immersive artwork, the R-Bus, explores our perception of reality. Traditionally, reality is thought to be things we can comprehend with our biological faculties. The R-Bus suggests that today reality is much more than what we physically perceive. By producing a physical and sonic experience within our algorithmic universe, it offers an insight to the data saturated world and encounter between biological and technological entities. The R-Bus is a model in hybrid ecology, which explores creation of new narratives and human desires.
In the field of the visual arts and humanities, artists working with biological and biotech arts ... more In the field of the visual arts and humanities, artists working with biological and biotech arts are at the forefront of understanding with a wide perspective the potentialities and the societal implications of science and technology developments. Artistic projects emerging from biological and biotech arts are often presented with aesthetics adopted from laboratories and scientific experiments; they incorporate petri dishes, glassware, hardware components, and clinical machine parts. Among the numerous artworks with these kinds of typical laboratory aesthetics are also examples that stand out with their different aesthetics, which, when looked at from a traditional high-art perspective, could be seen in the light of the definition of kitsch. Kitsch is commonly claimed to attest to "poor taste," excessive cuteness, or sentimentality. However, when these artworks are investigated through a wider societal perspective, the works seem to have additional layers which affect, challenge, and play with kitsch aspects.
Artnodes E-JOURNAL ON ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 2022
Life in the era of biotechnology opens up opportunities but also poses challenges related to our ... more Life in the era of biotechnology opens up opportunities but also poses challenges related to our values and questions regarding the way we want to see coexistence on our planet, which is inhabited by many species. The parasite is our case study and an interesting concept that we inherit from biology but which is also addressed in humanism and philosophy. As humans, we commonly understand the concept of a parasite as a negative one that suggests someone or something which benefits at our expense. However , French philosopher Michel Serres had a different view of the parasite. According to him, the parasite is based on relationships between different entities, and there is often noise in these relationships. Serres refers to biologist Henri Atlan, who has argued that said noise forces the system to reorganize itself in a way that incorporates the noise into the complex system. The idea of noise as an integrated part of the system is quite far from today’s thought processes with the develop-ment of bio/ technology that typically aims to be noiseless and error-free and have aesthetically attractive results. Therefore, although parasites are often associated with terms such as inhospitable, undesirable, and disgusting and are seen to be located outside of art and technology, in this paper, we argue that the concept of something parasitical is tightly inter-twined with our contemporary biotechnical lives. The article relates Serres’ parasitic thinking to an artistic mediation of the biological parasite: the tick.
Polititcs of the Machines 2021 - Rogue Research Conference Proceedings, 2021
This article investigates two technology- and science-based methods and their potentiality and us... more This article investigates two technology- and science-based methods and their potentiality and use in contemporary art, specifically in image-making traditions. Firstly, the article will briefly present digital image creation processes involving Artificial Intelligence (Al) and GANs, and secondly it will introduce a possibility for science-based image modification using a lab-based CRISPR-Cas9 system. Both methods have become available for artistic use with an increase in DIV and open science developments. These scientific methods impact the produced result aesthetically, according to the context and through associations. The question this paper focuses on is what kind of images are created with these methods? How is the meaning conveyed with these types of images? And what is the artistic point of making images with such technology-based processes?
INTRO A jester, a narr, or a fool is a historical figure mainly associated with medieval Europe, ... more INTRO A jester, a narr, or a fool is a historical figure mainly associated with medieval Europe, although it has a longer history worldwide. The well-known tradition in medieval royal courts was to employ entertainers, among them a court jester. He was a distinctly dressed figure who was allowed to speak controversial issues and even make fun of the king. It was believed that the sharp eye and the tongue of a jester disguised in humor were often pointing to ‘the truth’ in the issues concerned. The jester was an entertainer but also an adviser and a critic of the world. An appreciated figure with low social status, but more freedom to speak out on problematic issues.
One of the typical binaries existing in western society is the division between natural and artif... more One of the typical binaries existing in western society is the division between natural and artificial. But similarly biological and technological are often seen as oppositions. In today’s world, it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between naturalbiological entities from artificially constructed ones with human cognitive abilities. This is due to the development of biotechnological methods to manipulate or construct new kinds of living organisms that are purposely designed by humans. Likewise, artificial intelligence-systems are being developed to become more autonomous and life-like with their sensing and learning abilities. These developments point out that our perceptions of the concepts of natural and artificial are radically changing. Traditionally natural is understood as something coming from nature and not made or caused by humans; and artificial is understood as the opposite – not natural, but produced, created or caused by
In this paper, we describe TRATTI, an art piece that can clearly be characterized as Device Art. ... more In this paper, we describe TRATTI, an art piece that can clearly be characterized as Device Art. It is a funnel shaped bullhorn to be worn in front of the belly. Children can walk around with the TRATTI. First, they record their voice into the device. Then, they can point the TRATTI anywhere they want. The TRATTI constantly snaps images from its surroundings and plays back the recorded voice samples manipulated through the image, through the environment. TRATTI is technologically based on mobile phone technology and it reflects a number of key features of mobile phone technology. TRATTI is a loud and disturbing piece of real-time art, a very personal musical instrument playing the voice of the musician, according to her standpoint in the world
Through collaborative media arts practice we explore texture morphing soft robotics as an artisti... more Through collaborative media arts practice we explore texture morphing soft robotics as an artistic medium of expression. We present an installation, Homo Viridis, that features a soft robotic interface developed to mediate signals between a vascular plant and a human body. The exposition paper discusses how Homo Viridis stages a situation of hybridity where individual, more-than-human subjectivities are mentally and physically intertwined. In conclusion, the paper reflects on how connecting organisms through soft robotic interfaces can actualize visions of a novel being - a ‘posthuman entity’. We argue that such a being might be physically composed of organic and synthetic elements that come together, but that it can also exist as a conceptual persona that may initiate discussions on what humans can become.
