Workshops
If you are attending ISEA2024, you can book your registration for the workshops during the symposium registration process.
Majority of workshops are free for participants of ISEA2024. There will be a $55 cost for Workshop 6 – Bone Drift workshops.
Saturday 22 June – one day workshops
Facilitator: Postcommodity, in affiliation with Leonardo
Time: 10.00am – 5.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z3-109 The Block
Capacity: 8
Call for Indigenous Artists to participate in performing Cosmovisíon:
In addition to the 8 open places in this workshop, Postcommodity aims to recruit 8 Indigenous artists from the Brisbane area to participate in performing Cosmovisíon during the workshop. We will work with these artists to help them prepare for the performance through a series of seminar-style Zoom sessions. Participating artists will learn about the conceptual framing of Cosmovisíon, listening with intention, field recording, and video and sound performance mechanics. Participants will determine their shared intention for their performance, develop a collaborative line drawing symbolizing their intentions, record 4 earconographies that communicate their respective relationships with the line drawing, and rehearse for their performance. A personal laptop is needed to participate.
Please contact [email protected] and [email protected] if you would like to join the workshop and participate in performing Cosmovisíon.
Workshop information: A personal laptop is needed to participate in the workshop activities.
Abstract: Cosmovisión is a video game and musical instrument performed collaboratively by 2-to-8 people si- multaneously using controllers, interactive video and sound for:
1) co-determining relationships be- tween land, community and worldview;
2) sonifying these relationships as a practice of indigenous self-determination and meaning-making;
3) an indigenous-led effort to advance indigenous conscious- ness, diplomacy, and dialogue.
Postcommodity will lead a discussion that unpacks the key concepts behind Cosmovisíon, it’s design, and how it is performed and experienced.
Group discussion of Cosmovisíon conceptual framing, methods and goals (2 hours):
1. Introductions
2. Cosmovisíon Exigency and Intentions
3. Critical Indigenous Research Methods (4 RE’s: relationships, respect, responsibility, reciprocity)
4. Listening v. Hearing
5. Earconographies (sonic symbols, ontologies and epistemologies of land, culture and community)
6. Field recording techniques and strategies
Lunch Break (1 hour)
Didactic overview of Cosmovisíon design, intention and performance (2 hours):
1. From beginning to completion
2. Establishing group intentions
3. Developing a collaborative line drawing symbolizing group intentions
4. Player interaction controller functions
5. Video and sound mechanics
6. Player strategies, processes and insights
Break (20 minutes)
Performance and post-performance discussion (1.5 hours)
1. Performance of Cosmovisíon by four pre-selected Indigenous artists
2. Discussion of experiences, outcomes and recommendations
Facilitators:
Antje Jacobs, KU Leuven and University of Melbourne
Karin Hannes, KU Leuven
Steven Devleminck, KU Leuven and LUCA School of Arts
Time: 10.00am – 5.00pm
Venue: QUT Gardens Point, S-637
Capacity: 30
Abstract: In the workshop Speculative Ethnography of Worlds to Come, we will open up notions of urban citizenship beyond the human using a speculative ethnographic approach in the unique context of ISEA24’s host city, Brisbane/Meanjin. We will embark on a fieldtrip to a speculative Brisbane where we will (re)learn, observe, and weave narratives of multispecies urban ecosystems. We aim to explore how life in Brisbane would transform if its urban experience ceased to be human-centered. Participants will get to know speculative thinking practices, specifically in the context of (re)building multispecies connections, giving them tools to navigate through emerging environmental challenges.
This workshop acts as a research-creation event that engages participants in a transdisciplinary co-creation process using speculative thinking approaches to imagine alternative ways of urban living. Speculative ethnography stories alternative/future/parallel worlds by integrating imaginative thought, posthuman ethnography, and artistic co-creation; it represents a form of observation of worlds to come, making visible and making sense of multispecies imaginaries that (re)tell different kinds of stories about place and country (Phillips et al., 2022). This land has not always been “Brisbane,” after all; it is located
on the ancestral lands of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples, known as Meanjin. In storying 2 / 3 alternative/future/parallel worlds to come, we take into account the intricate politics of inclusion and exclusion in (speculative) worldmaking practices, embracing trans-epistemological collaborations and connections.
