Contemporary and networked responses to geophysical, socio-political and cultural shifts in European landscapes …
Open Fields is the title of this year’s international conference and exhibition taking place in the framework of the annual RIXC Art Science festival in Riga, from September 29 until October 1, 2016, focusing on new aesthetics, contemporary conditions, digital practises and post-media situation. Since the first festival issue took place twenty years ago, the festival has grown and developed itself into the annual gathering for international scholars and artists, working at the intersection of arts, humanities and science. The Open Fields festival edition aims to present the most innovative approaches in artistic research, and to discuss the changing role of arts, its transformative potential, and relation to the sciences.
Conference Public Keynote Speakers:
* Prof. Christiane PAUL / New School / Whitney Museum / US
* Dr. Jussi PARIKKA / Winchester School of Art / University of Southampton / UK
* Monica BELLO / Arts@CERN / CH
We received more then 120 compelling abstracts from around the world, out of which the conference reviewers board selected 80 proposals. Overall, this year we expect that together with invited keynotes, featured session participants, and exhibition artists in the festival will participate more then 100 participants from 30 countries, representing more then 60 universities, art centers, museums, institutions and companies, as well as independent artists, scientists and schoolars from different fields, who are engaged in exploring the transformative potential of arts.
Info about the Open Fields and Early Bird registration for the conference is available in festival website: http://rixc.org/en/festival/
CONFERENCE
The Open Fields conference and its related exhibition is challanging the artistic research that is located in the contested territory between academic knowledge production and independent creative practices. Open Fields will be investigating the use of data visualizations and other mappings of the contemporary. It will look into areas such as open commons, the future of social interaction, data representation and visualisation, critical design, sustainable infrastructures, eco-aesthetics, techno-ecologies, bio-hacking and other techniques of a transformative potential. No Field is excluded, yet there should always be a connection with art; it is highly likely that art works and conference papers will touch on several Fields, not one. It is such an enhanced understanding of transdisciplinarity that drives this undertaking.
Conference Research Questions: How art and other creative practices can meaningfully contribute to the environmental, technological and scientific challenges of our time? What kind of new knowledge can be created through artistic practice that collaborates with science, technology and other disciplines? And how to deal with contemporary aesthetics, which has undergone dramatic changes during the past decades and keeps changing again as influenced by current post-media situation, data visualization and other contemporary conditions?
Conference Themes:
* investigating contemporaneity – its representation and experience in and through artistic practice and art-science research
* data visualization – and its relation to contemporary aesthetics
* art and science – challenging new ways of knowledge creation and representation
* changing weathers – networked responses to geophysical and geopolitical shifts across Europe and the globe
* eco-aesthetics – from sustainable architecture and critical design to techno-ecological art practices
Featured Sessions and Thematic Keynotes:
The Open Fields conference aims to become the collaborative research platform on artistic research in North Europe. Each year we will be inviting several universities from the Baltic-Nordic region to host the Open Fields featured artistic research sessions; this year we are presenting:
* AARHUS UNIVERSITY’s Contemporainity Research Group (Aarhus, DK)
* LIEPAJA UNIVERSITY’S Art Research Lab (Liepaja, LV)
We also have conference thematic keynote speakers:
* Andy GRACIE / artist (UK/ES) – on art and science
*Andris TEIKMANIS / vice-rector of Latvian Academy of Arts / – on art and politics
An other speciall session – Open Fields BOOK REVIEW will be taking place at the close of the each day of the conference. On September 30th (Day 1), the featured book presentations and book-discussion will take place by Armin MEDOSCH (AT/UK) and Christiane PAUL about their recently published books; whereas on October 1 (Day 2) Book Review 20”x20 (PechaKucah format) will take place, providing an opportunity for the speakers to present their new books and other publications for the audience.