2017 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI), Nov 1, 2017
Plants are very efficient computing machines. They are able to sense diverse environmental condit... more Plants are very efficient computing machines. They are able to sense diverse environmental conditions and quickly react through chemical and electrical signaling. In this paper, we present an interface between plants and machines (a cybernetic plant), with the goal of augmenting the capabilities of plants towards the creation of plant biosensors. We implement a data acquisition system able to stimulate the plant through different electrical signals, as well as record the electrical activity of plants in response to changing electrical stimulations, light conditions, and chemicals. The results serve as a proof of concept that sensing capabilities of plants are a viable option for the development of plant bio-machines. Different future scenarios (some speculative) are discussed. The work herein is carried out as a collaboration between the EU project Flora Robotica and the EU project NASCENCE.
Artificial life simulations are an important tool in the study of ecological phenomena that can b... more Artificial life simulations are an important tool in the study of ecological phenomena that can be difficult to examine directly in natural environments. Recent work has established the soundscape as an ecologically important resource and it has been proposed that the differentiation of animal vocalizations within a soundscape is driven by the imperative of intraspecies communication. The experiments in this paper test that hypothesis in a simulated soundscape in order to verify the feasibility of intraspecies communication as a driver of acoustic niche differentiation. The impact of intraspecies communication is found to be a significant factor in the division of a soundscape's frequency spectrum when compared to simulations where the need to identify signals from conspecifics does not drive the evolution of signalling. The method of simulating the effects of interspecies interactions on the soundscape is positioned as a tool for developing artificial life agents that can inhabit and interact with physical ecosystems and soundscapes.
This dissertation explores the use of irony in networked wearable technology art as a strategy to... more This dissertation explores the use of irony in networked wearable technology art as a strategy to emphasise the complexity of conjunction between techno-organic human and the techno-organic world.
The research addresses the relationship between technologically enhanced human and networked hybrid environment, and speculates on the impact of technological enhancements to the subjective construction of Umwelt through ironic interventions. The project employs both artistic practice and critical theory.
The practice-based part of the dissertation is comprised of three wearable technology artworks produced during the study. These concrete artefacts employ irony as a means to expose the techno-organic relationship between humans and their environment under scrutiny. The works highlight the significance of technological modifications of the human for the formation of subjective worldview in an everyday hybrid environment.
The theoretical part navigates between the fields of art, design, technology, science and cultural studies concerning the impact of technology and networks on human experience and perception of the world.
In the background of this research is biologist Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of the Umwelt, which is a subjective perception created by an organism through its active engagement with the everyday living environment. This dissertation focuses on the Umwelt that is formed in an interaction between hybrid environment and the technologically enhanced human, the Hybronaut.
Hybrid environment is a physical reality merged with technologically enabled virtual reality. The Hybronaut is an artistic strategy developed during the research based on four elements: wearable technology, network ability, irony and contextualised experience for the public.
Irony is one of the prominent characteristics of the Hybronaut. Irony functions as a way to produce multiple paradoxical perspectives that enable a critical inquiry into our subjective construction of Umwelt. The research indicates that ironic networked wearable technology art presents an opportunity to re-examine our perception concerning the human and his environment.
--------------------------
The dissertation was submitted and approved 2012.
The main supervisor was Professor Roy Ascott and the research was done within the Planetary Collegium, which was the first PhD program focused on art, technology and science cross-overs.
-------------------------
Digital technology and culture continue to radically change the conditions for art’s production, ... more Digital technology and culture continue to radically change the conditions for art’s production, distribution, interfaces, and forms. With a point of departure in the book Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art (Intellect, 2019) that examines how digital technology and culture influence contemporary art, this conversation addresses the topic of ‘art’s new making’ by asking: What drives creative artistic pursuits today? How can we understand art’s ecologies when involved in making the ‘new’? What might the pursuit of art’s ‘new’ making promise, demonstrate, and feed forward?
