SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

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SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

Artistic research project by artist duo MUELLER-DIVJAK and AIL, started September 2023

Insights, Upcoming Dates and Work in Progress

TOPIC CONTENT:

SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

Sensing Theory – Shredding Cognitive Overload

HALLABUDDA Reenactment

Expanding System Boundaries

Am I a System? Where Are My Boundaries?

Workshop View: Es geht ums Ganze

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AIL has been an interdisciplinary platform at the intersection of art, science and research since its foundation in 2014. AIL supports the realization of projects which highlight the in-between spaces that are the result of the interplay of different disciplines. Experiencing, understanding, learning and unlearning as well as rethinking relationships and interactions play a crucial part in making AIL a flexible and open space.

With its first artistic research project AIL is breaking new ground and combining and applying expert knowledge in new ways.

SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS was initiated by Jeanette Müller & Paul Divjak (MUELLER-DIVJAK), the artistic masterminds behind the project. Their artistic skills lead the way, but also them being fully committed to inclusive thinking and to bringing people, cultures and disciplines together for this endeavor shape the project in a unique way and create a special environment to develop new methods.
Alexandra Graupner, head of Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab, is the project manager, drawing on her experience in the conception and implementation of interdisciplinary, artistic projects with experimental processes leading to unexpected outcomes.

Anna Maria Irgang supports and acts as an important feedback loop in her role as research assistant. Her knowledge in the field of innovation development makes things spark and keeps the often complex processes and schedules of the individual study phases together.

SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS is a project that is fed by different expertise, ranges of experience and individual world views. It is not only nourished by an interdisciplinary approach, but is also largely based on the intercultural backgrounds of various project partners and collaborators:

BCSSS – Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Sciences: Alexander Laszlo (BCSSS Board President, Professor of Systems Science & Curated Emergence based in Buenos Aires), Felix Tretter (BCSSS Vice President, psychiatrist and systems scientist based in Munich and Vienna), Stefan Blachfellner (Managing Director of the BCSSS, Secretary General of the International Federation for Systems Research, Innovator, Entrepreneur)
NHM – Natural History Museum Vienna: Iris Ott (Head of science communication), Ines Méhu-Blantar (Head of Deck50, Innovationhub and Stakeholder Engagement)
BAAN NOORG Collaborative Arts and Culture: jiandyin (Jiradej and Pornpilai Meemalai, collaborative interdisciplinary artists and curators based in Ratchaburi, Thailand)
Sodja Zupanc-Lotker (Dramaturg, teaches dramaturgy and runs master studies at DAMU KALD in Prague)
Zun Ei Phyu (Conceptual artist and medical doctor based in Yangon, Myanmar)
Bernhard Fleischmann (Composer and live performer of electronic music, based in Vienna)
Ulrich Gottlieb (Physical theater performer and choreographer, Tai-Chi-Chuan Master, teaching at Chulalongkorn University Bangkok)
Maya Galimidi (Founder of ‘Empower with Nature’, serves as an International Ambassador for the Global Ecovillage Network formerly based in the Negev Desert in Israel, now in Istanbul)
Serigne Mor “Mara” Niang (Conceptual artist and PhD Researcher based in Vienna)
Anita Lung (Organizational Consultant, Sociologist based in Vienna)
Claus Seibt (Transformation and Systems Researcher based in Basel)
Elke Kies (Entrepeneur and inventor in the field of olfaction, MagicBox)
Jens Badura (Philosopher and cultural manager, teaches and researches at the Zurich University of the Arts, Visiting professor, social and business communication program at the UdK Berlin)
Taras Komisaruk (Creative Consultant, Smell Enthusiast and ‘Hallabudda-Expert’ formerly based in Ukraine, now in Vienna)
Oksana Lemishka (Sociologist of Media and Culture and ‘Hallabudda-Expert’ formerly based in Ukraine, now in Vienna)
Taratawan “Tuntun” Krue-On (Musician, composer, multimedia artist based in Bangkok and London)

Advisory Board:

Maholo Uchida (Senior curator, Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan)

Bettina Leidl (Director of MQ / MuseumsQuartier Vienna)

Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani (Curator, Bangkok Art Biennale 2022, writer, lecturer of Southeast Asian contemporary art)

Sakarin Krue-On (Artist, professor at Silpakorn University Bangkok, co-founder of Baan Noorg Collaborative Arts & Culture)

Alexander Laszlo (see BCSSS)

Christoph Thun-Hohenstein (Initiator of theVienna Biennale for Change and Vienna Climate Biennale, Director General for International Cultural Relations at the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs of the Republic of Austria)

The path is equally the destination for all of us: perceiving, understanding and positively co-creating environments, establishing new connections, communicating across cultures and disciplines, engaging with new ways of thinking and artistic practices, shaping inviting (working) environments that enable reflection and changes of direction. The end of the project should also a be a beginning where olfactory, auditory and tactile artworks/artifacts, arranged into scenographies allow different recipients to feel, smell and touch essential principles of living systems.

