Organised in the framework of Esch2022 – European Capital of Culture (EN)
Leading digital artists and curators discuss the use and impact of Artificial Intelligence in the process of art-making today and the new creative horizon opened by this technology..
Panelists include artists Tega Brain, Špela Petrič, Tristan Schulze and curators Sabine Himmelsbach (HEK), Anett Holzheid (ZKM), Boris Magrini (HEK) and Laura Welzenbach (Ars Electronica).
This panel discussion is part of the programme of large scale group exhibitions that encourage critical reflection on art, science, technology and society. They are organised by Esch2022 – European Capital of Culture in collaboration with three leading media arts institutions: ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, HEK (House of Electronic Arts) and Ars Electronica and presented in the Möllerei in Esch-Belval, a listed building formerly used for storing raw materials used in the process of steelmaking.
Current exhibition
IN TRANSFER – A New Condition
Through 27 November
Möllerei (entrance via Visitor Centre)
3 avenue des Hauts-Fourneaux, 4362, Esch-sur-Alzette
Wednesday – Monday: 11:00 – 18:00
Tuesday: closed
More information: esch2022.lu
About Esch2022 – European Capital of Culture:
In 2022, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg’s second largest city, is European Capital of Culture together with eighteen Luxembourg and French municipalities. Situated in Luxembourg’s former steel-mining south and crossing the border into France, Esch2022 aims at promoting the cultural and artistic diversity of the region. Following the general motto REMIX Culture, the program comprises a vast array of events from all artistic disciplines with a specific thematic focus on the transition of the region from the industrial past to a contemporary society of knowledge. Media arts and immersive exhibitions developed in collaboration with renowned international institutions are therefore cornerstones of the visual arts programme unfolding in a stunning post-industrial site: Esch-Belval and its City of Sciences and Innovation.
**About the panelists: **
Tega Brain is an artist, environmental engineer, and researcher working at the intersection of art, ecology, and technology. Guided by the question how technology shapes ecology, she investigates environmental issues, data systems, and infrastructures. She creates wireless networks coupled to natural phenomena, systems for obfuscating personal data, and an online smell-based dating service. Brain is an Assistant Professor of Integrated Digital Media at New York University and has given numerous talks and workshops at museums and festivals. Her work has been exhibited internationally at several institutions as well as biennales and triennials. Tega Brain lives and works in Sydney and New York. tegabrain.com
Sabine Himmelsbach is director of HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel. Curated exhibitions at HEK in Basel include Ryoji Ikeda (2014), Poetics and Politics of Data(2015), Lynn Hershman Leeson: Anti-Bodies and Eco-Visionaries (2018), Entangled Realities: Living with Artificial Intelligence (2019), Making FASHION Sense and Real Feelings: Emotion and Technology (2020). In 2021 she curated the online exhibition and conference Hybrid by Nature: Human. Machine. Interaction for the Goethe Institutes in Southeast Asia. As a writer and lecturer she is dedicated to topics related to media art and digital culture.
Anett Holzheid is a humanities and media scholar working as scientific consultant at ZKM | Karlsruhe. She has lectured in the fields of culture and media studies at several German universities. Her research interests include artistic media spaces with a focus on transdisciplinary relations between classical and emerging media art genres. Recent exhibition projects include Negative Space: Trajectories of Sculpture (ZKM, 2019) and Konrad Balder Schäuffelen: Language Is a Body, Forsooth (ZKM, 2017).
Boris Magrini is head of programme and curator at HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel. Curated shows include Radical Gaming (2021), Shaping the Invisible World(2020), Entangled Realities – Living with Artificial Intelligence (2019), Future Love: Desire and Kinship in Hypernature (2018), Grounded Visions: Artistic Research into Environmental Issues (2015–2016), Hydra Project (2016), Anathema (2007–2008), and Mutamenti (2007). Recent publications include: Automation and Intentionality — Photography Without the Camera, in Automated Photography (ECAL/ Lausanne, Mörel Books: 2021).
Špela Petrič is a new media artist with a background in natural sciences, and currently a researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Biophysics of Photosynthesis research group, VU Artscience laboratory hybrid forms. Her artistic practice combines biomedia practices and performativity to enact strange relations between bodies that reveal and propose alternatives to the underpinnings of our (bio)technological societies. Petrič has received several awards, including the White Aphroid for outstanding artistic achievement, the Bioart and Design Award, and the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction. Špela Petrič lives and works in Amsterdam. spelapetric.org
Tristan Schulze’s media art practice reflects on current developments in the digital world, including topics such as artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and Internet of Things technologies. His works have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions including Ars Electronica, Linz, the BIX media façade at Kunsthaus Graz, and in the exhibition Diversity United – Contemporary European Art, presented in Berlin, Moscow and Paris. His work is part of collections such as The Bocholt Textile Factory, and the ZKM. Tristan Schulze lives in Leipzig. tristanschulze.de
Laura Welzenbach is Head of Ars Electronica Export where she manages international collaborations with the aim to connect art and science through creating new experiences. She has collaborated with distinguished art organizations such as the Guggenheim Museum and the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York, tiff Toronto International Film Festival, MAK Museum of Applied Arts, MuseumsQuartier and k/haus Kuenstlerhaus in Vienna. Recent exhibition projects include Translation of Complexity, (sound:frame x improper walls, 2019), Step into Space, (Ars Electronica Festival,2019) and CIVA Festival, Vienna and internationally (2021).
The ZKM I Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe is a cultural institution that is unique in the world. With its art collection, publications, archives, and artistic, scholarly and scientific research on the electronic arts, the ZKM stands for a programme of interdisciplinary projects and international collaborations. In its exhibitions, symposia, concerts, and workshops, the ZKM communicates the theoretical discourses of philosophy, science, technology, politics, and economics from a contemporary artistic perspective. zkm.de
HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel is Switzerland’s national competence centre for contemporary media art and digital cultures. Since 2011, the institution has been central to the creative and critical discourse on the aesthetic, socio-political and economic effects of media technologies. As a platform for contemporary art that explores and employs new technologies, HEK promotes aesthetic practices related to information technologies. This not only enables a better comprehension of the changing world we live in, but also serves to actively engage with these processes and confront pressing questions of 21st century culture, while actively contributing to their mediation. hek.ch
Ars Electronica is a platform working at the intersection of art, technology and society through organising exhibitions, educational programmes, and research projects focused on the future of our societies. Founded in Linz as a festival in 1979, it has since expanded to include a laboratory, an award, and a museum dedicated to the study and promotion of media arts and digital culture. ars.electronica.art