This workshop unfolds in three phases. (1) We will start with an exploratory discussion on nature’s essence, channeling the power of symbiosis to shape our envisioned worlds. (2) We will delve into the theoretical and methodological approach of speculative ethnography, which will guide us in the worldbuilding process. (3) Finally, we embark on an ethnographic field trip, where we actively wander through the streets of Brisbane and situate ourselves as (urban) ethnographers.
The workshop will result in visions of multispecies urban living, presented in and through field notes that foster a deep connection to place. These speculative worlds might include cohabiting with animals that are nowadays considered pests, thinking with the Brisbane River to reimagine Brisbane’s urban planning, or leveraging technology to “listen” to the needs of urban forests. As such, speculative ethnography serves as a creative methodological response to the significant changes the Earth is currently facing. As highlighted by Kimmerer (2020), “how can we begin to move towards ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like?” (p. 2). At its essence, speculative ethnography directs towards shared creativity and collective imagination of “ecological and cultural sustainability,” in close connection to place.
Saturday 22 June and Sunday 23 June – two day workshops
Facilitators:
Marília Lyra Bergamo, University of Newcastle
Ralph Kenke, University of Newcastle
Craig Hight, University of Newcastle
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm each day
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z6-401
Capacity: 10
Abstract: The world we live in is a consequence of the great acceleration caused by technological advances, in which the human presence reconfigures the globe from the agency’s perspective. From the complexity perspective, the agency reveals its strength in transforming systems from the bottom up. Acquiring this perspective is also understanding life’s fundamentals that create communities, societies, countries, nations, and ecosystems. However, due to the emergence of invisible and powerful communications networks, the notion that we are all physically connected has lost its place in virtual existence. In this virtuality, although extremely strong, the power of agency is somehow lost to the individual that encloses themselves within bubbles of self-referential information, obscuring everyday actions’ ability.
The workshop will generate an interactive art installation from individual structures of physical computing connected. The participants will develop separate pieces and should be focused on simple rules of sense-computation-actuation. Those pieces will be connected to a unique microcontroller board (previously produced by one of the organizers*) capable of transmitting information from one-to-four other boards by cable. The choice of technology is deliberately intended to demonstrate how physical presence and complexity emerge from an individual agency.
A selected and limited electronic material should be previously presented to participants, and this limitation is critical to invoking creativity within the notion of an agent in the perspective of sensing, computing, and acting. Within the community of individuals, these limitations create one first order of emergency, a first order of magnitude, that reveals the existence of a primary organized collective: the community. The focus on demonstrating the community is intrinsically related to the physical presence; as humans, we tend to understand this concept as such. Decentralization is another crucial concept to be revealed within the workshop experience once individuals are only responsible to sense-compute-act within information obtained from their neighbours, and no structure will be coordinating the system from outside the community.
Although this perspective may be understood within the concept of flock behaviour, we won’t focus on movement coordination. As such, we are looking for this workshop to co-produce a community with participants using the concept of automaton cellular. Using this approach, the agency will become a material to be developed by participants within the idea of relational autonomy. Where acting in the community means being aware of other individuals within your proximity.
Another critical approach is that by using automaton cellular, we expect people to engage in non-traditional design within the robotics concept. While robots are usually seen as complex individual structures, we want to reveal the robotic sense as an assemblage. The individuals are comprehended as individuals but have a simple sense-computation-action design, and the assemblage is a complex robotic structure.
This workshop aims to awaken people to the knowledge of agency in physically connected structures and two orders of magnitude: individual and community (assemblage). The main impact is on producing knowledge about how physical interactions reveal the power of individual agency and the complexity of emergencies.
Facilitator: Laura Luna Castillo, University of Washington
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm each day
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-130
Capacity: 20
Abstract: This workshop aims to implement a dynamic laboratory, merging scholarly research on Latinx oral cultures as embodied practice and leveraging the intersections of algorithmic theatre, haptic interfaces, Machine Learning (ML) and Extended Reality (XR) to enhance and broaden the expressive capabilities of performance studies in pedagogy through an archival-driven lens.