Participants of this conversation include (in order of response) Laura Beloff, Elizabeth Jochum, Saara Ekström, Morten Søndergaard and Mette-Marie Zacher Sørensen. It is initiated and introduced by Tanya Ravn Ag and edited by Vanina Saracino.
The author’s artistic experiment The Hearing Test focuses on detection
of high frequency clicking... more The author’s artistic experiment The Hearing Test focuses on detection of high frequency clicking sounds that are emitted by the tips of plants’ roots. Scientists have claimed that plants’ roots produce high frequency clicks between 20 and 300 kHz by bursting air bubbles. But while the phenomenon has been described, its cause remains unexplained. This lack of knowledge opens up possibilities for multiple interpretations and invites experimental approaches as well as speculation concerning plant intelligence, the role of species-specific hearing and sound as evidence. The article is an extended reflection on the experiment.
In today's world, sound occupies an ever-increasing area of cultural and artistic production; how... more In today's world, sound occupies an ever-increasing area of cultural and artistic production; however, beyond popular music, other sonic modalities are still on the fringe of institutional and cultural political awareness. This special issue aims to investigate those silent agencies that resonate in the contemporary art world and which are already structuring the modalities of sound in art and curating. Silent agencies refers specifically to the effects of crisis, and the artistic modalities operating with those effects. Moreover, it refers to a philosophical inquiry into the epistemological situation of crisis, and the 'speculative' situation of 'a world without humans'. Bruno Latour writes about the embarrassing silence from researchers on the topic of crisis, and the need to imagine and express different paths than the existing ones (Latour 2017, p. 67). In this vein, we want to investigate: How may curatorial and artistic structures of current behaviour be operationalized into real transformations of institutional and cultural political behavior? With this in mind we frame the selection of articles for this special issue. These articles address the situation and challenge silent agencies from different perspectives. With these perspectives we argue that it is possible to detect a wider set of problems facing curatorial work in the field of sound practices, ranging from the environmental and institutional impact of technological mediation, to reflecting on ways in which embodied and situated knowledge may emerge from artistic work beyond the conventional enframings of mainstream digital aesthetics and cultural industry. The framing of this article is additionally toned with the exceptional situation of the pandemic that put the world on hold in the spring of 2020, and which has affected our everyday lives and will continue to shift our perspectives of the world in years to come. We are currently living through an era that is impacted by the spread of the Covid-19 virus, which has forced people into isolation and made the planet slow down. The recent weeks spent in quarantine have affected the local environment to become noticeably quieter; there is less traffic, less planes, and less background noise in general. At the same time, environmentalists and biologists have made us aware of the ways in which strongly human-produced sounds impact e.g. birds in urban areas, and how the Covid-19 situation has resulted in an unusual period of heightened activities within urban non-human ecologies during these past months. It is important to realize that this is a global-scale situation, which is happening more or less at the same time in different parts of the world. We share this moment and situation with the rest of the planet, though different societies cope differently within it.
In this article forest is chosen as a case study that is to a large degree perceived with a Finni... more In this article forest is chosen as a case study that is to a large degree perceived with a Finnish and Nordic perspective, and mainly in the context of art. It appears timely to address the forest and its meaning today (2018-19) when the Finnish government is pushing for an increase in logging, while simultaneously there is an on-going public debate about the importance of carbon sink, that forests offer and which is an important factor in the challenges brought forth by climate change . Forest is used in the article for exemplifying technological transformations concerning the natural environment – especially, the present and the future state of natural environment where different actors and aspects are increasingly merged to form new types of organisms and systems in which technological and biological elements have become one. The proposed concept, hybrid ecology, is developed within the arts; it refers to artworks and art practices that deal with the environment and biological matter. In these works, the natural environment is no longer the romantic ideal of ‘nature’ or wilderness, but an ecology that is a complex aggregate of biological and technological parts in a world accented with socio-economic interests. The selection of artworks, which are described in the article are considered as antennas of sorts for changing environmental and societal conditions, as well as experiments in hybrid ecology. Additionally to the core focus on forest and its human-made technological transformation, there are two intertwined concepts that play a role in the formation of hybrid ecology; wilderness or wildness is an aspect that is being re-evaluated in today’s world, and ecology that is used as a framework and model that connects different actors, processes, conditions, dependencies, things and situations. These concepts form a base for the concept of hybrid ecology, which poses questions on our current situation, in which technological and rational thinking dominates natural environment to an increasing degree. The artworks presented in the article do not solely deal with a natural environment per se, but reference a larger paradigm concerning the concept of ecology and the current understanding of the term.
This article is written from the perspective of an art practitioner in experimental arts with an interest in investigating the ways in which technology and scientific development impact our understanding of the natural environment, relations to non-humans, and the human-nature relationships which emerge from these influences. This relates closely to the central theme in the author's artistic practice during the last two decades: the merger of technological and biological matter – initially focusing on the phenomenon in human enhancement, and more recently, on convergence of natural environment with technology and its technological framing imposed by humans .
