Open Fields 2021 Conference and RIXC Art-Science Festival Exhibition
Dates (Period): 23/09/2021 – 12/11/2021
Location: Riga, Latvia / Online
Organizer: RIXC Center for New Media Culture
PostSensorium, this year’s RIXC Art Science Festival, will take place from September 23-25, 2021, exploring the immensity of our virtual and real life challenges that demand a renewed focus on sensory perception and embodied experiences.
PostSensorium festival aims to provide a platform for artistic interventions and critical discussions on the 21st-century’s virtual sensing technologies, science and aesthetics, reconsidering the relations between the actual and virtual, organic and artificial, natural and techno-social, human and “more-than-human”…
The PostSensorium Festival Program will feature the Opening of the PostSensorium Exhibition (the main physical event of this year’s festival) showing the works by internationally recognized artists who are at the forefront interrogating novel sensing tools, immersive technologies, and experiential art practices.
The PostSensorium Virtual Program will consist of the annual Open Fields Conference, online WebVR exhibition and Screening Program by young and emerging artists, Live Concert and Performances from RIXC Greenhouse, Artist Talks and outstanding Keynote Lectures discussing the contemporary mediums, artistic practices and novel tools for exploring human and “more-than-human” sensoriums, AI and aesthetics of the 21st century, and creating new immersive experiences.
Keynote Speakers
Christiane PAUL / professor of media studies at The New School / Adjunct Curator of Digital Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City / well known as the author of the book “Digital Art” (Thames & Hudson. 2003/2008/2015/2022) / curator of “The Question of Intelligence: AI and The Future of Humanity” (2020) exhibition
Douglas KAHN / author of Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts and Noise Water Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts, editor of Energies in the Arts, among other books in histories of the arts, experimental music, and computation in the arts. He is Honorary Professor at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, and Professor Emeritus at University of California at Davis, and University of New South Wales.
Špela PETRIČ / Ljubljana and Amsterdam based new media artist / PhD in biology / a researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam / Petrič received several awards, such as the White Aphroid for outstanding artistic achievement (Slovenia), the Bioart and Design Award (Netherlands), and an Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica (Austria).
Concept and Themes
“We like to imagine ourselves as rational beings who think and speak, yet to live means first and foremost to look, taste, feel, and smell the world around us.” (Coccia, 2016)
The human sensorium has always been mediated. “Without the ‘medium’ of air or water, the anthropoid ear finds it impossible to hear” (Caroline A Jones, 2006). But with more recent enhancement of virtual and sensing technologies, and intensification of its daily use, our ‘sensoriums’ have become more mediated than ever before. Recent conditions of navigating our lives between the virtual and the real, demand a renewed focus on sensory perception and embodied experience.
Earlier cyberfiction referred to the body as a “meat machine”, the only function of which is to facilitate the activity of the brain, so – to think; while our thinking separated from the body was considered to be a purely transcendental act. Even if contemporary neuroscience increasingly confirms that our “will” is an effect of basic autonomic neurons (hence, ‘sensing”) we keep designing our machines, including the intelligent ones, “to foster the fantasy that bodies are separate from the minds that ‘control’ them”. Moreover, as an art historian, curator and author Caroline A Jones puts it that “embodied experience through senses (and their necessary and unnecessary mediations) is how we think”. (Caroline A Jones, 2006)
According to contemporary philosopher Emanuele Coccia “our existence – whether sleeping or awake – is a relentless stream of the sensible…”, yet the communication of two – body and mind, imaginative and physical, natural and artificial – needs a medium, as “the things are not the sensible themselves, they need [a media] to become visible, tangible, audible”. (Emanuele Coccia, 2016)
PostSensorium festival will take on the earlier RIXC studies on “techno-ecological perspective” aiming to open it up towards broader discussion on “post-sensorium conditions”; whereby asking which mediums, technologies or practices are better than others served to reveal our sensorium – mediated being and extended reality.
The festival will gather together artists, theorists, and researchers who are in a forefront of exploring the “post-sensorium conditions”, critically interrogating transformative potential of arts, and using virtual sensing tools to create new embodied and immersive experiences in which sensible and actual, embodied and imaginative, natural and artificially intelligent are in a continuous interaction..