In alignment to my ongoing Doctoral investigation concerned with the digitization and conservation of oral culture as embodied knowledge, this workshop makes use of a modular system I have developed that consists of accessible and interchangeable algorithms that transform off the shelf, consumer available devices into tools for creative research beyond their intended uses or industries (e.g. gaming industry, surveillance and robotics). These algorithms serve as a pedagogical toolset, designed to engage participants with varying levels of coding experience. By democratizing access to these technologies and augmenting their interdisciplinary reach, the workshop aims to redirect our time and focus on the testing and deployment of unique performative prototypes and languages that explore the possibilities of archive-driven storytelling and the interconnectedness between algorithms, performers and artists as archivists. The intention is to collaboratively explore a meta-language of embodied archival interactions and compile a multimodal repository documenting possible uses and further conceptual enquires arising from the workshop explorations. This repository will be published and hosted on a website, as an educational resource that can be implemented and leveraged in subsequent interdisciplinary research initiatives.
This proposed laboratory covers 4 main research areas, as outlined below:
– Human interaction and machine learning: Enables machines to observe, sense and listen as they become active members of a choreography, facilitating a space of creative human- machine synergy.
– Complex systems in Performance: Through the design of an active network of wireless communications between software, algorithms and wearable/haptic interfaces, the project seeks to explore performances where a series of interactions and reactions can occur at a variety of temporalities within choreographies and spatial arrangements.
– Extended (XR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies: The experimental implementation of XR and VR hardware, such as Mixed Reality Headsets, motion capture sensors and Game Engine software, augments the physical space, uncovering hidden dimensions around performers and artists. Through physics simulations, the virtual and the real begin interacting in unexpected forms. 2 / 4
– Haptic and wearable interfaces: Operating as a central pivot to the previous three research objectives, the creation and active testing of wearable interfaces aims to bring all elements into alliance. Creation of 3D printed textiles and flexible exoskeletons augmented with real-time motion and spatial capture sensors that can be embedded into live performances.
Facilitators:
Hannah “Vyborg” Walter, Zurich University of the Arts
Martin Fröhlich, Zurich University of the Arts
Eric Larrieux, Zurich University of the Arts
Robert Torche, Collective Mycelium, 3013 Bern
Anja Fonseka, Collective Mycelium, 3013 Bern
Margaretha Jüngling, Collective Mycelium, 3013 Bern
Patrick Müller, Zurich University of the Arts
Time: 4.00pm – 10.00pm each day
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-310
Capacity: 12
Workshop information: This workshop involves the handling, preparation, and consumption of food. Participants will be encouraged to bring ingredients to be shared and consumed with others. The workshop is not suitable for those with food allergies.
Abstract: Our workshop at ISEA2024, “Sympoietic World-Making,” embodies the “Everywhen” theme by interweaving Brisbane’s conference space with diverse Swiss locales through telematic technologies: a kitchen in Zurich, a soil analysis lab in Biel/Bienne, a garden in Biel/Bienne, and a performative space in Zurich. The latter serves as a switch operator facilitating the interconnected setup in the format of a sensor-augmented geodesic dome, “Nexus – a Geodesic Routing Zone”, designed and contstructed by the Telematic Performance Format Group at ZHdK. The main focus is on translocal co-operation between actors of both human and non-human origin, utilizing aesthetic means and a hybrid model of collaboration that combines synchronous and asynchronous activities. The „Nexus“ thus enables participants across different time zones to collaborate.
Day 1: Technological Immersion
We commence with an overview of the workshop, resonating with ISEA’s themes of “Shifting Temporalities” and “Speculative Practices”. Participants will actively engage with the concept and practices of ‘Telemersion’ — immersive Telematic Performance Formats — focusing on collaborative world-making practices. The workshop includes hands-on sessions where we’ll delve into the technologies developed by the TPF research group. Key tools such as the Telemersive Gateway [https://gitlab.zhdk.ch/telemersion/telemersive-gateway], a MaxMSP-based peer-to-peer application, and the ‘Nexus’ load-cell-augmented aerial routing zone will be thoroughly explored. Participants will gain insights into their construction and practical usage, empowering them to effectively navigate and create across digital and real spacetimes. The session emphasizes technology’s role in transforming narratives and fostering world-making as a critical place-making practice. This involves establishing a set of rules — procedural, aesthetic, and political — to guide the creative process.