The boundary between wet and dry is blurring and similarly the expectations towards solid versus ... more The boundary between wet and dry is blurring and similarly the expectations towards solid versus soft objects and machines are being redefined. These developments are impacted by many different factors ranging from developments in biotechnology and life science to innovation in new materials and their behavior, among various other areas. Also, in the humanities and in the arts there has recently been increasing interests towards material agencies and processes that are based on inorganic matter or executed by non-human organisms.
The paper has a focus on liquids and flows. The author sees that there is a correlation between our visible inability to tackle current environmental, climatic and societal challenges, and contemporary artistic approaches that are focused on fluids. These experiments can be characterized as fluid, temporal and continuously evolving in their exploration across science, technology, art and liquid matter.
In the last two decades, we have witnessed a gradual shift observable in the approaches of artist... more In the last two decades, we have witnessed a gradual shift observable in the approaches of artists working with technology. This shift can be characterized as moving from the digital and virtual realm towards the physical world. More recently, this can be seen in terms of an inclusion of the biological realm into experiments and artworks that address a wide range of technological developments and their impact on society. Many of the artists working in this field – broadly termed ‘art and science’ – have a background in digital arts. This chapter traces specifically the emerging inclusion of the biological realm into the technology-based arts as a trajectory towards which the field of digital art appears to be developing.
Given that readers of this chapter probably have general knowledge about digital and technology-based art as an existing field, it focuses primarily on artistic interests that involve biological organisms and living matter in combination with technology. The trajectory is introduced through the actors and milestones in the development of Nordic new media art. It continues with examples of Nordic works, artists and active organizers who are working with a combination of digital and biological matter. The chapter divides the artistic examples into works that focus on the environment and those that focus on humans as biological organisms. Underlying the chapter is my first-hand experience in the Nordic development of new media art and my recent interest in, specifically, biological matter with digital technology. This development has two historical predecessors: one is based on the traditions of art and technology; the other is based on the traditions of landscape art and earth works. The chapter addresses our evolving understanding of concepts such as real, natural and artificial, as well as biological and technological.
While humanities are today calling for re-evaluation of the anthropocentric worldview and affecti... more While humanities are today calling for re-evaluation of the anthropocentric worldview and affection towards the non-humans, there crawls a small creature in the forests among other animals that evokes feelings of hatred and disgust in humans. The recent decades have witnessed an environmental change in the increase of tick populations and the expansion of tick-infested areas that is attributed to the continuous warming of our climate. This has led to a heightened awareness of ticks and tick-borne diseases that can be contracted by humans. It has also become evident that we need to learn to live with this pervasive proximity to increasing numbers of ticks, this situation will require new attitudes and adaptations from us that will potentially change our behaviors and routines. The article reports on an ongoing artistic research project that investigates relations between ticks and humans from a perspective where artistic research meets with scientific research. It presents a contradicting case, in which a disgust and hatred towards ticks is reflected from an evolutionary co-agency perspective that claims that without our parasites-we, humans, would not be what we are today.
This book takes you through and beyond a map of Nordic artistic experiments, conceptual reconfigu... more This book takes you through and beyond a map of Nordic artistic experiments, conceptual reconfigurations and new modes of artistic agency.
Offering an in-depth exploration of art’s contingent evolution with technology and digital culture, this book goes far beyond familiar depictions of ‘Nordic aesthetics’ in art. It explores art’s role and inquiries in response to changing sociopolitical realities in the welfare state and in the wider world. First-hand perspectives of pioneering and pivotal artists form the basis of chapters penned by leading scholars and curators of Nordic art. Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art recasts the Nordic art context in an expanding digital condition and reveals horizontal ways to write its histories.
Chapters by Tanya Toft Ag, Jamie Allen, Laura Beloff, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Bernhard Garnicnig, Elizabeth Jochum, Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen, Jens Tang Kristensen, Mads Dejbjerg Lind, Björn Norberg, Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir, Jøran Rudi, Lorella Scacco, Morten Søndergaard, Mette-Marie Zacher Sørensen, and Stahl Stenslie.
