Leonardo LASER Linz – Danube Songs Vol. III

Leonardo LASER Linz – Danube Songs Vol. III

LASER CHAIRS: Christa Sommerer & Fabricio Lamoncha

Date: Friday 8th September 2023, 14:00 CEST (find your timezone here)

Location: Café Florentine & Kunsthalle Linz, Find on Google Maps 

Website: leonardo.info/laser-talks

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We welcome you to our fourth edition of Laser Talk Linz event organized by the Interface Cultures department at University of Art and Design Linz. In 2021, Linz joined the Leonardo LASER network, an international program taking place in over 50 cities around the world, organizing events promoting interdisciplinary networking through inspiring presentations and conversations. In our fourth event in Linz, we continue our current series “Danube Songs” looking into the water medium through the eyes of an interdisciplinary group of speakers, formed by artists, curators, scientists, designers and architects. Our guests will present us their research, also talk about their methods and about how they articulate their collaboration with other bounded and unbounded agencies such as water. We are very interested in understanding also how their experience and their work—whether artistic or scientific—have helped them reshape their agendas and their personal relationships with this sensitive force of nature.

PROGRAM:

14:00 – 14:20 – Introduction: Christa Sommerer & Fabricio Lamoncha 

14:20 – 14:50 – Keynote 1: Nicholas B. Torretta (BR) – Bauhaus of the Seas Sails: regenerative relations to the sea

15:00 – 15:20 – Keynote 2: Catarina Reis(PT) – Interstitial Alchemies

15:30 – 15:50 – Keynote 3: Federico Ciriolo (IT) – Industrial water cycle: from resource to resource 

16:00 – 16:20 – Keynote 4: Gebhard Sengmüller (AT) & Herwig Turk (AT) – Danube: Settlement Fluctuation in River Regulation

16:30 – 16:50 – Keynote 5: Paul Thomas (AU) – “The river is everywhere at once”: A sub-molecular reading

17:00 – 17:20 – Keynote 6: Victoria Vesna (US) – “Fourth State of Water: from micro to macro”

17:30 – 18:00 – Discussion & Drinks

18:00 – “Apophenia” exhibition finissage & documentary screening

 

SPEAKERS BIOS & HOSTS

Catarina Reis is an architect and transmedia artist based in Lisbon (PT) working at the intersection of art, science and technology, recently exploring feral agencies and unexpected ecological entanglements. She is currently a Ph.D. researcher at FBAUL (Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon). Her doctoral research project, titled “Tentacular Ecologies: Interspecies Co-creation in the Chthulucene,” researches new possibilities for engagement with non-human agencies.

Federico Ciriolo is an environmental engineer graduating in 2014 at Polytechnic University of Turin. His career started off in Belgium as waste treatment consultant, followed by five years as industrial wastewater treatment expert on national and international scale. Since 2021, he is operating in Linz as process water expert for the metal industry. His work is fueled by curiosity and driven by a passion for sustainability and eco-friendly solutions.

Gebhard Sengmüller is an artist working in the field of media technology, based in Vienna, Austria. His work has been shown extensively in Europe, the Americas and Asia, among others in venues such as Ars Electronica Linz, the Venice Biennale, the Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Postmasters Gallery NYC, the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, the microwave Festival Hong Kong, or the InterCommunication Center Tokyo.

Herwig Turk lives and works in Vienna. In recent years, his work has been shown at venues such as the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, the Carinthian Museum of Modern Art (MMKK), Klagenfurt, the Seoul Museum of Art, the Neues Museum Weserburg in Bremen, Museum Sinclair Haus in Bad Homburg, the Media Art Laboratory TESLA in Berlin, rauminhalt_harald bichler In Vienna, the Galerie Georg Kargl in Vienna and the Transmediale in Berlin.

Nicholas B. Torretta (Nico) is multimodal artist from Brazil. Nico’s work focuses on the intersections of design, music and visual arts with emphasis on decolonial and pluriversal approaches inspired by improvisational and collaborative practices. Nico holds a PhD in Design and currently works as a post doctoral researcher in the BoSS project to support participatory design processes and facilitate the insertion of decolonial perspectives to the BoSS project.

Dr Paul Thomas is an Honorary Professor at UNSW. He was the founding Director of the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth and recently the Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference series. His current creative practice ‘Quantum Chaos’ artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally, exploring nano and quantum synergies with being human. Publications, The Unknown Known (2023) Quantum Art and Uncertainty (2018), Nanoart: The Immateriality of Art (2013). http://Visiblespace.com(link is external)

Victoria Vesna is an Artist and Professor at the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts and founder / Director of the UCLA Art Sci center at the School of the Arts & Architecture and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). Currently she is writing a book entitled: Vibrations Matter: Art & Science of Deep Listening and co-curating with Anuradha Vikram an exhibition for the Getty PST: Art X Science “Atmosphere of Sound: sonic arts in times of climate disruption” (2024).

Christa Sommerer is an internationally renowned media artist, researcher and pioneer of interactive art. She originally studied botany and anthropology before completing a study in sculpture in Vienna. She later studied with media art pioneers Peter Weibel and Roy Ascott. In her artistic practice she deals with ecological and biological topics, aiming to raise awareness about plants and the environment through art. Since 30 years she collaborates with media artist and professor Laurent Mignonneau. In 2004 they set up the department of Interface Cultures at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria.

Fabricio Lamoncha is an artist, designer and researcher from Spain, currently based in Austria. His practices explore the entanglements of media ecology and bioethics. Since 2018 he is PhD researcher at the Kunstuniversität Linz. Also member of the Art|Sci Center at UCLA (Los Angeles) and co-founder and organizer of the Leonardo Laser Talks Linz. His work has been exhibited internationally and awarded the Art and Artificial Life International Award Vida14. Web: https://postbiointernet.com/

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