12-06-2023 09:00
UCM: Facultad de Geografía e Historia, Organizado por Departamento de Historia del Arte
MESA 2
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=914
La mesa “La actualidad del pensamiento de Bruno Latour: de la epistemología a la ecología política” se ha programado dentro del ciclo “Cultura en Mazarelos” de la Facultad de Filosofía de la USC y cuenta con las intervenciones de Jean-Marc Besse, director de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) y investigador du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Sandra Álvaro del departamento de Arte y Musicología de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Guillermo Rodríguez Alonso, investigador de a USC y Xavier de Donato decano de a Facultad de Filosofía de la USC.
Sandra Álvaro introducirá la relación del pensamiento de Bruno Latour con el arte contemporáneo a través de las tres exposiciones que este autor comisarió junto a Peter Weibel en el ZKM, atendiendo a la necesidad de una teoría estética acorde con los conceptos propuestos por el colectivo de pensadores ensamblados en estas exposiciones.
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=906
Sandra Alvaro. 2022. “Art, Eco-aesthetics and Cosmopolitics” at Rasa Smte, Jeans Hauser, Kristin Bergaust, Raitis Smits (Eds.) Green Revisited. Encountering Emerging Naturecultures in Art and Research. Acoustic Space, volume 19/ Renewable Futures, Issue 4. RIXC. pp: 217-236
Identifiers: ISSN: 1407-2858 ISBN: 978-9934-9119-0-3
Isabelle Stengers describes our time as catastrophic: the result of convergent crises affecting the global economy, the environment, and social cohesion. Facing these crises asks for the proposal of a new relationship between humans and their environment. Cosmopolitics – the made up of a heterogeneous space where decisions can be taken in the presence of those who will bear the consequences- is Stengers’ proposal towards this new relation beyond the human exceptionalism of the Anthropocene. Accordingly, surmounting the current devastation requires engaging pragmatically in the events and activating collective creation towards alternative ways of life. This text characterizes present-day ecological art projects from the standpoint of eco-aesthetics or the understanding of artistic production as an experimental endeavour, the assemblage of the environment, humans, technologies, humanistic and scientific knowledge into experienceable settings to make feel and act in the complex interaction between systems that sustain life on our planet. Furthermore, it addresses eco-aesthetics contribution to shifting from biopolitics to cosmopolitics.
Keywords: Eco-aesthetics, Anthropocene, posthumanism, biopolitics, Cosmopolitics
Based on the Lecture given at The ECODATA- ECOMEDIA- ECOAESTHETICS Openfields Conference 2020
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=890
Alvaro, S. (2022). Practiced, Conceived and Lived space in the Postdigital City. Estoa. Revista De La Facultad De Arquitectura Y Urbanismo De La Universidad De Cuenca, 11(22). Recuperado a partir de https://publicaciones.ucuenca.edu.ec/ojs/index.php/estoa/article/view/3950
Abstract:
The pandemic has highlighted the fast transmission of needs, goods and
ideas that sustain the functionality of our globalised, networked world.
At the same time, it has highlighted the resilience and unbreakability of
this network when transporting undesirable events such as fake news or a virus.
Henceforth, this situation has forced us to rethink how we plan our inhabited
space. Since the inception of ubiquitous computing, the city has mutated under a
new technologically mediated functionalism, overlaid by the platforms of a global
and highly relational system that is submitting space to the logic of computing.
Fruit of previous doctoral research, this article reviews the transformations
leading to the constitution of this technologically mediated urban space and
analyses them by applying Lefebvre’s Unitarian Theory of Space. The objective is
to unveil the challenges of the postdigital urban space and present projects that
point towards alternative possibilities for urban planning.
Keywords: postdigital; new urbanism; ubiquitous computing; Lefebvre; digital art.
Resumen:
La pandemia provocada por el covid-19 ha puesto de manifiesto cómo la
funcionalidad del mundo globalizado se sustenta en la rápida transmisión
de bienes, necesidades e ideas a través de una densa red de conexiones, así
como la resiliencia e inquebrantabilidad de esta red cuando transporta eventos
indeseables, como pueden ser las noticias falsas o un virus. Esta situación nos
fuerza a replantearnos cómo hemos planificado el espacio urbano. Desde la
aparición de la computación ubicua, la ciudad se ha visto transformada por
un funcionalismo tecnológicamente mediado, que sobreimpuesto por las
plataformas de un sistema global y altamente relacional, está sometiendo el
espacio a la lógica de la computación. Fruto de una investigación doctoral previa,
este texto revisa las transformaciones que han llevado a la constitución de este
espacio urbano global y tecnológicamente mediado y las analiza aplicando la
Teoría Unitaria del Espacio de Lefebvre. El objetivo de este análisis es desvelar
los múltiples problemas que conlleva este espacio Postdigital y al mismo tiempo
exponer proyectos que apuntan a posibilidades alternativas para el planeamiento
urbano.