Artist testimonials by Katja Aglert, Matti Aikio, Hrund Atladóttir, AUJIK (Stefan Larsson), Laura Beloff, Bombina Bombast (Emma Bexell and Stefan Stanisic), Niels Bonde, Jesper Carlsen, A K Dolven, Tor Jørgen van Eijk, Aberto Frigo, Søren Thilo, Funder, HC Gilje, Goto80 (Anders Carlsson), Marie Munk Hartwig, Bjørn Erik Haugen, Ilpo Heikkinen, Marianne Heske, Hanna Husberg, IC-98 (Patrik Söderlund and Visa Suonpää), Illutron (Nicolas Padfield and Mads Høbye), Marie Kølbæk Iversen, Ewa Jacobsson, Mogens Jacobsen, Johan Knattrup Jensen, Vibeke Jensen, Lisa Jevbratt, Erik Johansson, Arijana Kajfes, Tove Kjellmark, Kollision, Jette Gejl Kristensen, Kristina Kvalvik, Marita Liulia, Lundahl & Seitl (Christer Lundahl & Martina Seitl), Anastasios Logothetis, Dark Matters, Mia Makela, Teemu Mäki, Elisabeth Molin, Tone Myskja, N55, Nuleinn (Rine Rodin & Magga Ploder), Marjatta Oja, Erik Parr, Andrew Gryf Paterson, Pink Twins (Juha Vehviläinen & Vesa Vehviläinen), Tuomo Rainio, Juan Duarte Regino, Jacob Remin, Stian Remvik, Carl-Johan Rosén, Petri Ruikka, Anne Katrine Senstad, Joonas Siren, Mats Jørgen Sivertsen, Jacek Smolicki, Lisa Strömbeck, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Tina Tarpgaard (recoil performance group), Hanne Lise Thomsen, Björk Viggósdóttir, Magnus Wassborg, Jana Winderen, Kristoffer Ørum.
Tanya Toft Ag (editor) is a curator and scholar specializing in media and digital art and its urban implications.
Published by Intellect 2019, distributed by Chicago University Press and John Wiley & Sons.
ISBN 9781783209484
Cover image: Jana Winderen, Jana Winderen (2014). Krísuvik, Iceland. Photo by Finnbogi Pétursson. Courtesy of the artist.
The following pages showcase artistic research outcomes through artefacts, physical artworks, and... more The following pages showcase artistic research outcomes through artefacts, physical artworks, and practice-based projects from the past two decades. These works are the result of my extensive investigations into human enhancement and the relationship between humans, technology, and the environment within technological frameworks. The projects span categories such as wearables and wearable technology, art and technology, critical and speculative design, and art and science. The selection primarily covers projects from the past 20 years of my 35+ year career, all of which have been publicly exhibited-often in art museums, galleries or art events. These projects have also been discussed and contextualized in my written articles, public lectures, and have been cited by other scholars. Over the last two decades, I've also been deeply engaged in academia, managing research projects, teaching, leading doctoral programs, and initiating conferences, lectures, and various collaborations.
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Papers by Laura Beloff
art practices are still fairly little discussed among art
professionals such as artists, curators, and scholars, this article
sheds light on a complex and urgent problem that involves the
entire art world with its developed traditions and structures.
However, due to the scale of this issue, the authors have limited
the focus of this article to the mobility of artworks, artists, and
the wider public.
Simultaneously as pointing critically to the extensive
mobility and travelling patterns commenced by the wide
international art world, the article asks about the role and
responsibility of an artist in this and speculates on what ways
artworks and their formats can have an impact. The article
provides insights into a selection of existing art genres, their
formats, delivery, and methods.
The first part introduces the concept of art tourism with
examples of its impact on environmental sustainability. The
latter part presents a selection of artworks from the past and
present, which, perhaps unintentionally, address or involve
sustainability issues through innovative and alternative
approaches related to the presentation and accessibility of the
artworks. The selection of artworks in the article intends to
constitute a starting point for reflections on the tensions and
contradictions of what we define as sustainable within the arts.
The article maps out existing and historical approaches for
presenting art, which seem not to require travel to be able to see
or visit the works. In other words, rather than aiming to provide
concrete solutions for the current environmental situation or to
analyse in-depth the presented individual artworks and their
‘correctness’ or supposed impact on the climate crisis, this
article provides an inspirational selection of genres, formats,
and methods, which have been emerging throughout the
decades with alternative strategies. In our perspective, these
examples and methods can be considered as models for future
developments in the arts that take sustainability issues into
account.
technology that typically aims to be noiseless and error-free and have aesthetically attractive results.
Therefore, although parasites are often associated with terms such as inhospitable, undesirable, and disgusting and are seen to be located outside of art and technology, in this paper, we argue that the concept of something parasitical is tightly inter-twined with our contemporary biotechnical lives. The article relates Serres’ parasitic thinking to an artistic mediation of the biological parasite: the tick.
These scientific methods impact the produced result aesthetically, according to the context and through associations. The question this paper focuses on is what kind of images are created with these methods? How is the meaning conveyed with these types of images? And what is the artistic point of making images with such technology-based processes?
The research addresses the relationship between technologically enhanced human and networked hybrid environment, and speculates on the impact of technological enhancements to the subjective construction of Umwelt through ironic interventions. The project employs both artistic practice and critical theory.
The practice-based part of the dissertation is comprised of three wearable technology artworks produced during the study. These concrete artefacts employ irony as a means to expose the techno-organic relationship between humans and their environment under scrutiny. The works highlight the significance of technological modifications of the human for the formation of subjective worldview in an everyday hybrid environment.
The theoretical part navigates between the fields of art, design, technology, science and cultural studies concerning the impact of technology and networks on human experience and perception of the world.
In the background of this research is biologist Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of the Umwelt, which is a subjective perception created by an organism through its active engagement with the everyday living environment. This dissertation focuses on the Umwelt that is formed in an interaction between hybrid environment and the technologically enhanced human, the Hybronaut.
