Kunstakademiet i Trondheim
MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT)
ACT Cube
20 Ames Street, E15-001,
Cambridge, MA 02142
The Zooetics+ Symposium commences Friday, April 27, 2018 with the sessions “What Does Ecosystemic Thinking Mean Today” and “Knowledge Production Through Making and Living with Other Species,” discussing the habits of thought associated with cybernetics and the transition towards new thinking, inspired by sympoietics. The day will be finalized with a session speculating on what non-human imagination could look like in the session “The Radical Imagination: Toward Overcoming the Human.”
On Saturday, April 28, the program will explore further devices for ecosystemic thinking, discussing relevant artistic methods and practices in the panel “Artistic Intelligence, Speculation, Prototypes, Fiction.” “Creating Indigenous Futures” will be explored through bringing Indigenous values together with science and technology. The need for other, alternative vantage points—of species, of time, of traditions, of beings will be addressed in the session “Futures of Symbiotic Assemblages: Multi-naturalism, Monoculture Resistance and “The Permanent Decolonization of Thought.”
The symposium will conclude with a roundtable and launch of a new artistic research program “Sympoiesis: New Research, New Pedagogy, and New Publishing in Radical Inter-disciplinarity.”
Zooetics+ will be accompanied by a program of performances and installations by Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, Allora and Calzadilla, Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, Rikke Luther and NODE Berlin/Oslo.
Zooetics+ is part of ACT’s program recognizing the 50th anniversary of the founding of the renowned Center for Advanced Visual Studies, a predecessor to ACT.
Detailed Schedule and Description of Program Sessions:
FRIDAY, APRIL 27
9:30 AM Registration
10:00 AM Opening Protocol by Erin Genia
10:15 AM Introduction to Zooetics+ Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas
10:30 AM–12:00 PM What Does Ecosystemic Thinking Mean Today?
Genealogy, impact and legacy of ecosystematic thought since the dawn of cybernetics. How have the infrastructures changed today since the publication of “Limits to Growth” or “Whole Earth Catalogue”? What tools are there to attune ourselves to perceive the interconnections of natural and man-made systems and to be able to make ethical, political, aesthetic decisions? This session is engaged with the question of how to transition from the habits of thought associated with cybernetics towards new thinking… perhaps sympoietics?
Cary Wolfe and Sophia Roosth
Respondent: Lars Bang Larsen
12:00 PM–1:30 PM Lunch break and Banner Tow Flight by Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa
1:30 PM–3:00 PM Knowledge Production Through Making and Living with Other Species
Visions for species equality. Conviviality. Accessing other-than-human ways of knowing. Learning from other species (vis-a-vis biomimicry of other species)
Scott Gilbert and Stefan Helmreich
Moderator: Caitlin Berrigan
Respondent: Caroline A Jones
3:00 PM–3:15 PM Break
3:15 PM–5:00 PM The Radical Imagination: Toward Overcoming the Human
Often reduced to a capacity of either a subject or consciousness, imagination could be thought as a way of opening up to the future and the unknown. Simultaneously being a sphere of change and transformation, it invents the directions of its own development and acts as a link between a human and the powers of the world. However, is it possible transcend human imagination? What would a non-human imagination look like?
Chiara Bottici, Richard Kearney and Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
Respondent: Kristupas Sabolius
SATURDAY April 28
9:30 AM Registration
10:00 AM–11:30 AM Artistic Intelligence, Speculation, Prototypes, Fiction. Learning Through Artistic Methods.
Artistic methods of speculation, prototype making, modelling and fiction as pedagogical devices for ecosystemic thinking.
Sheila Kennedy, Heather Davis
Respondents: Larissa Harris and Laura Serejo Genes
11:30 AM–11:45 AM Break
11:45 AM–1:15 PM Creating Indigenous Futures: Indigenous artists discuss their work in relationship to futurity and creative reclamation
Looking ahead to future generations, sustained by the strength of our ancestors and wise to the challenges of living in fraught times, how do we bring our values as Indigenous people to our work in creating Indigenous futures?
Courtney M. Leonard (Shinnecock), Jackson Polys (Tlingit), Kite (Oglala Lakota)
Respondent: Mario Caro
1:30 PM–2:30 PM Lunch break
2:30 PM–4:00 PM Futures of Symbiotic Assemblages: Multi-naturalism, Monoculture Resistance and “The Permanent Decolonization of Thought”
In the age of post-truth, peak oil, alternative facts, and the alternative right, it has never been more urgent to defend the need for the coexistence of other, alternative vantage points – of species, of time, of traditions, of beings.
Emmanuel Alloa, Kim TallBear
Respondents: Gediminas Urbonas, Laura Knott, Nuno Gomes Loureiro, and Nolan Oswald Dennis
4:00 PM–4:30 PM Break
4:30PM–5:30PM Closing remarks and future plans:
Sympoiesis: New Research, New Pedagogy, and New Publishing in Radical Inter-disciplinarity
Florian Schneider, Corinne Diserens, Lars Bang Larsen, Gediminas Urbonas, Nomeda Urbonas, Judith Barry, Gary Zhang, 3 witnesses
6:00 PM Chalk by Allora and Calzadilla, Saxon Tennis Courts, 3 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA
6:30 PM Reception at the Muddy Charles Pub, Walker Memorial, Building 50, first floor
8:00 PM Projection Event by NODE Berlin/Oslo
8:30 PM Biotricity by Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, MIT Center for Theoretical Physics, Building 6-304
9:30 PM Performance by Rikke Luther, ACT Cube, Building E15-001
Speakers:
Emmanuel Alloa, University of St.Galen, Switzerland
Lars Bang Larsen, Royal Institute of Art Stockholm, Sweden
Judith Barry, MIT ACT
Caitlin Berrigan, NYU Tisch, Photography and Imaging
Chiara Bottici, The New School for Social Research
Mario Caro, MIT ACT
Heather Davis, McGill University
Nolan Oswald Dennis, MIT ACT
Corinne Diserens, freelance curator
Erin Genia (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate), MIT ACT
Scott Gilbert, Swarthmore College and the University of Helsinki
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, freelance artist
Nuno Gomes Loureiro, MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering
Larissa Harris, Queens Museum, New York
Stefan Helmreich, MIT Anthropology
Caroline A. Jones, MIT Architecture
Richard Kearney, Boston College
Sheila Kennedy, MIT Architecture
Kite (Oglala Lakota), Concordia University
Laura Knott, MIT ACT
Courtney M. Leonard (Shinnecock), Artist
Jackson Polys (Tlingit), Columbia University
Sophia Roosth, Harvard University
Kristupas Sabolius, Vilnius University
Laura Serejo Genes, MIT ACT
Florian Schneider, NTNU, Trondheim Academy of Fine Art
Kim TallBear (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), University of Alberta
Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, MIT ACT
Cary Wolfe, Rice University
Gary Zhexi Zhang, MIT ACT