Day 2: Artistic Exploration and Sympoietic Creation
On the second day, we immerse ourselves in the practice of world-making, aligning with ISEA’s ”Resilient Stories” theme. This session will intertwine science-fiction storytelling with contemporary art, drawing inspiration from textual, visual and temporal worldings by contemporary artists (e.g. science-fiction worlding: Anne Imhof, Henna-Riikka Halonen, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno; e.g. telematics: Ximena Alarcón, Pauline Oliveros, Paul Sermon). The Collective Mycelium team, an amalgam of diverse experts, will demonstrate their transdisciplinary research methods, melding technology, music, culinary arts, and environmental science. Highlighting ecological awareness, Anja Fonseka and Margaretha Jüngling will conduct specialized sessions on the soil-food-web and human food-cycle.
The workshop culminates in a collaborative effort to create an interactive, installative artwork. This process will incorporate elements of “Speculative Practices” and “Ecologies of Place”, as participants engage in world-building exercises that consider the interconnectedness of human, non-human, and technological actors. The artwork will not only represent a physical manifestation of the concepts discussed but also serve as a testament to the power of collective creativity and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Our workshop aims to demonstrate the transformative power of art in addressing contemporary challenges, fostering a deeper understanding of our place in the world, and envisioning sustainable futures.
Saturday 22 June, Sunday 23 June and Saturday 29 June – three half day workshops
Facilitators:
Lizzie Crouch, University of New South Wales
Helen Pynor, Independent artist
Time: 10.00am – 1.00pm each day
Cost: AUD55
Venue: Artisan
Capacity: 8
Workshop information: Participants are required to wear enclosed shoes and are recommended to wear clothes that can get dirty. Participants will be asked to register attendance via an additional Eventbrite page. Registered ISEA delegates will receive a discount code.
Abstract:
Political/Relational model of disability
Beyond the ‘social model of disability’ which argues that disability is constructed by the way society is organised, rather than by a person’s impairment or difference, the political/relational model of disability ‘presents disability as a political site that is ever-changing and always in relation to other people, environments, and attitudes’.1 This model reveals the contingent ways in which the body is valued and often commodified, and it provides a specific lens through which to examine our own identity and ability within these systems at this moment in time. What does extending the time period in which we look at the evolution of the body in relation to its enabling/disabling properties, and the political contexts it exists within, afford us?
Deep time
One evolutionary theory credits bone’s existence to the need of our early ocean-dwelling vertebrate ancestors to bioaccumulate calcium, in discrete ‘waste disposal sites’ within their bodies, to avoid toxic calcium levels accumulating within cells. Once vertebrates moved onto land, these calcium deposits found useful repurposing as structural scaffolding against the collapsing forces of gravity. The changing role of calcium and bone across this timescale destabilizes a view of bone’s ‘inevitability’ and brings to the fore the contingent nature of bone’s existence and function. Even within the timespan of an individual life, bone is constantly forming and reforming itself, being as malleable as any of the body’s tissues, and resulting in a fluidity in the categorisation of ‘abled’ and ‘disabled’ across our lifetimes – from our pasts, to our current orthopaedic circumstances, and into our aged futures.
Disability identity
Pynor and Crouch will interrogate this fluid identity through the lens of their personal experiences of congenital hip dysplasia and more recent hip replacements. They are, to borrow terminology from Rosi Braidotti, in a constant state of ‘becoming’ in relation to their (dis)abled identities in the world. They will use their current moment in time, where they are exploring post-surgical identities, to 3 / 4 explore the fluidity of the boundaries of ‘disability’ in collaboration with people with diverse lived experiences.
Co-creation workshops
Drawing on Pynor’s recent work Habitation – where she worked with her own surgically excised bone material to make a bone china object – Pynor and Crouch will guide participants to get hands-on with the materiality of bone, through the processes – or rituals – involved in making bone china clay. Participants will be invited to bring their lived experiences and reflections into dialogue with the making process. A conceptual, experiential and aesthetic framing will be offered, in which to create a personal object drawing on bone china technologies, metal artifacts and wax, reflecting participants’ own bodies and experiences. When placed together within a broader conceptual and aesthetic framing, these objects will form an artwork that represents a collective exploration of what it means to live with temporary, hidden and/or orthopaedic disability – now, in the past or into the future.