Hybrid environment is a physical reality merged with technologically enabled virtual reality. The Hybronaut is an artistic strategy developed during the research based on four elements: wearable technology, network ability, irony and contextualised experience for the public.
Irony is one of the prominent characteristics of the Hybronaut. Irony functions as a way to produce multiple paradoxical perspectives that enable a critical inquiry into our subjective construction of Umwelt. The research indicates that ironic networked wearable technology art presents an opportunity to re-examine our perception concerning the human and his environment.
--------------------------
The dissertation was submitted and approved 2012.
The main supervisor was Professor Roy Ascott and the research was done within the Planetary Collegium, which was the first PhD program focused on art, technology and science cross-overs.
-------------------------
Participants of this conversation include (in order of response) Laura Beloff, Elizabeth Jochum, Saara Ekström, Morten Søndergaard and Mette-Marie Zacher Sørensen. It is initiated and introduced by Tanya Ravn Ag and edited by Vanina Saracino.
of high frequency clicking sounds that are emitted by the tips of plants’
roots. Scientists have claimed that plants’ roots produce high frequency
clicks between 20 and 300 kHz by bursting air bubbles. But while the
phenomenon has been described, its cause remains unexplained. This
lack of knowledge opens up possibilities for multiple interpretations and
invites experimental approaches as well as speculation concerning plant
intelligence, the role of species-specific hearing and sound as evidence.
The article is an extended reflection on the experiment.
It appears timely to address the forest and its meaning today (2018-19) when the Finnish government is pushing for an increase in logging, while simultaneously there is an on-going public debate about the importance of carbon sink, that forests offer and which is an important factor in the challenges brought forth by climate change .
Forest is used in the article for exemplifying technological transformations concerning the natural environment – especially, the present and the future state of natural environment where different actors and aspects are increasingly merged to form new types of organisms and systems in which technological and biological elements have become one. The proposed concept, hybrid ecology, is developed within the arts; it refers to artworks and art practices that deal with the environment and biological matter. In these works, the natural environment is no longer the romantic ideal of ‘nature’ or wilderness, but an ecology that is a complex aggregate of biological and technological parts in a world accented with socio-economic interests. The selection of artworks, which are described in the article are considered as antennas of sorts for changing environmental and societal conditions, as well as experiments in hybrid ecology.
Additionally to the core focus on forest and its human-made technological transformation, there are two intertwined concepts that play a role in the formation of hybrid ecology; wilderness or wildness is an aspect that is being re-evaluated in today’s world, and ecology that is used as a framework and model that connects different actors, processes, conditions, dependencies, things and situations. These concepts form a base for the concept of hybrid ecology, which poses questions on our current situation, in which technological and rational thinking dominates natural environment to an increasing degree. The artworks presented in the article do not solely deal with a natural environment per se, but reference a larger paradigm concerning the concept of ecology and the current understanding of the term.
This article is written from the perspective of an art practitioner in experimental arts with an interest in investigating the ways in which technology and scientific development impact our understanding of the natural environment, relations to non-humans, and the human-nature relationships which emerge from these influences. This relates closely to the central theme in the author's artistic practice during the last two decades: the merger of technological and biological matter – initially focusing on the phenomenon in human enhancement, and more recently, on convergence of natural environment with technology and its technological framing imposed by humans .
The paper has a focus on liquids and flows. The author sees that there is a correlation between our visible inability to tackle current environmental, climatic and societal challenges, and contemporary artistic approaches that are focused on fluids. These experiments can be characterized as fluid, temporal and continuously evolving in their exploration across science, technology, art and liquid matter.
Given that readers of this chapter probably have general knowledge about digital and technology-based art as an existing field, it focuses primarily on artistic interests that involve biological organisms and living matter in combination with technology. The trajectory is introduced through the actors and milestones in the development of Nordic new media art. It continues with examples of Nordic works, artists and active organizers who are working with a combination of digital and biological matter. The chapter divides the artistic examples into works that focus on the environment and those that focus on humans as biological organisms. Underlying the chapter is my first-hand experience in the Nordic development of new media art and my recent interest in, specifically, biological matter with digital technology. This development has two historical predecessors: one is based on the traditions of art and technology; the other is based on the traditions of landscape art and earth works. The chapter addresses our evolving understanding of concepts such as real, natural and artificial, as well as biological and technological.
art practices are still fairly little discussed among art
professionals such as artists, curators, and scholars, this article
sheds light on a complex and urgent problem that involves the
entire art world with its developed traditions and structures.
However, due to the scale of this issue, the authors have limited
the focus of this article to the mobility of artworks, artists, and
the wider public.
Simultaneously as pointing critically to the extensive
mobility and travelling patterns commenced by the wide
international art world, the article asks about the role and
responsibility of an artist in this and speculates on what ways
artworks and their formats can have an impact. The article
provides insights into a selection of existing art genres, their
formats, delivery, and methods.
