RENEWABLE FUTURES
The 1st edition of new Art and Science Conference Series in EU Baltic
Sea region, in the framework of RIXC Art Science Festival
October 8-10, 2015, Riga
http://renewablefutures.net | http://rixc.org/en/festival/
Photos from the Renewable Futures Conference:
Renewable Futures Conference reception
Renewable Futures Keynote John Thackara
Renewable Futures Keynote Lev Manovich
The Renewable Futures is a new conference series in the Baltic Sea and North European region that aims to invent new avenues for more sustainable and imaginative future developments. It shapes 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.
Keynote lecture by John Thackara. Photo: Kristine Madjare
The 1st conference edition will take place in Riga, from October 8–10, 2015, and it will primarily focus on exploring the transformative potential of art in the post-media conditions. Today, according to several voices – Rosalind Krauss, Lev Manovich, Peter Weibel and Domenico Quaranta – we have entered the post-media age; there is no any single medium anymore that dominates in contemporary media art practices that are rather engaged with contemporaneity and critical thinking. The huge diversity of “post-media art” was profoundly explored also in the
Fields exhibition (Riga 2014, http://fields.rixc.lv), curated by Raitis Smits, Armin Medosch and Rasa Smite. The Fields showed that art in post-media conditions contains highly transformative and visionary potential. However, symbolic and aesthetic qualities, as well as critical, investigative and confrontational aspects also proved to be just as important for “post-media art” to maintain a line between physical and mental, realities and utopias.
The conference will share two main perspectives of potential of art in post-media age – “techo-ecological” and “big data”, which will be represented by our public keynote speakers – John THACKARA, and Lev MANOVICH, as well as by plenary session / thematic keynote speakers – Domenico QUARANTA, Armin MEDOSCH, Dieter DANIELS, Geoff COX, Andreas
BROECKMANN, Katja KWASTEK and Martha BUSKIRK.
The conference is complemented by RIXC’s festival programme. This year, in its 15th anniversary, RIXC is changing the title and the course of its annual festival: from the 90s network culture and “art+communication” ideas the festival now is making a shift towards broader art and science fields, focusing on cultural innovation. This
year’s edition of RIXC’s new Art Science festival will feature Opening Performance programme in Spikeri Concert hall, and opening of two exhibitions – Data Drift, curated by Lev MANOVICH, Rasa SMITE and Raitis
SMITS, that will take place in kim? Contemporary Art Center, and North Transformative Ecologies exhibition in RIXC Gallery will open already
today – on Wednesday, October 7, at 19.00. Both exhibitions will run till November 22, 2015.
Also, in relation to the RIXC festival and Renewable Futures conference, new issue of Acoustic Space journal will come out, with the title – DATA DRIFT. Archiving Media and Data Art in the 21st century. This volume (No. 14) includes papers from the Media Art Histories 2013: ReNew conference, as well new texts and visual review about the exhibition Save As (Riga, 2013) and catalog section of new exhibition – Data Drift (Riga, 2015).
More info:
http://renewablefutures.net
http://rixc.org/en/festival
http://acousticspacejournal.com