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SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

Exploring the Potentials of Multisensory Scenography for Systems Awareness

Artistic research project by artist duo MUELLER-DIVJAK and AIL, starting September 2023

About MUELLER-DIVJAK

More insights into the project

The artist and researcher duo MUELLER-DIVJAK (Dr. Jeanette Müller and Dr. Paul Divjak), who conceived and initiated SENSING LIVING SYSTEM, is working at the Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab / University of Applied Arts (project leader: Mag. Alexandra Graupner) with international artists and systems scientists to form experiential spaces by artistic means (scenographies) and to create sensory impressions that help us to better understand and resonate with living systems.

During the project essential principles of living systems will be transformed into olfactory, auditory and tactile artworks / artefacts and used experimentally.

The result of SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS is supposed to be a multisensory scenography that can be utilized in different places and that enables an embodied learning experience for diverse users, so that they can perceive themselves as a living system, capable of taking action, embedded in living systems. This also in terms of a systemic change – on an individual, societal and structural level – for the implementation and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals / SDGs, which represent a universal compass for the shaping of a life-affirming social, ecological and economic transformation of our world.

‘Through meditation and art, we can connect with our mother earth and reaffirm our cooperative nature, recognizing the environment as part of ourselves.’

(Sulak Sivaraksa – The Wisdom of Sustainability, 2009)

We live in a world that is permeated by systems, whether in nature, technology, business or society. A deep understanding of systems is crucial to solving complex problems, making better decisions, anticipating future developments, coping with change and creating a sustainable future.

It is important to understand that everything in our world is part of a larger system and is interrelated, from biological cells, humans and animals to trees and governments. We have an innate ability to perceive systems and their interdependencies, but often unlearn this through linear thinking, fragmented perception and mechanistic world views.

The project explores – with a special focus on the senses of smell, hearing and touch – how direct sensory experiences by staging olfactory, auditory and haptic artworks and stimuli artistically, i.e. by way of specially arranged spaces, can contribute to heightening our awareness of nature and to developing a deep understanding of living systems and imparting systems literacy.

Soil Performance by MUELLER-DIVJAK at AIL

SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS expands the field of scenography as a means for arts-based innovation and transformative research and supports systems science education, from systems sensing to systems literacy.

Living systems encompass cells, organisms, ecosystems, and global biospheres. They are characterized by complex interactions and adaptive mechanisms. Their study allows for a better understanding of life on various levels and provides critical insights for addressing global challenges.

The SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS project is based on the General Systems Theory (GST), developed by by Austrian-American biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the 1940s. GST is an interdisciplinary framework that seeks to identify common principles across all types of systems. It emphasizes a holistic approach, viewing systems as more than the sum of their parts, with a focus on the interactions and relationships between components. It applies to open (living) systems that interact with their environment, enabling self-organization, adaptation, and the pursuit of goals. The theory also highlights the importance of hierarchies, feedback loops, and homeostasis, offering a universal framework for understanding complex systems across various disciplines.

This research project is funded by FWF Peek AR 776-G. DOI 10.55776

research presentation

Opening: 01 Oct 2024, 11:00

Running: 01 Oct 2024 – 31 Jan 2025

Sensing Theory – Shredding Cognitive Overload

Arts-based Research-Installation by MUELLER-DIVJAK in the course of the project SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

General Systems Theory emphasizes that systems should be analyzed as a whole to grasp the complex interplay of their parts. It provides a foundation for understanding life, social systems, and artistic processes as dynamic, interconnected entities. This interdisciplinary concept identifies common principles across all kinds of systems. The arts-based research project SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS builds on this theory, in collaboration with the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS).

To truly understand living, complex systems – whether in nature, society, or art – we need a balance of analytical thinking and sensory, intuitive, multi-sensory experience. Texts and language alone are not enough.

What if we could sense theory? If we could literally get in touch with it? Through our skin, our hands and feet, our noses and ears? What if we could acquire implicit knowledge, allowing us to grasp living systems without reading or thinking too much about them?

Do we value declarative knowledge too high? Are we too brainy and at the same time headless in the face of constant information overload?

What do we have to unlearn? What do we have to let go of, to make wise, prosperous decisions? Intellect isn’t enough. Knowledge isn’t enough. Ambition isn’t enough. How do we enable ourselves to take compassionate, cooperative and caring actions that nurture both us and our world and our environments?

What learned knowledge, what deeply anchored beliefs, and cognitive convictions can (should) we shredder to experience ourselves as thriving living systems? And to flourish together with other living systems? Because, and this is not just theory: we can only live and survive embedded in other living systems.

