topic

Tentacle Talks

AIL reachs out into different sciences and fields of research

Collection of Talks from 2014–2020

TOPIC CONTENT:

Julia Voss: The Digitalization and Evolution of Art

Let’s meet: CeMM – Research Center for Molecular Medicine

Wolf Singer: Neuronal Principles of Consciousness

Petra Maitz: Visualisation of Evolution

Matteo Giannasi: The Brain Show

Peter Mörtenböck: The Capital of the Many

Maria Antonia González: Art, Science, Technology

Pauline Gagnon: Who Cares about Particle Physics?

Airan Berg: pARTicipation or PARTYcipation – Is this still art? Where is the meaning?

David Morley: Home Territories – Virtual and Material Geographies

Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab (formerly named Angewandte Innovation Lab) is an interdisciplinary space and a platform for projects at the intersection of art, science and artistic research. It was launched to enable exchange among different disciplines and to link art and artistic research as these are the driving forces for innovation.

Therefore we reach out into other fields of research, science and knowledge. Tentacle Talks aim to open doors, connect disciplines and invite to look beyond the end of one’s nose.

video

Julia Voss: The Digitalization and Evolution of Art

Talk in German from 2016

Is there one distinctive style of the early 21st century? And what does the aesthetic dimension reveal about society?

The third revolution has brought about new art forms. The best known might be Post-internet Art, created by a generation of artists who grew up with the internet and have naturally made digital techniques part of their artistic repertoire. Post-internet Art has been widely successful at many art fairs over the last few years, especially at the Biennale in Venice and in Berlin. However, changes in the art world due to digitalization are more extensive than one might think. This lecture will present a taxonomy of new art forms, while it also compares the latest developments with changes in the art system of the 19th century, an epoch of two differing styles: the art of the Paris Salon and Modern Art.

Is there one distinctive style of the early 21st century? What is its distinctive quality? And what does the aesthetic dimension reveal about society?

Julia Voss is currently a fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study. She is deputy editor in chief of the arts and culture supplement at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Her dissertation on Darwin’s images was published by S. Fischer Verlag in 2007 and was awarded the Sigmund Freud Prize by the German Academy for Language and Literature in 2009. She is honorary professor at Leuphana University of Lüneburg.

video

Let’s meet: CeMM – Research Center for Molecular Medicine

Research Presentations from 2016

AIL reaching out into other institutions and fields of research

About CeMM

CeMM – Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences is an interdisciplinary research institute committed to advancing the understanding of human diseases through basic and biomedical research.

Located at the center of the campus of the Medical University of Vienna, CeMM fosters a highly collaborative and interactive research mindset. Focusing on medically relevant questions, CeMM researchers concentrate on human biology and diseases like cancer and inflammation/immune disorders. In support of scientific pursuits and medical needs, CeMM provides access to cutting-edge technologies and has established a strategic interest in precision medicine.

CeMM is a cauldron for new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches which currently holds several patents and is establishing spin-off companies. CeMM is a founding member of the EU-LIFE network and represents Austria in the alliance of 13 top research centers in life sciences, which has been established to support and strengthen European research excellence.

video

Wolf Singer: Neuronal Principles of Consciousness

Talk in German from 2016

For almost three decades, an increasing number of brain researchers has been trying to find the neuronal correlatives to our consciousness

Neurobiology posits that all mental phenomena we experience ourselves and see in others are the result and not the origin of neuronal processes. These phenomena include our cognition, emotions, thoughts, decisions and our consciousness. For almost three decades, an increasing number of brain researchers has been trying to find the neuronal correlatives to our consciousness. The research field is quite diverse: Some are interested in finding the required conditions for a brain to be ‘conscious’, to perform in a way that can be called ‘conscious’. This usually points to a distinction between unconscious and conscious processes. Others focus on the ‘hard problem’ of how immaterial connotations of the content of consciousness, which can only be determined subjectively, can be related to material neuronal processes, which can be viewed from the outside perspective of the involved scientist.

This lecture will discuss the findings of both research approaches to point out the limitations of the neuroscientific explanation attempts. The presentation will suggest that these limitations are the products of a naturalist approach that we need to overcome by thinking of mental phenomena as social realities that require further interpretation in the context of cultural evolution and epigenetic self-modification.

Wolf Singer was born in Munich in 1943 and studied medicine in Munich and Paris, completed his PhD at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and habilitated at TU Munich. He was director of the Department of Neurophysiology at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt and founding director of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) as well as the Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience (ESI). He was also head of the Ernst Strüngmann Science Forum in Frankfurt. His research focuses on the neuronal processes of cognitive performance and is primarily concerned with the binding problem, which poses the question of how sensory processes in different brain regions are combined into a single coherent cognition.

video

Petra Maitz: Visualisation of Evolution

Talk in German from 2016

A model of praxis & theory

Art and biology both attempt to explain the world. The artistic approach has always been more holistic and more form-oriented than the classical reductionist approach of the natural sciences. The work of Petra Maitz is an example of how artistic observation is able to anticipate conceptual change in science and visualize it by new means.

This presentation is aimed at anyone interested in the transformation processes of our world and the new construction of social life forms through artistic media extensions. Micro processes in the molecular cosmos of life take place without anyone noticing, and we call this the chemical alteration of our world. These findings will be inspired and illustrated by several examples from chemistry (Louis Pasteur) and the new philosophy of trans-discipline.

Since 2002, Petra Maitz has collected model systems of nature. Based on extensive studies of these models, she has come up with a universal codex for evolutionary or general cultural developments. Her first attempt to explain the complexity of today’s world starts with microbiology, cell reproduction and the possibilities of new combinations. The proto-molecule RNA (Ribonucleic acid) plays an important part in this intricate thought process. She uses drawings and project sketches. The development and concept of her large-scale installations, which are based on a scientific methodology, will be illustrated by visual material of a comparative and medical-technical nature.

video

Matteo Giannasi: The Brain Show

Talk in English from 2015

What kind of answers can we expect from neurobiology? And how relevant are they in regard to aesthetics and our understanding of art?