The Open Fields Conference participants: Jamie ALLEN (CH), Miguel ALMIRON (FR), Sandra ALVARO (ES), Anders-Petter ANDERSSON (NO), Ágnes Karolina BAKK (HU), Marita BATNA (AU), Meghan Moe BEITIKS (US), Julien BELLANGER (FR), Laura BELOFF (DK), Tracey BENSON (AU), Erich BERGER (AT / FI / DK), Samir BHOWMIK (FI), Tom BIELING (DE), Maryam BOLOURI (DE), Leonore BONACCINI (FR), Till BOVERMANN (DE), Sabine BREITSAMETER (DE), Jan Hendrik BRUEGGEMEIER (AU), Sarah BURGER (CH), Benjamin CADON (FR), Cédric CARLES (FR), Aigars CEPLĪTIS (LV), Ioan Ovidiu CERNEI (AT), Alice COLQUHOUN (UK), Geoff COX (NO), Ursula DAMM (DE), Irina DANILOVA (US), Marieke DE JONG (NL), Daniela DE PAULIS (NL), Jurij DOBRIAKOV (LT), Anna DUMITRIU (NL), Ahmed EL-FEKY (NO), Christina ELINGSEN (NO), Lisa ERB (DE), Lucas EVERS (NL), Bobbie FARSIDES (UK), Christian FAUBEL (DE), Cathy FITZGERALD (IE), Patricia FLANAGAN (AU), Frode FLEM (NO), Raune FRANKJÆR (DK), Natalia FUCHS (RU), Gabriela GALATI (IT), Francisco Javier Fernandez GALLARDO (UK), Jānis GARANČS (LV), Verina GFADER (NO), Christina Della GIUSTINA (NL), Wayner GONCALVES (BR), Andy GRACIE (ES), Ance GRICMANE (LV), Artūrs GRUDULS (LV), David GUEZ (FR), Evin GÜLER (NO), K.G. GUTTMANN (NL), Ian GWILT (UK), Chris HALES (UK), Jake HARPER (US), Nadia-Konstantinia HATZIMITRAGA (GR), Christiane HEIBACH (DE), Martin HOWSE (DE), Helena HUNTER (UK), Adam HYDE (US), Ellie IRONS (US), Lucy IRVINE (AU), Liene JAKOBSONE (LV), Alana JELINEK (UK), Terry JENOURE (US), Ryan JORDAN (HK), Owen KELLY (FI), Raivo KELOMEES (EE), Jon KEMP (UK), Raphael KIM (UK), Jānis KLEPERIS (LV), Anne KØLBÆK IVERSEN (NO), Mara-Johanna KOLMEL (DE), Saskia KORSTEN (NL), Marinos KOUTSOMICHALIS (GR), Arendse KRABBE (NL), Matteo LANFRANCHI (IT), Deborah LAWLER-DORMER (NZ), Pēteris LESNIČENOKS (LV), Marie-Eve LEVASSEUR (DE), Manu LUKSCH (AT), Jacob LUND (NO), Armin Medosch (AT), Iris MEIER (US), Margarida MENDES (PT), Vytautas MICHELKEVIČIUS (LT), Anna Maria MONTEVERDI (IT), Tālis MUZIKANTS (LV), Mirko NIKOLIĆ (UK), Azadeh NILCHIANI (FR), Netta NORRO (SI), Vladimirs ŅEMCEVS (LV), Pauline O’CONNELL (IE), Jenny ODELL (US), Thomas ORTIZ (FR), Aneta PANEK (DE), Nedyalka PANOVA (UK), Matt PARKER (UK), Mukul PATEL (UK), Andrew PATERSON (FI), Marko PELJHAN (SI / US), Luke PENDRELL (UK), Krista PĒTERSONE (LV), Susanne PRATT (AU), David QUILES GUILLÓ (ES), Alexandru RAEVSCHI (DE), Grit RUHLAND (DE), Martin RUMORI (AT), Sabina SALLIS (UK), Audrey SAMSON (CA), Przemyslaw SANECKI (UK), Vincenzo SANSONE (IT), Martin SCHNEIDER (DE), Lena SÉRAPHIN (FI), Andreas SIMON (CH), Adilson SIQUEIRA (BR), Eva SJUVE (UK), Ilva SKULTE (LV), Lisa SO YOUNG PARK (HK), Ela SPALDING (PA), Christina STADLBAUER (BE / FI), Justyna STEPIÉN (PL), Minka STOYANOVA (HK), Joanna SZLAUDERBACH (DE), Ulla TAIPALE (FI), Hege TAPIO (NO), Andris TEIKMANIS (LV), Brad TODD (CA), Jan TORPUS (CH), Milos TRAKILOVIC (DE), Lucas VAN DER VELDEN (NL), Mārtiņš VANAGS (LV), Bart VANDEPUT (BE / FI), Eva VERHOEVEN (UK), Edit Emese VIZER (HU), Rihards VĪTOLS (LV), Yvonne VOLKART (CH), Artis VOLKOVS (LV), Frieda WIK (NO), Danielle WILDE (DK), Amy YOUNGS (US), Solvita ZARIŅA (LV), Emily ZHUKOV (PA), Karolina ŻYNIEWICZ (PL).