The first part introduces the concept of art tourism with
examples of its impact on environmental sustainability. The
latter part presents a selection of artworks from the past and
present, which, perhaps unintentionally, address or involve
sustainability issues through innovative and alternative
approaches related to the presentation and accessibility of the
artworks. The selection of artworks in the article intends to
constitute a starting point for reflections on the tensions and
contradictions of what we define as sustainable within the arts.
The article maps out existing and historical approaches for
presenting art, which seem not to require travel to be able to see
or visit the works. In other words, rather than aiming to provide
concrete solutions for the current environmental situation or to
analyse in-depth the presented individual artworks and their
‘correctness’ or supposed impact on the climate crisis, this
article provides an inspirational selection of genres, formats,
and methods, which have been emerging throughout the
decades with alternative strategies. In our perspective, these
examples and methods can be considered as models for future
developments in the arts that take sustainability issues into
account.
technology that typically aims to be noiseless and error-free and have aesthetically attractive results.
Therefore, although parasites are often associated with terms such as inhospitable, undesirable, and disgusting and are seen to be located outside of art and technology, in this paper, we argue that the concept of something parasitical is tightly inter-twined with our contemporary biotechnical lives. The article relates Serres’ parasitic thinking to an artistic mediation of the biological parasite: the tick.
These scientific methods impact the produced result aesthetically, according to the context and through associations. The question this paper focuses on is what kind of images are created with these methods? How is the meaning conveyed with these types of images? And what is the artistic point of making images with such technology-based processes?
The research addresses the relationship between technologically enhanced human and networked hybrid environment, and speculates on the impact of technological enhancements to the subjective construction of Umwelt through ironic interventions. The project employs both artistic practice and critical theory.
The practice-based part of the dissertation is comprised of three wearable technology artworks produced during the study. These concrete artefacts employ irony as a means to expose the techno-organic relationship between humans and their environment under scrutiny. The works highlight the significance of technological modifications of the human for the formation of subjective worldview in an everyday hybrid environment.
The theoretical part navigates between the fields of art, design, technology, science and cultural studies concerning the impact of technology and networks on human experience and perception of the world.
In the background of this research is biologist Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of the Umwelt, which is a subjective perception created by an organism through its active engagement with the everyday living environment. This dissertation focuses on the Umwelt that is formed in an interaction between hybrid environment and the technologically enhanced human, the Hybronaut.
Hybrid environment is a physical reality merged with technologically enabled virtual reality. The Hybronaut is an artistic strategy developed during the research based on four elements: wearable technology, network ability, irony and contextualised experience for the public.
Irony is one of the prominent characteristics of the Hybronaut. Irony functions as a way to produce multiple paradoxical perspectives that enable a critical inquiry into our subjective construction of Umwelt. The research indicates that ironic networked wearable technology art presents an opportunity to re-examine our perception concerning the human and his environment.
--------------------------
The dissertation was submitted and approved 2012.
The main supervisor was Professor Roy Ascott and the research was done within the Planetary Collegium, which was the first PhD program focused on art, technology and science cross-overs.
-------------------------
Participants of this conversation include (in order of response) Laura Beloff, Elizabeth Jochum, Saara Ekström, Morten Søndergaard and Mette-Marie Zacher Sørensen. It is initiated and introduced by Tanya Ravn Ag and edited by Vanina Saracino.
of high frequency clicking sounds that are emitted by the tips of plants’
roots. Scientists have claimed that plants’ roots produce high frequency
clicks between 20 and 300 kHz by bursting air bubbles. But while the
phenomenon has been described, its cause remains unexplained. This
lack of knowledge opens up possibilities for multiple interpretations and
invites experimental approaches as well as speculation concerning plant
intelligence, the role of species-specific hearing and sound as evidence.
The article is an extended reflection on the experiment.
It appears timely to address the forest and its meaning today (2018-19) when the Finnish government is pushing for an increase in logging, while simultaneously there is an on-going public debate about the importance of carbon sink, that forests offer and which is an important factor in the challenges brought forth by climate change .
Forest is used in the article for exemplifying technological transformations concerning the natural environment – especially, the present and the future state of natural environment where different actors and aspects are increasingly merged to form new types of organisms and systems in which technological and biological elements have become one. The proposed concept, hybrid ecology, is developed within the arts; it refers to artworks and art practices that deal with the environment and biological matter. In these works, the natural environment is no longer the romantic ideal of ‘nature’ or wilderness, but an ecology that is a complex aggregate of biological and technological parts in a world accented with socio-economic interests. The selection of artworks, which are described in the article are considered as antennas of sorts for changing environmental and societal conditions, as well as experiments in hybrid ecology.