Palabras clave: postdigital; nuevo urbanismo; computación ubicua; Lefebvre; arte
digital.
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=885
Interface Cultures lädt zum zweitägigen Gastworkshop von Sandra Alvaro, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
http://interface.ufg.ac.at/blog/sandra-alvaro/
Short intro
“Interactive Art and Posthuman thought” is a theoretical workshop aimed to introduce the students to the development of this current of thought and the entanglements between art science, computation and politics that accompanied its evolution.
The workshop consists of two sessions, one introductory theoretical and a second practice-based in which students will discuss previously facilitated texts and propose their art examples. Participation and open discussion are welcomed in both sessions.
“The System must not only be in perpetual heterogeneity, it must also be an heterogènesis”
Deleuze,Two regimes of madness : texts and interviews, 1975-1995
Abstract
The Anthropocene, the role information technologies play in society and culture, and eurocentrism conforms the subjects at the core of contemporary humanistic research and art practice, which addresses them in a rising number of developing projects, grouped under labels as eco-aesthetics, techno-ecology, art and science, speculative fiction, post-anthropocentrism, Postdigital, critical making, post-colonialism, and so on. These works share concepts, references, and a new relation of the human with its environment that denounces human exceptionalism and the traditional distinctions -between nature-culture, body-mind, time-space, sciences-humanities- that characterized Modern thought. The same critic and concepts are developing in the work of contemporary thinkers that under the influence of post-structuralist thinkers -notably Foucault and Deleuze – surpasses the traditional division of disciplines and consider the participation of complex entanglements between science, technology, humanities, art and politics in the production of the contemporaneous subjects and its environment.
The work by Haraway, Stengers, and Latour departed from science studies to encounter with a rising number of authors in the production of a philosophical thought in which science intersects with feminism ( Donna Haraway, Isabelle Stengers, Elizabeth Grosz, Elizabeth Povinelli), digital humanities (Katherine Hayles), anthropology (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing) Sociology (Myra J Hird), economics (Jason W. Moore ), politics (Jane Bennett), post-colonialism (Simone Bignall) and Philosophy (Claire Colebrook, Rosi Braidotti). Inside this schema of thought, art appears as a transversal, postmedial and material-based research engaged in the process of worlding and with a political and ethical function.
This workshop consists of three parts: First, the introduction to the evolution of posthuman thought focusing on the influence of science (systems theory, ecology and the theory of evolution) and interactive art. Here, we will address the bibliography and main concepts of some of the already mentioned theorists. Second, the analysis and discussion of posthumanist texts related to interactive artworks. Here, we will highlight the concepts and functions attributed to art and its relationship with Deleuze’s art definition. Third, we will comment and discuss texts – from other fields than philosophy -, which had contributed to the development of the concepts and practices previously analyzed.
Workshop 1 (Friday, 11 March, from 11:00 to 16:00h)
11:00– 13:00 h. Posthuman thought:
• Systems Theory, radical theory of evolution, poststructuralism and the assemblage of humans and non-humans
• Geopower, the Inhuman and the possibility of a post-anthropocentric future
(introduction to posthumanism’s authors and concepts)
13:00 – 13:30h. (lunch break)
13:30 – 16:00 Reviewing interactive art through the comments and references of posthumanist thinkers
(Deleuze’s definition of art and its posthumanist interpretation)
• Workshop 2 (Saturday, 12 March, from 11:00 to 16:00h)
11:00 – 13:00 Open discussion of previously proposed texts relating to science-fiction, aesthetics, ethics, radical epistemologies, postcolonialism, postcapitalism and the Anthropocene.