Conference Proceedings: The conference papers will be published in conference proceeding, which will come out in the Acoustic Space, peer-reviewed journal & book series. The call for full paper submissions will be announced during the conference and on the Acoustic Space journal website:
http://acousticspacejournal.com
EXHIBITIONS:
The Open Fields conference will be connected to the festival’s featured exhibition taking place in the new Exhibition Hall of the National Library of Latvia. Partly curated, partly peer-reviewed, the exhibition will represent 25 works by 35 artists, artists-researchers and data designers, who are challenging the notion of art and contemporary aesthetics. They are moving across, bringing together and converging different knowledge, various media and diverse Fields, as well as using scientific, cultural and social data as new artistic medium, and interpreting them in a new and meaningful ways.
Open Fields Exhibition artists: James AUGER (UK), Jimmy LOIZEAU (UK), Subramanian RAMAMOORTHY (UK) and Alan MURRAY (UK), Laura BELOFF (FI), Erich BERGER (FI/AT) and Mari KETO (DK/FI), Līvija DAUDZE (LV), Gints GABRĀNS (LV), Mindaugas GAPŠEVIČIUS (LT/DE), Jānis GARANČS (LV), Christoph HAAG (DE), Martin RUMORI (DE), Franziska WINDISCH (DE) and Ludwig ZELLER (DE), Adam HARVEY (US/DE), Bjørn Erik HAUGEN (NO), Ellie IRONS (US), Gideon KIERS, David KIERS & Lucas van der VELDEN / Telcosystems (NL), Raphael KIM (UK), Karen LANCEL (NL) and Hermen MAAT (NL), Pei-Ying LIN (TW), Dimitrios STAMATIS (UK) & Špela PETRIČ (SI), Rafael LOZANO-HEMMER (MX/CA), Mauro MARTINO (IT/US) and Jianxi GAO (CN/US), Dmitry MOROZOV (RU), Avner PELED (IL), Elisa SPIGAI (IT), Idamaija PITKONEN PIGUET (FI) and Soujanyaa BORUAH (IN), Esther POLAK (NL) & Ivar van BEKKUM (NL), Roberto PUGLIESE (IT/FI) & Jukka HAUTAMÄKI (FI/UK), Vygandas ŠIMBELIS (LT/SE), Jan TORPUS (CH), Paula VĪTOLA (LV), etc.
This year, we are also showing two more exhibitions, which are included in the festival’s parallel programme. As a part of Changing Weathers project the exhibition with the title TURNTON – A SMALL CITY ON THE SEA by Time’s Up artist collective (AT/AU) will take place in RIXC Gallery from September 28 – October 5, 2016. Through a process of scenario planning based upon futures processes and the current state of the oceans, Time’s Up artistshave developed a model for a small town that has transformed through this development to become an example of what a possible future might be like.
The other exhibition – THE IMPULSES is will take place in RISEBA University’s Architecture and Media Centre H2O 6 from September 19 – October 2, 2016, organized by Liepaja University’s Art Research Lab (Mplab). It will be showing the interactive and sound art work by artists: Madara KLAVINSKA, Anna PRIEDOLA, Paula VITOLA, Gunta DOMBROVSKA, Arturs KALVANS, Reinis NALIVAIKO, Uldis HASNERS. The exhibition will bel also featuring THE NEW SOUND DAYS performance programme on the evening of September 30, 2016.
VENUES:
The National Library of Latvia
The main venue of the conference and exhibition the new building of the National Library of Latvia http://www.lnb.lv/en/about-library/nll-building
RIXC Gallery
Address: 11. Novembra Krastmala 35, entrance from Minsterejas iela
RISEBA Center for Architecture and Media “H2O 6”,
Address: Durbes iela 4
OPEN FIELDS PROGRAMME (preliminary)
WEDNESDAY, September 28, 2016
12.00 – Press Conference
14.00 – Changing Weathers Partner Meeting
18.00 – Opening of the Exhibition: Turnton, Small City on the Sea by Time’s Up (AU/AT).
RIXC Gallery, Address: 11. Novembra Krastmala 35, entrance from Minsterejas iela
THURSDAY, September 29, 2016
15.00 – Conference Registration
Public Keynote Lectures:
16.00 – 17.00 Jussi PARIKKA (Winchester School of Art / University of Southampton / UK)
17.30 – 18.30 Christiane PAUL (New School / Whitney Museum / US)
19.00 – The Opening of Open Fields Exhibition and RIXC Festival Reception
The National Library of Latvia, Address: Mukusalas iela 3
FRIDAY, September 30, 2016
09.00 – 16.00 – Open Fields conference Day 1: Contemporainity / Art as Research
Featured sessions by Aarhus University’S Contemporainity Research Group, and Liepaja university’s Art Research Lab / Thematic keynotes / Parallel sessions
17.00-18.30 – Open Fields Book Review 1 (Featured session): book presentations by Armin MEDOSCH and Christiane PAUL, and discussion.