Endnotes [1] https://www.accessible-academia.nl/en/intersectionality/
Thursday 27 June – one day workshops
Facilitator:
Assoc Prof Jennifer Seevinck, Queensland University of Technology
Catalina Giraldo, Queensland University of Technology
Time: 10.00am – 1.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-130
Capacity: 25
Workshop information: A personal laptop or smartphone is needed to participate in the workshop activities.
Abstract: This hands-on workshop demonstrates the potential of arts and design for social change and advocacy. Guided by interactive and social designers, participants get hands-on experience translating texts about climate change (e.g. UN Secretary General remarks on Climate Change) and testimonies of marginalized older adults and their families (the Royal Commission into Aged Care) into emotive and engaging found poems, integrated with visuals to become a collaborative digital art installation. The event – at the intersection of social and environmental justice, design, and art – aims to galvanise an audience to engage with the neglected, silenced voices of our elders – both human and more-than-human going unheard.
The marginalisation is shared: a 2020 Australian Royal Commission into Aging and Aged Care found shocking incidences of neglect and abuse in the Australian aged care system – but public engagement and response was limited and the concerns remain unheard (Pagone & Briggs, 2021). This neglect is mirrored in the disregard faced by our planet’s elders and guardians of the Earth, and a parallel emerges between the oldest generation of people and the Earth’s oldest landscapes, ecosystems, and species, going unheard and unappreciated.
Solastalgia can assist in understanding this parallel. Solastalgia describes the emotional response to witnessing adverse environmental changes, often caused by human activities like landscape destruction, mass extinction, and climate change (Albrecht, 2005). It underscores the deep connection between individuals and their environment, impacting their mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. Remarkably, the emotions associated with Solastalgia mirror the experiences of older adults in care facilities, encompassing feelings of disorientation, disconnection, displacement. This workshop emphasizes the shared values of human ancestral roots and draws attention to the often-overlooked voices of older individuals, urging society to protect, respect, care for, and promote the well-being of elders, both human and more-than-human.
The event has 3 parts, comprising (1)a 1.5 hour facilitated poetry workshop, guiding participants through the process of creating found/erasure poems and original lyric poems about the invisibility and urgency of engaging with elders of earths ecosystem; followed by (2)another 1.5 hour facilitated interactive visual design workshop, guiding participants on subsequent visual interpretations of poetry snippets through collages from media images and text strings for machine language algorithms to generate imagery. In the last half, text and image are published (live) into (3)a collaborative interactive artistic visualisation installed in the workshop space.
The event leverages design and arts-based methods, data visualisation and interaction design to help make often unheard concerns, heard. By directly engaging audiences with testimonials and speeches to create poems and visuals, then sharing these in interactive artistic data visualisations that audiences interact with, they gain a physically experience of the issues. This embodied experience of the stories reduces the psychological distance to the subjects, helping to overcome the taboos associated with aged care and dying, environmental anxiety and climate, giving voice to the marginalized.
References: Royal Commission in Aged Care Quality and Safety (2021, March 1). https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/aged-care
Albrecht, G. (2005). Solastalgia: A new concept in human health and identity. Philosophy Activism Nature, 3, 41–55.
Pagone, G. (Tony), & Briggs, L. (2021). Final Report—Care, Dignity and Respect Volume 1: Summary and Recommen-dations. Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
United Nations Secretary-General. (n.d.), Secretary-General’s remarks on Climate Change [as delivered] https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2018-09-10/secretary-generals-remarksclimate-change-delivered
Facilitators:
Remapping Mitchell Arts Collective
Jude Taggart Roberts
Helen Hardess
Anastasia Tyurina, Queensland University of Technology
Time: 10.00am – 1.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove
Capacity: 20
Abstract: The development of the Fluro drawing workshop comes from collaborative sessions at the Remapping Mitchell Arts Collective’s camping residencies. A First Nations led immersive and collaborative arts project developed by Gunggari, Maranoa and visiting artists on Country encompasses camps, workshops, group meetings, large scale projection events and exhibitions. The group seeks to foreground a series of arts related works, stories, and perspectives currently absent or at least less visible in contemporary historical accounts of the region. The Maranoa is a region of cultural, spiritual and environmental significance linked to Booringa (‘place of fire’ in Gunggari language). The creative project grows on the theme of the Maranoa and the collective stories of living and being on this unique country.