Over the past 25 years, neurobiology has become one of the most dynamic (and well-funded) scientific fields. Aside from conventional medical application, neurobiology is expected to deliver final answers to fundamental questions concerning human thought and experience, such as the nature of consciousness, perception, imagination, memory, personal identity, responsibility, emotions and feelings. What kind of answers can we expect so far? And how relevant are they in regard to aesthetics and our understanding of art?

video

Peter Mörtenböck: The Capital of the Many

Talk in German from 2015

From informal Markets to open-source Creativity

The global impact of the financial crisis has obviously resulted in a structural overhaul, and essential changes in the design, production and distribution of artefacts are the consequence. The growing pressure on economically viable creativity is contrasted by emergent forms in the development, communication and realization of ideas.

Together, these new components have had interesting effects: While bottom-up initiatives were deemed subcultural phenomena in the art and culture sector only a few years ago, now they are being praised as a model of the future. This includes crowdfunding projects, open-source developments, collective research structures or start-ups in the creative industries. The fight against informality has turned into an orchestrated promotion of transgressive initiatives. Structural change has thus not only allowed many people to exit the well-oiled cycles of capitalism, but it has also reincorporated those people into the competitive arena of emerging investment markets through the increasing value of the capital called ‘free’ creativity.

This lecture focuses on the role of ‘taking initiative’ as the new civic paragon: How it emerged, the way it is controlled and what part artistic creativity plays in these developments? Who benefits from products made in open processes? What future effects will crowdfunding and similar control mechanisms have on our material world? And to what extent can artistic-scientific practices create their own set of standards in this global economy?

Peter Mörtenböck is professor of art theory & theory of architecture in Vienna and London. He is renowned for his groundbreaking work in the field of visual culture in the German-speaking world. His texts on the transformation of cities and urban culture have been translated into several languages.

video

Maria Antonia González: Art, Science, Technology

Talk in English from 2016

The Philosopher working in the fields of aesthetics and ontology speaks about interrelation of art, science and technology

How might a theoretical framework from a philosophical perspective be constructed that will allow us to investigate and conceptualize the current state of the interrelationships of art, science and technology?

Why would such a framework be significant to assess the range and limits of art and science trends, as well as contribute to developing a project for a philosophy of nature?

To answer these questions, the lecture will outline some of the arguments that constitute the core of a philosophy of nature, from which it is relevant to start and to pose questions as to the biotech arts, because a philosophy of nature for the twenty-first century has to think about nature not from a contemplative point of view (where, for example, Romanticism is a paradigm), nor from a preponderantly epistemological perspective (where, for example, philosophy of science is a paradigm of this kind of approach); what is necessary is a broader horizon that takes into account what ontologies have said about language in the past century as the principal path to pose the question about being.

María Antonia González Valerio is a philosopher working in the fields of aesthetics and ontology, with a focus on biotechnologies and the arts. She is full professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, National Autonomous University of México (UNAM). Her most recent book Cabe los límites. Escritos sobre filosofía natural desde la ontología estética is the introduction to her philosophy of nature. In 2011 she founded the interdisciplinary research group Art+Science based

video

Pauline Gagnon: Who Cares about Particle Physics?

Talk in English from 2017

What is dark matter? And what impact does foundational research have on our life and why is it so important?

With this lecture, you will be able to gain insight into the Higgs boson, the Large Hadron Collider as well as CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Gagnon will explain the fundamental components of matter according to the contemporary, mainly theoretical model, the so-called Standard Model. The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 has added further credence to the Standard Model.

Nevertheless, the Standard model still only contains ‘visible matter’. In other words, all the stars and galaxies we can see. However, it does not incorporate any ‘dark matter’, a mysterious kind of matter, which accounts for at least a fifth of the universe while it remains completely unknown to us.

What is dark matter? And what impact does foundational research have on our life and why is it so important?

Pauline Gagnon completed her PhD in particle physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1993. She then started her research at CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics, and was a senior research scientist at Indiana University until she retired in 2016.

video

Airan Berg: pARTicipation or PARTYcipation – Is this still art? Where is the meaning?

Talk in German from 2015

Theater maker Airan Berg about his work in the field of urban/human development and the results of his work, which often connect artists and citizens

When Linz became the European Capital of Culture in 2009, theater maker Airan Berg started working on large-scale projects, which have since always relied on artistic input and public participation. These can be interventions in public space or long-term urban/human development processes, but they are always a product of the experiences and creativity of both the artists and members of the public. This way, Airan Berg usually ends up with new possibilities and surprising results.

During the workshop (20–21 Oct 2015), existing best practice projects were analyzed and new scenarios for site-specific projects were developed and, in some cases, realized together with the workshop partner Brunnenpassage. The workshop outcomes were presented at AIL on 22 Oct 2015.

video

David Morley: Home Territories – Virtual and Material Geographies

Talk in English from 2018

The relationship between virtual and material spheres

To be home, home and homeland have always been contentious terms. Especially in times of increased mobility – physical, virtual, voluntary or forced – one starts to question their definition, while the phenomenon of ‘delocalization’ becomes more and more relevant.

David Morley, who works at the intersection of media studies, mobility studies and cultural geography, will talk about the relationship between virtual and material spheres and argue the case for a position that combines spatial practices and different forms of communication and transport.

This event is part of the lecture series (be)coming home, and takes place in cooperation with the University of Vienna, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the research platform Mobile Cultures and Societies.

David Morley is Professor of Communications at the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London.