(The students will relate the proposed texts with concepts and art practices previously discussed)
13:00 -13:30h (lunch break)
13:30 – 16:00h -Open discussion continuation
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=854
https://festival2021.rixc.org/
Aesthetics is derived from the Greek term aisthetikos, meaning “aesthetics, sensitive, sentient, about sense perception”. First considered as the critic of taste [Baumgarten, 1750] aesthetics was enmeshed in a historical narrative that imposes a distinction between the cognitive-semantic and the affective-stimulant. This paper will sketch a different narrative in which perception is linked to knowledge. In this history, art is an experimental endeavour in which media are resurfaced as constitutive of our experience and always linked to situated histories and politics. Media digital or analogue links the viewer in networks of transindivituation that go beyond their organic limits [Stiegler, 2009, Colebrook, 2014].
This history starts in Modernity with Goethe’s experiments on the perception of colour that led into the avant-garde, this introduction will link with contemporary art and New Media. The possibility of interpretation and action always relies on a complex relationship between digital and analogue, or the capacity to reduce differential complexity to already established units of recognition [Bergson, 1912]. Artworks that process data implementing interfaces and ‘intelligent’ systems whit purposes other than efficiency, control or organic live maintenance engage us in complex ecologies that go beyond our organic limits and our milieu as a given system. This creative process opens our perception to a posthuman world, Gaia evolving indifferent to us [Margulis] and into the possibility of other futures.
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=849
Aquesta exposició mostra el programa realitzat per Sandra Alvaro per l’assignatura d’Art Contemporani del Grau en Comunicació Audiovisual de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona mitjançant una selecció dels treballs realitzats pels estudiants.
https://mirades.uab.cat/exposicions/exhibits/show/artcontemporani
L’assignatura d’Art Contemporani del grau de Comunicació Audiovisual introdueix l’alumnat en l’ecosistema de la creació contemporània, fent especial atenció a com aquest es desenvolupa en diàleg amb els nous avenços tecnològics i socials del seu temps. D’aquesta manera el programa de l’assignatura contempla els canvis socials, culturals i científic-tècnics que caracteritzen el món contemporani, per d’una banda: introduir els conceptes que han sorgit, en diferents camps de pensament, per donar-ne raó, des de el punt de vista del seu significat estètic i de l’aplicació que se’n fa a la creació artística. D’altra banda, per ensenyar els nous formats i estratègies artístiques que s’han desenvolupat des de les Avantguardes, així com la seva transformació a partir de la convergència tecnològica que es produeix a partir de l’accessibilitat als nous mitjans tecnològics i que definirà l’art Postmedia. Aquests conceptes i estratègies de creació s’introdueixen a partir de la seva apropiació artística en el tractament de temes que articulen la creació contemporània, tot reflectint les preocupacions de les noves generacions, com són: l’experiència i definició del subjecte confrontat a un món canviant i cada vegada més digitalitzat; la construcció i administració de l’entorn urbà i els afectes que aquest té sobre la vida dels individus; les crisis mediambientals que acompanyen la definició de l’Antropocè.
El que es mostra en aquesta exposició es una selecció dels treballs finals realitzats pels alumnes. Aquests treballs, més enllà de formar part del procés d’avaluació, suposen una part important de la metodologia docent. Son treballs en equip, en que es fomenta la col·laboració, el compromís en un objectiu comú i la capacitat dels alumnes per a la comunicació eficient cap a l’emergència d’una interdependència positiva. Aquest treball col·laboratiu permet als alumnes implicar-se i esdevenir part activa en una problemàtica actual del seu interès, aprofundint d’aquesta manera en els conceptes y pràctiques proposades al curs ‘mans al treball’ i mentre experimenten amb els formats i pràctiques proposats per desenvolupar la seva pròpia aportació
Llistat Obres
Crédits:
Comissària:
Disseny i Muntatge de l’exposició virtual :
Textos i disseny de capçalera: Sandra Álvaro Sánchez
Imatges de les obres exposades: dels seus respectius autors
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=832
https://festival2020.rixc.org/
October 8-10, online and in Riga, Latvia will take place the RIXC Art and Science festival: ECODATA. The festival will feature exhibition in the physical space at The National Library of Latvia and the RIXC gallery, online conference as well as a hybrid program of online and onsite activities – artistic interventions, screenings, virtual bio/eco-artworks and performances by young artists.
Isabelle Stengers (2015) described our time as catastrophic, the result of convergent crisis concerning the global economy, the environment, increasing violence and depletion of social cohesion. The Anthropocene and its consequences have become an urgent subject for scientists and policymakers, but also philosophers and artists. Current art projects intervene in our environment through speculative projects, approaching geoengineering and the proposal of new post-anthropocentric futures, as well as, by the production of new entanglements of humans and non-humans which could mobilise new affects and change our behaviour.
