Shedding the Skin with Feral & Synthetic Creatures
Shedding the Skin with Feral and Synthetic Creatures is a two-day symposium exploring various ways of designing with / for change.
Playing with tensions and connections between the feral and the synthetic, the block-chained and the un/bound, the premeditated and the unconscious, this event brings together creative practitioners across various eco-socially focused projects to share their transformational methods, approaches, and reflections. The program presents co-creative experiments with feral care, synthetic sensing, algorithmic mysticism, and ocean literacy offered as a 2-days flow of workshops, talks, sharing circles, films, and an exhibition. The daylight program is accompanied by a convivial nocturnal encounter to celebrate the coming hibernal solstice, inviting all present creatures to become feral, synthetic, and everything in-between.
The event is set up as a collaboration between the .zip and Uroboros collectives and the CreaTures EU project and is conceived as a continuation of the Uroboros 2022 festival program that took place in Prague earlier this year. This time, the program brings together Rotterdam-based artists and initiatives exploring embodied, technological and otherwise situated experiencing of eco-social change. Uroboros is an annual multi-species gathering of creative practitioners using diverse and diversely situated ways of knowing and doing to reflect on contemporary social and environmental troubles. .zip is an artist-run project space based in Rotterdam Noord. Shaped as an interdisciplinary testing lab, .zip explores the roles of facilitation and fabrication within our digital society.
???? Full Program????
Join us on the pre-solstice weekend of 17th – 18th December in the .zip space – 1e Pijnackerstraat 75 3035 GN Rotterdam // Free entry // Details below.
TIME TABLE (descriptions underneath time table)
SATURDAY | Shedding the Skin with Feral creatures
12:00 – 12:30 Introduction to Shedding the Skin
By Erik Peters & Markéta Dolejšová
12:30 – 14:30 Feral Gifts, Creatures, Care
Sharing circle + feral exhibition by Markéta Dolejšová and Jaz Hee-jeong Choi
A co-creative experiment in feral ways of understanding, doing, and becoming an eco-social change.
14:30 – 15:00 SHEDDING BREAK
15:00 – 16:00 How to do a Zöoperation
Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Het Nieuwe Instituut
Zoöperation (or Zoöp, in short) is a cooperation with zoë (Greek for ‘life’). Zoöp is an organization model for collaboration between humans and other-than-human life, that serves the interests of all life. The Zoöp model makes the interests of other-than-human life part of the decision making of an organization. In principle, any organization can adopt the Zoöp model. Zoöp is a governance practice, a learning process and a basis for collaboration between different organizations. Zoöps work on the constant improvement of their ecological integrity. Their aim is to become symbiotic with the ecosystems they participate in. Together they work on the fostering of a regenerative economy (or zoönomy), an economy that supports all life.
16:30 – 17:30 Liminal synthesis
By Victor Evink, Emilia Tapprest and Camilo Garcia Á., Liminal Vision
What do incense clocks, symbolic archetypes and technoecologies of sensation have to do with each other? Victor Evink and Emilia Tapprest (Liminal Vision) will talk about their creative shift from a focus on prototyping near-future worlds towards inner paradigms and ways to transcend them, illustrated by two films presented as part of Hybrid Landscapes: ‚Embodied Ambitopias‘ (2021) and ‚Scent of Time‘ (2022). After the break, Sxmbra (Victor Evink), will build on themes of the talk with a soundcollage DJ performance exploring an inner journey between these different worlds.
17:30 – 19:00 A drop is not a river
By Yannik Güldner, Anne Vera Veen and Leon Lapa Pereira, Wasteland
Wasteland will give a short presentation of its organization and curatorial framework of streams followed by a short workshop on the subjectivity of waste and its applications.
NOCTURNAL ENCOUNTERS
19:00 – 00:00 Drinks and music
Line-up: S X M B R A, Kaarst, So… Much… Emotions…
SUNDAY | Shedding the Skin with Synthetic creatures
12:00 – 14:00 Sensing the Synthetic – Experimental Visualisation Session
Group experience led by Lenka Hámošová, Uroboros
What role do embodiment and emotions play in human-AI co-creation? How can we make the most of our physical selves during AI-media synthesis? Join us for a short talk by Lenka, who will present the latest research from the Uroboros Loops: Sensing the Synthetic program. Afterwards, she will guide us through an experimental visualization session where we’ll collectively explore the negotiation between human bodies and AI algorithms.