Open Fields 2021 Conference (Riga/Virtual)
We received almost 70 proposals for the PostSensorium conference by artists, PhD students and researchers from different fields, who explore extended reality applications, virtual sensing tools and other immersive technologies, use data, AI and ML algorithms; collaborate with science, biology, ecology and other disciplines; create and critically engage with embodied experiences, immersive environments, and experiential practices.
Topics
* Embodied Experiences and Extended Reality
* Virtual Sensing, Photogrammetry and Experiential Art Practices
* Sensory Perception and Sonic Immersions
* Intelligent Ecosystems and More-Than-Human Conditions
* Ecologies Beyond Green – Light, Energies and Fields
* Living Technologies – Artificial Intelligence & Biopolitics
Publication
The selected papers will be published in the new edition “GREEN Revisited” of Acoustic Space (Volume 19) / Renewable Futures (Issue 4), co-edited by Rasa Smite, Jens Hauser and Kristin Bergaust, published by RIXC, 2022.
Call for papers is open with the deadline October 30, 2021, for the participants of the Open Fields 2020 and 2021 and Renewable Futures conferences – PostSensorium (OF2021, Riga), Ecodata (OF2020, Riga), and Living Technologies (RF2021, Oslo).
Please send your submissions to: rixc@rixc.org and cc: rasa.smite@rixc.org (editor).
More info: http://acousticspacejournal.com
Conference Chairs
Rasa SMITE, PhD, Prof. of New Media Art, Liepaja University / RIXC / Lecturer, ACT at MIT
Kristin BERGAUST, Prof., FELT project / Faculty of Technology, Art and Design, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Jens HAUSER / Art curator and writer, independent scholar / Paris, FRRaitis SMITS, Dr.,,RIXC / Associate Professor, Art Academy of Latvia / Lecturer, ACT at MIT
OPEN FIELDS 2021 Conference Scientific Board:
Oksana CHEPELYK, Dr., leading researcher of The New Technologies Department at The Modern Art Research Institute of Ukraine
Maija DEMITERE / Lecturer and Program Director’s Assistant of New Media and Audiovisual Art MA Program at RISEBA and Liepaja University, Latvia
Lily DIAZ-KOMMONEN, Professor of New Media, Department of Media, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Finland.
Gabriela GALATI, Professor, NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milan / Lecturer IED Istituto Europeo di Design, Turin / Co-Founder IPERCUBO.eu
Vytautas MICHELKEVICIUS, Associate Professor, Vilnius Academy of Arts, Department of Photography and Media Art and Doctoral School, Vilnius, Lithuania
Raivo KELOMEES, PhD., Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia
Zilvinas LILAS, professor, KHM, Cologne, Germany
Ellen PEARLMAN, PhD / Parsons / New School / Art-A-Hack / ThoughtWorks / New York, USA / Docent, RISEBA University for Business, Art and Technologies, Riga, Latvia
Anna PRIEDOLA / Head of Art Research Lab, Program Director of New Media Art BA program, Liepaja University, Latvia
Helena SEDERHOLM, Prof., Biofilia & Department of Art, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki, Finland
Ilva SKULTE, PhD., Associate Professor, Riga Stradins University, Riga, Latvia
Chris HALES, PhD, Assistant Prof. at RISEBA University of Applied Sciences, Riga, Latvia
Marko PELJHAN, Prof., University of California Santa Barbara Media Arts and Technology Program
Alise TIFENTALE, PhD., independent scholar, Riga, Latvia
Solvita ZARINA, Dr., Assoc. Prof. the Faculty of Computing, University of Latvia, lead researcher at the Laboratory of Innovative Information Technologies FC UL, Riga, Latvia
Exhibition
The virtual program will be connected to the exhibition, the main physical event of this year’s festival that will take place until November 12, 2021 in the National Library of Latvia and RIXC Gallery, featuring immersive and experiential artworks by thirteen international artists. The exhibition will be complemented by immersive excursions guided by curators and artists for virtual audiences, and interactive educational programs for the local public of Riga and Latvia.