The National Library of Latvia
21.00 – Satellite event: New Sound Days performance programme and Impulses exhibition by young artists, organized by Liepaja University’s Art Research Lab (MPLab)
RISEBA Center for Architecture and Media “H2O 6”, Address: Durbes iela 4
SATURDAY, October 1, 2016
10.00 – 15.00 Open Fields conference Day 2: Eco-Aesthetics / Art and Science
Featured session by Changing Weathers project / Thematic keynote by Andy GRACIE / Parallel sessions.
16.00-17.00 Public Keynote Lecture: Monica BELLO (Arts@CERN / CH)
17.00 – 18.00 Open Fields Book Review 2 (20”x20 / Pecha Kucha format) presentations: by authors – Open Fields participants,
18.00 Festival Closing: Art-Science Coctails
The National Library of Latvia
FESTIVAL EXHIBITIONS
September 29 – November 2, 2016
OPEN FIELDS Exhibition
The main festival exhibition featuring 25 artworks by international artists
The Opening – September 29, 2016, 19.00.
The National Library of Latvia, Address: Mukusalas iela 3
September 28 – October 5, 2016
Turnton, a Small City on the Sea
Artists: Time’s Up (AU/AT)
The Opening – September 28, 2016, 18.00
RIXC Gallery, Address: 11. Novembra Krastmala 35, entrance from Minsterejas iela
September 19 – October 2, 2016
Impulss. The New Sound Days
Exhibition by young artists from
The Opening – September 19, 2016, 19.00
The Concert and Performance programme – September 30
RISEBA Center for Architecture and Media “H2O 6”, Address: Durbes iela 4
About Open Fields Conference
Following the last year’s successful launch of Renewable Futures (renewablefutures.net – the biannual travelling conference series) – this year RIXC with its European partners from Changing Weathers project, and other collaborating institutions and universities from the Baltic Sea region and Europe, are introducing Open Fields, aiming to develop it towards an annual Riga based gathering for the discussion on artistic reseach, the changing role of arts in societies, art’s transformative potential, and relations to sciences.
The International Conference Scientific Organizational board:
Prof. Lev MANOVICH / Software Studies Initiative / The Graduate Center, City University of New York, US
PhD. Armin MEDOSCH / Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia / Initiator of the Technopolitics working group in Vienna, Austria
PhD. Jussi PARIKKA / Winchester School of Art / University of Southampton / UK
PhD. Geoff COX / School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark
Prof. Kristin BERGAUST / Oslo and Akershus University, Norway
Assoc. prof. Laura BELOFF / IT University in Copenhagen, Denmark / Finnish Bioart Society, Helsinki, Finland
Dr. Lily DIAZ-KOMMONEN / Head of Research Department of Media, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki, Finland
Dr. Ursula DAMM / Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany
Dr. Andris TEIKMANIS / Vice-rector, the Art Academy of Latvia, Riga
Dr. Vytautas MICHELKEVICIUS / Nida Art Colony, Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania
PhD. Margrét Elísabet ÓLAFSDÓTTIR / Art Education at the University of Akureyri, Iceland
Andrew Gryf PATERSON / Pixelache Helsinki / SERDE / Aalto University ARTS Media department, Helsinki, Finland
Dr. Piibe PIIRMA / Tallinn’s University, Tallinn, Estonia
Dr. Janis KLEPERIS / Hydrogen Laboratory, Solid State Physics Institute, Latvian University, Riga, Latvia
Dr. Raivo KELOMEES / Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia
Regine DEBATTY / we-make-money-not-art.com, London, UK
Conference Chair: Dr. Rasa SMITE / RIXC / Art Research Lab, Liepaja University / RISEBA / Riga, Latvia
Festival and Exhibition curators: Raitis SMITS and Rasa SMITE.
The festival is organized by RIXC Center for New Media Culture.
Open Fields Conference Academic Partners: Liepaja University’s Art Research Lab, RISEBA University for Business, Art and Technologies, and Latvian Academy of Arts.
RIXC Festival Exhibition and Open Fields Conference partners: Latvian National Library and Creative Europe’s project Changing Weathers partners http://www.changingweathers.net/
Contacts: rixc@rixc.org
Address: RIXC Center for New Media Culture
Maskavas iela 10, Riga, LV 1050
Phone: +371-67228478 (office), +371-26546776 (Rasa Smite),
Support: EU programme Creative Europe, State Cultural Capital Foundation of Latvia, Ministry of Culture of Republic of Latvia, Goethe Institute Riga, Mondrian Foundation, Pro Helvetia (tbc.)
More information:
http://rixc.org