14:00 – 15:30 Poetic AI (online)
By Kwan Suppaiboonsuk and Abdo Hassan, AIxDesign
The Poetic AI workshop is an invitation to create new worlds with AI, exploring alternate human-machine choreographies. Poetry is an essential artform, with its urgency extending to spaces of reclamation, self expression and explorative imagination. During the workshop, we will invite participants to collaborate with a generative machine learning model to write a poem. Instead of taking the outputs of the AI for granted, we will be in conversation with them; exposing their bias at times, and provoking them at times. The result of the collaboration will then be fed to text-to-image model, which will then give us a chance to animate the textual worlds in visual ones.
15:30 – 16:00 SHEDDING BREAK
16:00 – 17:00 Love your Journey, bestie????????
By Derk Over, `Queer Arcana
17:00 – 19:00 Blockchain chaos
By Michal Kučerák, Uroboros
During the session, we will focus on blockchain narratives and explore what ideas and inspiration they can offer for transformative design and artistic practice. We will approach the – seemingly contrasting – concepts of community building, algorithmic mysticism and techno-solutionism to look at creative art worlds from the perspective of decentralized thinking and action. The session will be followed by a co-creative exercise using the lense of blockchain narratives to think with ocean ecosystems.
19:00 – 20:30 Open Feedback Loops
By Erik Peters, .zip
Open feedback loops is kind of like an open mic night x elevator pitch. During this session we will create space to present each other with (un)finished projects, ideas or research trajectories we are or will be working on. Anyone is invited to present their idea in under 5 minutes, followed by a small open feedback loop with the audience. Need any feedback, suggestions or new collaborators? This is the moment!
EXPO and FILM PROGRAM
Ongoing
Hybrid Landscapes
With contributions from:
Lance Laoyan, Cyanne van der Houten, Ymer Marinus, Martyna Miller, Deborah Morah, Roos Groothuizen, Liminal Vision, The Feral Gift, Bianca Carague and Erik Peters
???????????? EVENTS DESCRIPTIONS
Feral Gifts, Creatures, Care
Sharing circle + feral exhibition by Markéta Dolejšová and Jaz Hee-jeong Choi
A co-creative experiment in feral ways of understanding, doing, and becoming an eco-social change.
Walkthrough Hybrid Landscapes
Guided walk through the exhibition (details below) by Erik Peters
Liminal Synthesis
By Victor Evink and Emilia Tapprest // Liminal Vision
What do incense clocks, symbolic archetypes and technoecologies of sensation have to do with each other? Victor Evink and Emilia Tapprest (Liminal Vision) will talk about their creative shift from a focus on prototyping near-future worlds towards inner paradigms and ways to transcend them, illustrated by two films presented as part of the ongoing film program: ‚Embodied Ambitopias‘ (2021) and ‚Scent of Time‘ (2022). After the break, Sxmbra (Victor Evink), will build on themes of the talk with a soundcollage DJ performance exploring an inner journey between these different worlds.
A drop is not a river
By Yannik Güldner, Anne Vera Veen and Leon Lapa Pereira // Wasteland
Wasteland will give a short presentation of its organization and curatorial framework of streams followed by a short workshop on the subjectivity of waste and its applications.
Sensing the Synthetic – Experimental Visualisation Session
Group experience led by Lenka Hámošová // Uroboros
What role do embodiment and emotions play in human-AI co-creation? How can we make the most of our physical selves during AI-media synthesis? Join us for a short talk by Lenka, who will present the latest research from the Uroboros Loops: Sensing the Synthetic program. Afterwards, she will guide us through an experimental visualization session where we’ll collectively explore the negotiation between human bodies and AI algorithms.
Poetic AI (online)
By Kwan Suppaiboonsuk and Abdo Hassan // AIxDesign
Love your Journey, bestie????????