The PEEK research project SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS is working with international artists and systems scientists on the development of multisensory scenographies. Principles of living systems are translated into olfactory, auditory and tactile artworks/artefacts and are used experimentally. Created with artistic means the scenographies are supposed to provide sensory impressions helping for a better understanding and resonating with living systems.

Artists / Researchers (core team): Jeanette Müller, Paul Divjak, Alexandra Graupner, Anna-Maria Irgang

FWF PEEK-Project DOI: 10.55776/AR 776

Special thanks to Taras Komisaruk and Michael Ellinger

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HALLABUDDA Reenactment

Series of Scenographic Studies / Part III, Jul–Sep 2024

Arts-based Research-Installation by MUELLER-DIVJAK in the course of the project SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

As children, we often created spaces within rooms. We constructed areas under tables, between shelves, with boxes, blankets, colorful cloths, lamps, and all sorts of accessible materials, where we felt protected and inspired. In these places, we could play and whisper, dream and plan, shielded from the outside world. We could retreat there to be alone, find peace, read intently, or hatch new adventures with others to discover the world outside in our own way.

When our friends Oksana Lemishka and Taras Komisaruk told us about their escape from the war in Ukraine to Austria, we fondly remembered these special spaces of protection and cosyness together. And Oksana surprised us with a word from her native language that describes these places: Halabuda.

A plan took shape: we wanted to build a "Halabuda" together with Oksana and Taras in our small studio and office at the university and see if it would affect our communication and well-being. The experiment led us to realize that just through the process of building and setting it up—trying out where to stretch ropes, gathering colorful cloths, securing a translucent sky, arranging carpets and boxes—we entered a sort of flow that deepened our communication. Then, sitting inside our colorful, temporary "little house," we could speak more focused and openly with each other, listened to one another more intensely and patiently, and learned a lot from each other, from our different experiences, fields of knowledge, and life worlds. Our receptiveness was open, and we were ready—without ingrained attributions, without (often unconscious) mechanisms of exclusion, and beyond dichotomous ideas—to receive information and critically but kindly illuminate insights. And we had fun doing it. Simplicity in its most positive meaning guided us and our language / communication. Effortlessness and lightness, indeed a form of serious playfulness, characterized our conversations about social science theories as well as very personal experiences and insights. Our senses were as open as our minds, and the olfactory trials we conducted with scents we composed ourselves opened up exciting new considerations.

A few months later, when it came time to prepare the transdisciplinary SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS symposium, where all the project-related artists and systems scientists from Europe and Southeast Asia would meet, get to know each other, exchange ideas, and also cooperate for the first time, we had the idea to relocate our experiment to the AIL hall. During the symposium, this resulted in three different HALLABUDDAs, which allowed our diverse team to unfold their potential and brought together the different thinking spaces and expertise. The video artists Zoe Gendron and Daniel Jamernik made a 30-minute contribution about this symposium, the artistic communication and cooperation methods applied, its results, and insights into our research project. As part of the "Angewandte Festival" at the end of June 2024, we wanted to present this film and thought about a suitable place. And what could be more comfortable, stimulating for the senses, inviting, and fitting than a HALLABUDDA?

With the different materials and surfaces that encourage touch and the olfactory intervention, the HALLABUDDA also represents an installative prototype for a multisensory scenography for SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS.

About the series: ART CABIN at AIL
The Otto Wagner Cashier Hall offers a special opportunity to give insights to processes and activities of SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS. For the first time, the historical cabin is used for ongoing artistic installations to make methods more visible, relatable and comprehensible for a public audience. Surrounded by visitors of the hall, the cafe and AIL, also by other institutions in the building (Academy of Science, FWF, JKU) offer a chance to gather feedback and reactions to the project and the specific stages of studies that will be incorporated into the project outcome.

FWF PEEK-Project DOI: 10.55776/AR 776

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Expanding System Boundaries

feat. Tuntun Taratawan Krue-On: ‘The Table’ from ‘What If It Was All A Dream?’ / Series of Scenographic Studies / Part II, Feb–Jun 2024

Artistic Research-Installations by MUELLER-DIVJAK as part of the project SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

Participatory observations, extensive literature research, expert interviews, and in-depth conversations with members of our Advisory Board led us to the assumption and realization that extending the boundaries of empathy significantly impacts the perception and activity of living systems. Empathy arises, among other things, through mirror neurons, which are activated when we see someone, for example, getting hurt. Auditory stimuli, specific sounds, frequencies, and melodies also trigger different emotions and sometimes memories, allowing us to transcend the boundaries of our current perception.

