Unstable Ecologies: Transmedia Research Institute
julio 25, 2022
Community Alellopathy: Epicuro Lab workshop
noviembre 1, 2022

CLOSING EVENT

ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 2022

7th - 11th of September
Kepler's Gardens · JKU Campus, Linz, Austria

ABOUT

Curated by project leader Quo Artis, the Roots & Seeds XXI exhibition and public programmes at Ars Electronica Festival included the artworks produced by the project's Production Awardees: Posthuman Studies Lab and Laura Cinti, as well as photographic and sculptural pieces by artists Anaïs Tondeur and Joaquín Jara. It also featured a public programme, including the participation of The Center for Genomic Gastronomy, and a workshop conducted by Epicuro Lab in collaboration with local art and science curator Claudia Schnugg.

THE EVENT

The Roots & Seeds XXI participation in Ars Electronica Festival 2022: Welcome to Planet B acts as a closing event and culmination of the project's 2-year long collaboration between Quo Artis, Leonardo/OLATS, the University of Barcelona and Ars Electronica. Consisting of two exhibition spaces and a public programme, the event gathers the research materials, documentation and material and visual results of an inquiry into the crisis of plant biodiversity, and the role of art, emotion, empathy and transdisciplinary research and knowledge in the fight against the climate emergency. As such, Quo Artis curated a display of works showcasing the artistic productions and documentation generated by Roots & Seeds XXI, complementing the display of the final artworks produced by the Roots & Seeds XXI production awardees, Posthuman Studies Lab and Laura Cinti.

ARTISTS

Posthuman Studies Lab's work UTLB-1 outlines the interconnections between vegetal and computing systems in a vein of current ecological crises and discourses about alternative futures. It engages with the legacy of the agrobiological experiments created in soviet laboratories and communal households, focusing on the Heracleum, a species of plant which after the USSR collapsed started accumulating toxic resources on the edge of abandoned industries. Investigating the intersection between the development of communist agricultural systems and the active use of plants as ‘green proletariats’, and the so-called “Soviet internet”, UTLB-1 is a network composed of plant-based computing architectures, rethinking the idea of communism through the more-than-human.

Laura Cinti's project The Living Dead - On the trail of a female partakes in the search for the elusive female specimen of the Wood’s Cycad, using manned aircraft surveys and drone technologies with expert guidance. Materialising into an audiovisual installation, the project draws attention to the relationship between vegetable survival and human intervention, while reflecting on how the inability for plants to survive in the wild is also intrinsically linked to their isolation from their ecosystems, and their preservation in human-made habitats.

The exhibition featured two cartography artworks, Living Herbarium (2022) by Anaïs Tondeur and Return Movement (2022) by Joaquín Jara.

The exhibition included a display of installation, photographic and documentation works departing from visual representations and alternative ways of engaging with the Roots and Seeds XXI's Multidisciplinary Garden Cartography events, which have been taking place throughout 2021 and 2022. This included a series of academic, transdisciplinary and experimental publications developed by the project partners: Theater of Vegetal Appreactiation by Annick Bureaud, from Leonardo/OLATS, and Entre Plantes i Paraules, developed by the faculties of Pharmacy and of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona. Visitors could also get a free copy of Guidelines for an Emotional Cartography of a Garden, developed by Quo Artis with author and landscape architect Gabino Carballo.

PUBLIC PROGRAMME

EPICURO LAB, COMMUNITY ALLELOPATHY WORKSHOP

Friday 09.09 · 4:30PM · TRANSFORMATION LOUNGE, JKU CAMPUS, LINZ

With a multidisciplinary approach, Epicuro Lab works in the field of urban ecology, where nature is controlled by humans, often too controlled. The collective creates ephemeral works and expands knowledge related to biodiversity in the urban environment. Departing from the phenomenon of plant allelopathy, Epicuro Lab starts their collaborative work together with Claudia Schnugg in the workshop Community Alellopathy, in the framework of Roots & and Seeds XXI’s participation in Ars Electronica, in September 2022. More information

PRIX DAY: A PLANTLESS PLANET
ART AND SCIENCE AS A TOOL FOR PLANT RESISTANCE

Sunday 11.09 · 10AMHÖRSAAL 1, JKU CAMPUS, LINZ

An international panel comprised of artists, scientists and researchers whose practice revolves around art and science shares with the audience their outcomes and emotions regarding the emergency we are currently living in. As the biodiversity crisis and the climate emergency are threatening to make life on Earth unbearable, art and science practices, approaches, and aesthetics have the potential to create a new framework to develop tools and strategies against biodiversity crisis. More information

The proposals presented by Quo Artis join those also presented from Catalonia by Institut Ramon Llull, New Art Foundation and Hac Te. Together they offer a direct testimony of the thriving scene of hybridisation of art, science and technology that is currently taking place in Barcelona. More information here.

More information on Welcome to Planet B.