By Derk Over // Queer Arcana
Blockchain chaos
By Michal Kučerák // Uroboros
During the session, we will focus on blockchain narratives and explore what ideas and inspiration they can offer for transformative design and artistic practice. We will approach the – seemingly contrasting – concepts of community building, algorithmic mysticism and techno-solutionism to look at creative art worlds from the perspective of decentralized thinking and action. The session will be followed by a co-creative exercise using the lense of blockchain narratives to think with ocean ecosystems.
Open Feedback Loops
By Erik Peters // .zip
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Connected events:
Erik Peters
Erik Peters (he/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and designer engaging with the worldbuilding potentialities seeded in the act of storytelling, uncovering how speculative fiction can germinate new universes of being. Their research-based and collaborative practice is situated in an interdependent web of ecologies and technologies, human and non-human beings. Within their work, queer methodologies and mythologies are evoked to create multidisciplinary scenarios about possible futures; imaginative worlds staged as spatial and interactive installations, workshops, publications and audiovisual works. They frequently work with materials and techniques such as generative artificial intelligence, ceramics, 3d printing and photogrammetry methods. Erik holds a BA in Crossmedia Design from AKI ArtEZ in Enschede, as well as having studied Design for Art Direction at the London College of Communication.
Some of their recent projects include videosculpture How to Wake Up the Ghosts (2021–), solo exhibition From Then to Here (2021) at Roodkapje, and short documentary Queer Mercury (2021). Their work has been exhibited at the 26th Biennial of Design of Ljubljana, Dutch Design Week, Tetem, Gogbot Festival, Roodkapje, Melkweg and Kunsthal Rotterdam, amongst others. They work for cultural institutions like Het Nieuwe Instituut, TENT and Wintertuin, are involved with projects with Valiz and the AIxDesign community, and frequently give talks and workshops at organisations such as FIBER, Sonic Acts and The Hmm.
Markéta Dolejšová
Markéta is a design researcher and curator experimenting with embodied, relational ways of knowing and doing, often in multi-species settings. She currently serves as a postdoctoral research fellow at Aalto University - School of Arts, Design and Architecture (FI), working with the CreaTures project (Creative Practices for Transformational Futures). She has co-founded several art/design research initiatives, including the Open Forest Collective, the Feeding Food Futures network and the Uroboros festival.
Lenka Hámošová
Lenka Hámošová is the curator and co-organiser of the Uroboros festival. Her artistic and research practice focuses on the future implications of AI-driven media synthesis and explores how co-creation with AI can empower human imagination. She is currently pursuing his PhD studies at the Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU).
She combines artistic research with participatory workshops and visual research methods. Through workshops she engages artists, designers, theorists and computer scientists in interdisciplinary dialogue and speculative brainstorming. She initiated the participatory project Collective Vision of Synthetic Reality, which includes an educational deck of cards with categorized AI/ML models used in the production of synthetic media.
Lenka has a background in visual communication and critical design and received her Master of Design from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam in 2014.
Michal Kučerák
Michal is a curator, researcher and lecturer working with the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague and TBA21-Academy, where he is taking care of the Ocean-Archive.org project. He is a PhD student at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Technology in Brno. He is the author of the #DATAMAZE project (DOX, 2018 - 2022) - a concept of an extended exhibition focused on strengthening digital and data literacy through contemporary art and design projects in a gallery environment. He is part of the team that organizes the festival focused on socially engaged design and art practice UROBOROS.
Jaz Hee-jeong Choi
Jaz Hee-jeong Choi is the Director of the Care-full Design Lab and Vice-Chancellor’s Principal Research Fellow at RMIT, Australia. In her transdisciplinary research and practice, Jaz recognises ‘care’ as the core of transformational encounters in different places – ranging from cities as complex cyberphysical networks to forests as moving creatures. She builds on this to explore, often through creative-critical engagements, how design in varying forms and scale can be done care-fully. Her work is often playful, multisensory, and participatory, and starts from the margins to understand, imagine, and co-create just liveable futures. Currently, she is exploring care-full design across three inter-related domains: self-care and mutual aid in different cultural and more-than-human contexts; creative methods for research and engagement, and; co-creative transformation. Giraffes, what wondrous creatures.