The composer and sound artist Tuntun Taratawan Krue-On, with whom we collaborated on our project-related exhibition and performance at the Songkhla Art Center in southern Thailand, recorded field sounds in the London Underground/Tube during her studies at Goldsmiths University. This period was marked by pandemic-related restrictions and great homesickness. She intertwined these recordings with the sounds of animals and plants, and images of a table in the garden of her home in Thailand.

We relocated this scene to the Art Cabin in the ticket hall in Vienna and found that the auditory stimuli transported a wide range of visitors into a different perception of the world, sometimes moving them to tears with acoustic memories. Questions were evoked and discussed – where do we feel at home and truly in the here and now, alive and capable of action? How does our ability to empathize change through acoustic impulses?

We collected comments and reactions from visitors and found that the boundaries between past and present, between presence and concentration in the now, and mental and emotional drifting in all directions, are sometimes as transparent and fragile as the glass separating the atmosphere in the SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS Art Cabin from the happenings in the ticket hall.

About the series: ART CABIN at AIL
The Otto Wagner Cashier Hall offers a special opportunity to give insights to processes and activities of SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS. For the first time, the historical cabin is used for ongoing artistic installations to make methods more visible, relatable and comprehensible for a public audience. Surrounded by visitors of the hall, the cafe and AIL, also by other institutions in the building (Academy of Science, FWF, JKU) offer a chance to gather feedback and reactions to the project and the specific stages of studies that will be incorporated into the project outcome.

FWF PEEK-Project DOI: 10.55776/AR 776

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Am I a System? Where Are My Boundaries?

Series of Scenographic Studies / Part I, Oct–Dec 2023

Arts-based Research-Installation by MUELLER-DIVJAK in the course of the project SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

Through conversations and discussions with systems scientists, we identified three essential influencing factors of systems for our artistic research project SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS:

The boundaries of a system, or the drawing of boundaries (set or assumed boundaries)
The entities of a system (participants, which can include institutions, natural forces, people, etc.)
Relations / connections

To understand and influence living systems, it is important to recognize that we are all living systems, which can only exist when embedded in others. The boundaries we perceive, how we set and define them, depend on individual and collective worldviews, necessities, and possibilities.

With this scenographic study, we pose the question of observation in two ways in the space (at AIL/Post Office Savings Bank) and to its manifold visitors/users:

1. Is the accumulated soil with components of natural and human-made objects a system? Part of a system? And where do observers place the boundaries?
2. Do they see themselves as a system? With what limitations?

We left open the possibility for visitors to change and influence the installative scenography by adding or removing objects, crossing, and blurring the set boundaries of the accumulated soil. Sprouting seeds and thriving plants could be watered, and dead ones buried as fertilizer for the growing ones.

In conversations with numerous recipients, we found that the objectification of the system concept, and the possibility of touching and smelling, are helpful for cognitive processes and finding language for system ideas. There were debates about whether the objects in the soil are connected and what relationship they can be seen to have with each other. Different narratives emerged, and the realization followed: boundary drawing is changeable and often based on collectively anchored stories and worldviews. Organismic worldviews are reinforced with conscious sensory perception of one's environment.

About the series: ART CABIN at AIL
The Otto Wagner Cashier Hall offers a special opportunity to give insights to processes and activities of SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS. For the first time, the historical cabin is used for ongoing artistic installations to make methods more visible, relatable and comprehensible for a public audience. Surrounded by visitors of the hall, the cafe and AIL, also by other institutions in the building (Academy of Science, FWF, JKU) offer a chance to gather feedback and reactions to the project and the specific stages of studies that will be incorporated into the project outcome.

FWF PEEK-Project DOI: 10.55776/AR 776

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Workshop View: Es geht ums Ganze

Workshop from the artistic research project Sensing Living Systems as part of Researchers Night, September 2023

Humans perceive the world only partially, not as a whole. And most of the time they rely mainly on their eyes as a first source of perception.

At the ‘It's all about the whole!’ workshop station, mainly hands and feet, noses and ears were used to explore different surroundings and ecosystems. The visitors experienced sensually why it is so important that we as humans can recognize and make connections.

Science communication is an important concern for the Sensing Living Systems team. With the hands-on / senses-on station It's all about the whole! at the EUROPEAN RESEARCHERS NIGHT, the team around Alexandra Graupner, Paul Divjak and Jeannette Mueller gave numerous visitors first insights into the olfactory and tactile approaches to the understanding of systems.

The PEEK research project Sensing Living Systems explores human system awareness and analyses the way artistic presentations of olfactory, auditory and haptic artworks can create direct sensory stimuli that activate this sense of awareness. The results of this artistic research, which are jointly conducted by artists and system scientists, will lead to a multisensory scenography that allows a diverse set of users to have an embodied learning experience.

All images: MUELLER-DIVJAK