Additionally to the core focus on forest and its human-made technological transformation, there are two intertwined concepts that play a role in the formation of hybrid ecology; wilderness or wildness is an aspect that is being re-evaluated in today’s world, and ecology that is used as a framework and model that connects different actors, processes, conditions, dependencies, things and situations. These concepts form a base for the concept of hybrid ecology, which poses questions on our current situation, in which technological and rational thinking dominates natural environment to an increasing degree. The artworks presented in the article do not solely deal with a natural environment per se, but reference a larger paradigm concerning the concept of ecology and the current understanding of the term.
This article is written from the perspective of an art practitioner in experimental arts with an interest in investigating the ways in which technology and scientific development impact our understanding of the natural environment, relations to non-humans, and the human-nature relationships which emerge from these influences. This relates closely to the central theme in the author's artistic practice during the last two decades: the merger of technological and biological matter – initially focusing on the phenomenon in human enhancement, and more recently, on convergence of natural environment with technology and its technological framing imposed by humans .
The paper has a focus on liquids and flows. The author sees that there is a correlation between our visible inability to tackle current environmental, climatic and societal challenges, and contemporary artistic approaches that are focused on fluids. These experiments can be characterized as fluid, temporal and continuously evolving in their exploration across science, technology, art and liquid matter.
Given that readers of this chapter probably have general knowledge about digital and technology-based art as an existing field, it focuses primarily on artistic interests that involve biological organisms and living matter in combination with technology. The trajectory is introduced through the actors and milestones in the development of Nordic new media art. It continues with examples of Nordic works, artists and active organizers who are working with a combination of digital and biological matter. The chapter divides the artistic examples into works that focus on the environment and those that focus on humans as biological organisms. Underlying the chapter is my first-hand experience in the Nordic development of new media art and my recent interest in, specifically, biological matter with digital technology. This development has two historical predecessors: one is based on the traditions of art and technology; the other is based on the traditions of landscape art and earth works. The chapter addresses our evolving understanding of concepts such as real, natural and artificial, as well as biological and technological.
Offering an in-depth exploration of art’s contingent evolution with technology and digital culture, this book goes far beyond familiar depictions of ‘Nordic aesthetics’ in art. It explores art’s role and inquiries in response to changing sociopolitical realities in the welfare state and in the wider world. First-hand perspectives of pioneering and pivotal artists form the basis of chapters penned by leading scholars and curators of Nordic art. Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art recasts the Nordic art context in an expanding digital condition and reveals horizontal ways to write its histories.
Chapters by Tanya Toft Ag, Jamie Allen, Laura Beloff, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Bernhard Garnicnig, Elizabeth Jochum, Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen, Jens Tang Kristensen, Mads Dejbjerg Lind, Björn Norberg, Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir, Jøran Rudi, Lorella Scacco, Morten Søndergaard, Mette-Marie Zacher Sørensen, and Stahl Stenslie.
Artist testimonials by Katja Aglert, Matti Aikio, Hrund Atladóttir, AUJIK (Stefan Larsson), Laura Beloff, Bombina Bombast (Emma Bexell and Stefan Stanisic), Niels Bonde, Jesper Carlsen, A K Dolven, Tor Jørgen van Eijk, Aberto Frigo, Søren Thilo, Funder, HC Gilje, Goto80 (Anders Carlsson), Marie Munk Hartwig, Bjørn Erik Haugen, Ilpo Heikkinen, Marianne Heske, Hanna Husberg, IC-98 (Patrik Söderlund and Visa Suonpää), Illutron (Nicolas Padfield and Mads Høbye), Marie Kølbæk Iversen, Ewa Jacobsson, Mogens Jacobsen, Johan Knattrup Jensen, Vibeke Jensen, Lisa Jevbratt, Erik Johansson, Arijana Kajfes, Tove Kjellmark, Kollision, Jette Gejl Kristensen, Kristina Kvalvik, Marita Liulia, Lundahl & Seitl (Christer Lundahl & Martina Seitl), Anastasios Logothetis, Dark Matters, Mia Makela, Teemu Mäki, Elisabeth Molin, Tone Myskja, N55, Nuleinn (Rine Rodin & Magga Ploder), Marjatta Oja, Erik Parr, Andrew Gryf Paterson, Pink Twins (Juha Vehviläinen & Vesa Vehviläinen), Tuomo Rainio, Juan Duarte Regino, Jacob Remin, Stian Remvik, Carl-Johan Rosén, Petri Ruikka, Anne Katrine Senstad, Joonas Siren, Mats Jørgen Sivertsen, Jacek Smolicki, Lisa Strömbeck, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Tina Tarpgaard (recoil performance group), Hanne Lise Thomsen, Björk Viggósdóttir, Magnus Wassborg, Jana Winderen, Kristoffer Ørum.
Tanya Toft Ag (editor) is a curator and scholar specializing in media and digital art and its urban implications.
Published by Intellect 2019, distributed by Chicago University Press and John Wiley & Sons.
ISBN 9781783209484
Cover image: Jana Winderen, Jana Winderen (2014). Krísuvik, Iceland. Photo by Finnbogi Pétursson. Courtesy of the artist.