Artists
The National Library of Latvia from 24.09.2021-12.11.2021
Maria CASTELLANOS and Alberto VALVERDE (ES), Santa FRANCE (LV), David HAINES and Joyce HINTERDING (AU), Knowbotiq (CH/AT), Kristīne KRAUZE-SLUCKA (LV), Vanessa LORENZO (CH/ES), Špela PETRIČ (SI), Tivon RICE (US/NL), Clement VALLA (FR/US), Rihards VĪTOLS (LV) //
RIXC Gallery from 1.10.2021-12.11.2021.
Daniel HENGST (DE)
Context: GREEN Revisited and Renewable Futures
Open Fields is the annual RIXC Art Science festival conference based in Riga and organized in collaboration with its academic partner – MPLab (Art Research Lab) of Liepaja University, Liepaja, Latvia. Open Fields is a leading Baltic Nordic platform for critical discussions on emerging discourses and novelty art forms in the field of artistic research, digital media, art and science, and techno-ecologies.
Open Fields is a part of Renewable Futures, a larger international network and biannual traveling conference series in the Baltic Sea and North European region that aim to invent new avenues for more sustainable and imaginative future developments, shaping new contact zones between traditionally separated domains – art and science, academic research and independent creative practices, sustainable businesses and social engagement in the 21st century. The first Renewable Futures conference took place in Riga (2015), followed by two next editions in Eindhoven (2017) and Helsinki (2018).
This year, the fourth Renewable Futures conference will take place in Oslo, in November 4-6, 2021, exploring the topics related to “Futures of Living Technologies”.
Currently, the Call for Renewable Futures 2021 “Living Technologies” virtual conference in Oslo is also open with the deadline – September 6, 2021.
More info and submission from is available here: https://feltproject.no
This year’s Open Fields 2021 “PostSensorium” (virtual) conference in Riga, and Renewable Futures 2021 “Living Technologies” (virtual) conference in Oslo, are manifesting a closing phase of “Green Revisited – Encountering Emerging Naturecultures (GREEN)” Creative Europe’s cooperation project. The GREEN project aims to develop a European platform that shapes and promotes an emerging “naturecultures” paradigm via the arts and enhances criticality by investigating the pervasive greenness trope.
Registration Fees / Tickets
Festival’s Virtual Program offers festival passes as well as single event tickets:
* Early Bird Conference Registration Fee / Festival Pass – 9 EUR (until September 15)
* Early Bird Festival Pass for Students – 5 EUR (until September 15)
* Early Bird Single Event tickets (Keynote Talks, Conference Panels, Virtual Tour by Curators through the Exhibition, Video Screening, Concert and Performances) – 2,50 EUR / 1,50 EUR (with student discount)
Register / buy the festival tickets on eventbrite system here: https://ieej.lv/tWWim
On site Exhibition in the Library and Gallery has a free entrance.
Guided Tours for school groups can be booked for no charge via e-mail rixc@rixc.org
Producers and Contact:
The Festival is Produced by The RIXC Centre for New Media Culture.
Festival curators: Rasa Smite (rasa@rixc.org) and Raitis Smits (raitis@rixc.org)
Festival producer: Agnese Baranova (agnese@rixc.org)
PR and information coordinator: Liva Silina (rixc@rixc.org)
Contact e-mail: rixc@rixc.org
Phones: +371 29635167 (Agnese Baranova), +371 26546776 (Rasa Smite)
Address: RIXC the Centre for New Media Culture, Lencu iela 2, Riga, LV-1010, Latvia
Support and Partners:
The PostSensiorum Festival and Conference program take place in the framework of “Green Revisited – Encountering Emerging Naturecultures (GREEN)” project co-funded by the EU program Creative Europe. GREEN project is led by RIXC in collaboration with the partners Baltan Laboratories (The Netherlands), Emmetrop (France), Zavod Projekt Atol (Slovenia), Oslo MET (Norway), Biofilia at Aalto University (Finland), MPLab / Art Research Lab at Liepaja University (Latvia).
The festival is supported by The State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, Goethe Institute, and others.