The Fluro Drawing concept began as a way for artists and creatives to work collaboratively in a participatory session. In 2023 the group visited a waterhole on the Maranoa River and each participant chose a site or various textures from objects or the rock surfaces. Through techniques such as frottage, which allows the transfer of drawing media onto paper, surface terrains and forms of the watershed were captured, exposing histories and site-specific marks. Frottage reveals a surface that can be interpreted physically, historically and culturally.
The collaborative drawings were then collated and digitised. Titled Spirit of the Maranoa, the work was exhibited on the large-scale Sphere on the occasion of the More-Than-Human Maker Symposium for the 2023 Sustainability Week at Queensland University of Technology. The Fluro Drawing workshop was conducted as a follow-up experience after a presentation by the Remapping Mitchell Arts Collective. The workshop allows participants to engage in a mark making drawing session using fluorescent dry mediums such as pencils and crayons on selections of lightweight papers.
Using ultraviolet light in a darkened environment brings fluorescent drawings to life. To facilitate this visual transformation the workshop provides a pop-up “Fluro Booth”. The booth is constructed from black light proof fabric and contains ultraviolet light sources. Workshop participants will be able to place their works into the pop-up gallery space to witness the resulting transformative effects.
The facilitators will demonstrate drawing methods incorporating aleatory forms, which link to ideas of the unknown, or unlooked for meanings. Mark making techniques such as frottage, using rubbings of objects, or other mark making techniques will also be demonstrated. Various found objects and materials will be supplied for use as drawing tools or for their textured surfaces and shapes. These drawing tools mostly originate from disused farm and station home detritus, as well as natural materials from the Maranoa region.
A supplementary workshop activity works with dry phosphorescent paint on a body size drawing sheet installed in the darkened booth. Participants are shown the possibilities of drawing with light from their mobile phones or torches. The phosphorescent surface absorbs and retains light, enabling a growing complexity of layering to accumulate. This activity will be further developed and has the potential for future large scale participatory arts installations.
Facilitators:
Kate Genevieve
Isabella Alexander, University of Technology Sydney
Ruth Catlow
Andrea Wallace, University of Exeter
Time: 10.00am – 1.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-340
Capacity: 20
Workshop information: Participants will be required to remove all footwear to enter the workshop space.
Abstract: Our workshop is designed as a research Live Action Role Play (LARP) for playful audiences. This 2-hour session will combine LARP narratives, techniques, improvisation, and interactive activities around the question – “In the era of rapidly advancing AI, what role does copyright play in achieving equity or creating new disparities?”
The workshop is the second meeting of the 2024 Planetary Copyright Congress, a LARP that tells the story of how first contact with extraterrestrials sparks a transformation of copyright law towards acknowledging a radically plural Universe and equitable systems for all beings. The first PCC, hosted online in December 2023, was a collaboration between Furtherfield and the ArTechLaw Network, funded by an ARC Discovery Grant and by the University of Exeter. Participants from a range of disciplines played delegates representing the Visual Arts Delegation, to address and reimagine critical questions around the intersection of copyright and Justice and draft a Cosmic Arts Copyright Convention.
The ISEA workshop will focus on a stream of this larger exploration. Roleplaying participants will be asked to engage with copyright implications for visual arts in the age of artificial intelligence in relation to Knowledge Justice and Global Majority Justice, in the alternative reality of the Cosmic Confederation of Universal Beings. Questions like, “How can global majority interests rebalance the copyright system?” and “What languages, forms of expression, economic systems, access priorities, and standards shape the production, distribution and governance of knowledge and visual art?” are put to the group to devise responses in character.
Our method is playful, open, and collaborative – welcoming and encouraging participants to improvise in real-time scenarios. Briefing printouts will be provided to introduce the themes and narrative worlds, equipping attendees for structured play. The session will conclude with a facilitated learning and feedback session to ensure an engaging, enriching experience for participants, and offering an invitation to engage with the broader research project.
Our workshop stands out due to its blend of legal expertise, creative arts, and experimental and playful performance techniques. Designed for diverse disciplines, no prior knowledge of copyright is necessary, making it equally valuable for digital copyright veterans and newcomers.
