Date
1-15 July 2019
Location
Trieste, Italy
Exhibition
19 Oct – 3 Nov, Cluj Napoca
Overview
The Unseen represents the second curatorial theme in a series of Art & Science residencies organized in collaboration with FIT (Fondatione Internationale Trieste) under the umbrella of Pro-ESOF2020 (European Science Open Forum 2020).
The purpose of this residency was to provide a framework for artists to investigate the relationship between contemporary art and advanced scientific research, thus building a bridge between the two cultures of knowledge, encouraging the development of the creative force shared by both disciplines and exploring new ways of reflection at the intersection between art and science.
Through the proposed activities, this project encouraged both the enhancement of creativity innovation capacity by combining it with advanced research platforms, as well as the positioning of the artist as an interpreter of the scientific information, that can facilitate a new kind of dialogue between avant-garde technology and society.
The creative theme: The Unseen explored the constructivist approach of meaning-making, an active process by which people interpret their experiences and knowledge and actively integrate them for a greater understanding of the world, both in a subjective and objective manner. The unseen represents a way of access to understanding the subtle and hard to grasp things surrounding us, offering the possibilities of new perspectives concerning phenomenas/problems that we stopped noticing.
Context
Trieste was named the European City of Science between July 2018 – July 2020, being the perfect place for such explorations: it has the highest density of researchers per inhabitant, hosts excellent research institutes and is the home of the oldest Master in Scientific Communication in Europe. The cultural project was organised by Scientifica in collaboration with Fondazione Internazionale Trieste as part of the international Pro-ESOF 2020 Framework (EuroScience Open Forum).
In/Visible Cities joined us this year, providing the grounds for international participation in the residence, while SciFabLab offered support in the concept ideation, where manufacturing was needed.
Scientific institutions that play a key role in international science research and that were included in this year’s programme:
The Exhibition
The Unseen exhibition in Cluj-Napoca presented the results of our second Art meets Science residency project, that took place in Trieste, European City of Science. The exhibition concluded the research and artistic production period of the artists: Ioana Trușcă (Bucharest), Lucian Indrei (Cluj-Napoca), Maria Băcilă (Vienna), Hybrid Lab | Eranio Petrușka and Ana-Bianca Tudorică (Cluj-Napoca) and had as a guest entry the work of the performative arts collective AJARIOT (IT).
The Unseen exhibition presented the works and the new artistic expressive valences as in critical intervention, artistic or playful experimentation from the artists participating in the Trieste residency.
Ioana Trușcă
Do Not Feed The Anxiety Monster
During the two weeks of the residency in Trieste, The Unseen revealed itself as traces of the human condition, in some of the most technical environments. In essence, we all live through the same palette of basic emotions, no matter who we are and what we do.
This project aimed to show how we’re all connected, through a state that the artist finds the most interesting. Three instances of anxiety, sorted by age, and a character for each of them. On one hand, animated, on the other, arranged in a complementary composition, three creatures live their anxiety-drenched destinies. On the screen they move as they’ve been told, in frames per second. On the table, they follow other rules. Instead of frames – glazed sandstone, and instead of seconds – iron oxide and magnets. Simple physics, an almost school-like experiment.
Lucian Indrei
Along a Spiral Path (Synchrotron Black)
During our visit at Elettra we had a tour of the research facility. We were informed how the machine operates at large, being basically a huge x-rays generator. While the machine operates, the access is restrained in certain areas due to the ionising radiation.
Therefore seemed like an interesting idea for the artist to let a few boxes of photographic paper in such a place, where access is restricted because of hard x-rays emissions, during a shutdown. “Most probably,” he thought “the radiation will overexpose the paper. We will find out at the next programmed shut down, when they will be able to retrieve it. Until then, this is an experiment done in a radiology laboratory.”
Lucian Indrei
Along a Spiral Path (Synchrotron Black)
During our visit at Elettra we had a tour of the research facility. We were informed how the machine operates at large, being basically a huge x-rays generator. While the machine operates, the access is restrained in certain areas due to the ionising radiation.
Therefore seemed like an interesting idea for the artist to let a few boxes of photographic paper in such a place, where access is restricted because of hard x-rays emissions, during a shutdown. “Most probably,” he thought “the radiation will overexpose the paper. We will find out at the next programmed shut down, when they will be able to retrieve it. Until then, this is an experiment done in a radiology laboratory.”
Lucian Indrei
The Arc
At Elettra we also encountered an unusual amount of aluminium foil, being used mainly for covering the main pipe, through which the particles are spinning. We were told it is not for aesthetic reasons but for reflecting heat back when the installation is in use. Nevertheless we saw some objects modeled from aluminum foil, probably for fun or boredom. The artist decided to recuperate as much foil as he could and produce an object with it: a shiny, compressed cube.
Maria Băcilă
AI NIMISM
The artist proposed a new animism, AI NIMISIM, which incorporated the scientific understanding of the world and AI as a supernatural force, integral + interwoven with the material world. She proposed AI as a factor of emergence (emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties, its parts do not have on their own. These properties or behaviors emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole. For example, smooth forward motion emerges when a bicycle and its rider interoperate, but neither part can produce the behavior on their own.)
Supernaturalising nature leads to nature made mysterious. If we use the full power of the term nature, it must include technology. The systems we build, that we no longer understand, go through the same supernaturalising process and are made mysterious, becoming supernatural.
Maria Băcilă
AI NIMISM
The artist proposed a new animism, AI NIMISIM, which incorporated the scientific understanding of the world and AI as a supernatural force, integral + interwoven with the material world. She proposed AI as a factor of emergence (emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties, its parts do not have on their own. These properties or behaviors emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole. For example, smooth forward motion emerges when a bicycle and its rider interoperate, but neither part can produce the behavior on their own.)
Supernaturalising nature leads to nature made mysterious. If we use the full power of the term nature, it must include technology. The systems we build, that we no longer understand, go through the same supernaturalising process and are made mysterious, becoming supernatural.
Hybrid Lab
Cosmic Medley
Cosmic Medley was born based on the idea of highlighting the connection between what is seen and what cannot be seen. They invited the participants to take a closer look at the magnetic atmosphere created in their showcase as it presents the link between science and art. Although the viewer has the impression of something organic in the container, it is the result of carefully engineered magnetic fields.
Hybrid Lab
Ctrl Shift
Starting from the redshift and blueshift in the Doppler effect, this interactive installation took the participants into a light and sound journey from past to future.
Hybrid Lab
Ctrl Shift
Starting from the redshift and blueshift in the Doppler effect, this interactive installation took the participants into a light and sound journey from past to future.
AJARIOT
D.A.K.I.N.I.SUITE(E)
This was a project by AJARIOT selected by the In\Visible city festival call for artists in collaboration with Scientifica. During the two weeks residency, the artist group spent part of the research time as part of The Unseen group in Trieste and the production time took place in Gorizia. This interactive performance, one that makes use of suit motion capture, was revealed during the the In\Visible city festival in Gorizia.
The correspondence between the experience of the body and its virtual projection is at the center of the 3D animations of the performance D.A.K.I.N.I. SUITE(E); the suit, second skin of the performer, allows the dialogue between the physical body and the virtual body, through overlaps, duplications, symbioses and clashes, as well as the creation of new digital identities outside of pre-established tracks – other identities that create new territories by imagining and desiring, as Deleuze said.
Partners
Media Partners
Co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration
The project does not necessarily represent the position of the National Cultural Fund Administration. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or the way the project results can be used. These fall entirely under the responsibility of to the beneficiary of the funding.