All these projects share the same aesthetics, a new technologically mediated vision, from where our environment appears as a complex network of systems. The Gaia 2.0 (Latour, 2018) resulting from a process of Technomorphisation (Maturana, 1997) which translates our environment to data and rends it predictable and operational.
This presentation examines a selection of environmental art projects with a twofold aim. First, explore the evolution of this aesthetics after the encounter with post-structuralism and critical epistemologies. Second, interrogate about the inclusion of these art projects inside a Cosmopolitics (Stengers, 2004), after considering art as a material form of experimentation with the capacity of worlding -making up an inhabitable world.
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=811
Álvaro, Sandra (2019), “Atopological space for design, participation and productio” at The Jornal of Peer Production, Issue #13 open (April 2019)
‘Space of transformation’ is a concept borrowed from Serres’ communication theory and here redefined after the evolution of the post-digital milieu and the materialistic critique of the same. Hackerspaces, fablabs, medialabs and other shared machines shops are defined here as spaces of transformation, places for the encounter between humans and non-humans, where disciplines are bridged together, hitherto severed, giving place to collective practices related to education, production and society.
Shared machine shops are sited locally but also connected globally. Online, they share innovative forms of production, education and collective organization, giving place to a complex ecosystem. This article presents an analysis of the topology of this ecosystem conducted by means of tracking and visualizing the online interactions between the hackerspaces listed at the platform Hackerspaces.org. The application of network analysis is aimed to answer the research questions: First, how shared machine shops are locally and globally connected? Second, what links hackerspaces among them and these with new social issues? The concept of shared machine shops as spaces of transformation and the study of their mutual relations allows for an understanding of the transformative capacity of these spaces and how they are producing a new space for social innovation through its mutual interchange of information.
Keywords:
hackerspaces, network analysis, design, social innovation, space of transformation
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=803
Workshop by Sandra Alvaro
Interface Culture Program – 6 and 9 of Mars 2020
https://www.ufg.at/News-detail.2042+M5da5309928b.0.html
“Interactive Art and Posthuman thought” combines theory (lectures and in-class text commentaries) and practice (drawing networked diagrams) to illustrate the relationship between the evolution of interactive art -interfacing humans with machines- and the development of new frames of thought related with posthumanism and post-anthropocentrism.
Abstract
This workshop aims to build a diagrammatics of the emergent system of thought named posthumanism to bring it closer to the art practice. Rosi Braidotti defines the posthuman turn as the convergence of posthumanism with post-anthropocentrism and relates it to the materialist philosophy by Deleuze and Guattari, the influence of indigenous philosophy and the feminist thought – represented by authors as Elizabeth Grosz, Karen Barad, Donna Haraway and Elizabeth Povinelly. Besides, to this evolution, we could add the influence of cybernetics in the thought of Simondon -also influencing Deleuze- and Katerine Hayles.
The work of these thinkers has evolved parallelly to artistic practice. The evolution of interactive art is bridged with the experimentation with new technologies and the proposal of forms of interfacing humans with machines. It shaped new systems of knowledge, information structures that progressively became embodied in computerized electrotechnical systems and hybridised with the human. These extensions of our body and intellect have evolved from the proposal of cyborgs to the creation of a new artificially intelligent other, the source of deep mediatization and control, otherwise a new creative collaborator. Artistic artworks had exemplified and accompanied this evolution showing the changes in the definition of the human, the environment and knowledge. We can quote the dematerialized networked cyborgs created by Tina Laporta, the cyborgian immersive representations by Jill Scott, the immersive spaces of knowledge created by Monika Fleishman and Wolfang Strauss or the Knowbotic Research Group finally, the autonomous interactive dancing entities by Simon Penny or the more recent co-singer trained by Tommony Adachi.
This workshop consists of two sessions. Each one including a short theoretical introduction illustrated with the commentary of artworks; a text commentary and practical work based on the methodology of diagrammatics -developed accordingly the definition of Deleuze and Guattari. In the sessions, the students will learn about the evolution of posthuman thought concerning art practice and will develop diagrams -working in groups and based in previously offered texts – of the posthuman conglomerates acting in our environment, acquiring an understanding of how they affect differentiated fields of our reality as the epistemology, finance, health and the human body, or the Anthropocene.
Permanent link to this article: https://enlaciutat.es/wordpress/?p=795