In line with ISEA’s values, ethics approval will be sought through UTS. Participants will be provided with information and consent forms in relation to the workshop’s methods and future use of artefacts, images, words, and other contributions of participants. All participants will be treated as cocreators of materials generated by the workshop which will be disseminated under Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA, subject to participants’ consent. A key element of the feedback session will be to ensure that all participants are aware of, and content with, the plans for future use of materials, and that cultural sensitivities are appropriately addressed.
We envision this workshop as a playful mode to engage with plural, speculative, and More-than-Human perspectives on the transformative impact of AI on copyright. We seek your support in making this workshop available to a broader audience at ISEA, vitally expanding the diversity in participation and impact.
Facilitators:
Yuxuan Hu, RMIT University
Haowen Xue, RMIT University
Daien Lyu, RMIT University
Time: 1.00pm- 5.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z2-232
Capacity: 25
Workshop information: Participants should ideally bring a personal laptop with an integrated webcam. Otherwise, workshop activities will require both a personal laptop and smartphone.
Abstract: In the field of live streaming, the development of technology has also been accompanied by progress and changes in the way of live streaming, and Virtual YouTubers (VTBs) have become a representative group in this emerging field. The characteristic of inevitably, however, individual users may not have sufficient technical support and expressiveness to accomplish the desired virtual character model through their personal abilities. My research will focus on the field of personal live streaming. By conducting comparative experiments on various relevant software available on the market and adopting a practice-led research method, I aim to identify some issues that ordinary users may not discover and provide suggestions and modification plans. As the steps progress, we will create a 2D avatar model production workflow template that can be practically applied in live streaming events. In the later stage, we will validate the feasibility of the final model through live streaming tests. The goal is to achieve a model solution with decent interactivity at a lower cost, thereby improving the viewership and audience engagement in live streaming. The production steps will be divided into several modules for elaboration, covering the detailed workflow and important details of the character creation template.
Facilitators:
Jen Seevinck, Queensland University of Technology
Jane Turner, Queensland University of Technology
Marcus Foth, Queensland University of Technology
Time: 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-130
Capacity: 25
Abstract: Recognition of More-than-Human (MTH) entities is increasingly important in the face of anthropogenic climate change, challenging us to seek approaches to engage with the More-than-Human. The contemporary increased popularity of participatory and collaborative approaches can see artists, designers and other practitioners and researchers seeking to apply such collaborative methods to ‘partner’, ‘consult’ or ‘design with’ the MTH entity. Such approaches are however fraught with epistemological challenges. The concepts around participation and agentic capacity within participatory methodologies are still rooted in established beliefs about human users, often burdened by the dominating, singular, positivist, and universal perspective that commentators like Haraway (1991) have denounced as insidiously partisan and inadequate for non-male, non-western humans – let alone anything pertaining to the More-than-Human. Approaches centered on the user draw criticism not only for their singular perspective but also their enduring human exceptionalism. Similarly, decolonial theorists (e.g. Smith 1999) assert that a ‘methodology’ itself is perpetuating bias, and that the defining, labelling and delineating ultimately leads to a paradox, where we might construct ourselves as ‘natural’ beings but at the same time are objectifying and ‘othering’ nature, keeping ourselves separate (Ingold 2000) and the ‘environment’ is that which is separate from us.
The paradox gives rise to existential conflicts, illustrated by clashes between Indigenous perspectives on land and colonial notions of ownership (Verran, 1998). The Whanganui River exemplifies this. It was granted legal standing and rights, but only in the singular form, rather than recognizing its inherent multiplicitous More-than-Human essence. The result was the river was protected, but not its waters (Salmond, 2014).
Located on the grounds of Barrambin (Kelvin Grove), and drawing on methods used within our MTHF group, this hands-on workshop engages participants in creative and reflective tasks to prompt and explore issues around ‘making-with’ MTH entities. Participants will be invited to contribute to a planned special issue on Making-With the More-Than-Human.
References: Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Duke University Press.
Graham, M. (2009). Understanding human agency in terms of place: A proposed Aboriginal research methodology. PAN: Philosophy Activism Nature(6), 71-78.
Haraway, D. (1991). Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. In Simians, cyborgs, and women (pp. 183-201). Routledge.
Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling & skill. Routledge.
Salmond, A. (2014). Tears of Rangi: Water, power, and people in New Zealand. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 4(3), 285-309.
Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed books.
Turner, J., Seevinck, J., Foth, M., Armstrong, K., McKinnon, H., Vickery, N., Kelly, N., Tyurina, A., Gonsalves, K., & Low, A. (2022). Kinning With The Unseen More-Than-Human: Re-Sensing Barrambin’s Disappeared Waterways And Creeks For Community Connection To Place. Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools Conference: Public Pedagogy: Forms of togetherness
Verran, H. (1998). Re-imagining land ownership in Australia. Postcolonial Studies: Culture, Politics, Economy, 1(2), 237–254.
Facilitators:
Petra Gemeinboeck, Swinburne University
Rob Saunders, Leiden University
Audrey Rochette, University of Quebec
Steph Hutchison, Queensland University of Technology
Time: 1.00pm – 5.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-140
Capacity: 18
Workshop information: Participants will be required to remove all footwear to enter the workshop space.
Abstract: The Human-Robot Experience (HRX) Theatre Workshop is a product of the Machine Movement Lab, an interdisciplinary collaboration weaving together creative robotics, choreography, and dance, grounded in new materialism. This arts-led practice seeks to transcend binary frameworks in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) by cultivating a posthuman experience through developing an embodied lens to look at our interactions not as fixed and predefined but as emergent, dynamic relationships.
The workshop aims to generate a deeper, embodied understanding of our more-than-human experiences with machines by deconstructing traditional perspectives in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and attending to emergent and nuanced connections between human and nonhuman bodies. Human-Robot Experience (HRX), instead, explores the rich social potential of more-than-human encounters with machinelike artefacts, rather than humanlike machines designed to blur the differences between humans and machine-things.
Our process unfolds as a participatory choreographic journey that brings together creative, critical robotics and embodied, choreographic knowledges. We begin with movement explorations to get into our bodies, expand our bodily awareness, and slowly expand this awareness to resonate with the machinelike artefacts.
The subsequent stage extends these explorations using the Relational Body Mapping (RBM) method, a technique derived from our Machine Movement Lab practice. RBM employs costumes that embody the material and spatial affordances of robots-in-the-making to feel into different bodies and facilitate transcorporeal (human and nonhuman) perspective-taking. This immersive exploration includes an auditory dimension, supporting participants’ sensory experience and meaning-making by generating an interactive soundscape as they move with the artefacts.
In the final stage, participants collaboratively construct and enact inclusive human-robot scenarios that matter to them while engaging with questions of agency, affect, trust, and dependency. This immersive approach seeks to cultivate an inclusive and diverse perspective that transcends traditional, often exclusive, anthropocentric views by actively generating transcorporeal, more-than-human perspectives.
Discussions, reflections, and the use of a novel ‘more-than-human body-map’ tool to capture participants’ bodily sensations and experiences with machine-like artefacts, will serve to further delve into our experiences.
The HRX Theatre Workshop will foster a collaborative creative space where embodied knowledge and participatory experiences converge to reshape our understanding of the evolving relationships with technology in a more-than-human context.
Facilitators: Jill Scott, Zurich University of the Arts
Clarissa Ribeiro, Roy Asoctt Studio at SIVA / DeTao
Rewa Wright, Queensland University of Technology
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-310
Capacity: 12
Abstract: Dialoguing with ISEA 2024’s theme “everywhen,” the workshop proposal intricately intertwines women’s empowerment, capitalism growth, and performative data visualization.
Attendees are invited to explore a paradigm shift in leadership through theoretical discussions and interactive activities. The whole workshop sparks insightful conversations, linking practical and conceptual aspects of women’s empowerment to capitalism, resources, and growth.
On the first day, participants explore two exciting exercise the first is a ‘performative data visualization —through play—rearrange chairs symbolically, expressing their visions for a self-aware, alternative growth society. The second is to construct Rich Pictures: a sociology-based workshop to allow participants to draw large mind maps with keywords to construct dynamic solutions and animate the results. Borrowing from Bertolt Brecht’s “alienation effect,” our workshop disrupts the fourth wall, fostering an environment where insights on ‘growth awareness’ are shared.
On the second day we open the problems of colonization and degrowth, with first nations alternatives inside an installation with plant-human interaction. And in the afternoon, we gather all our resources together for a set of small performative presentations to the public. The concepts of this workshop align with ISEA 2024’s exploration of ‘everywhen,’ as we dynamically dissect the interplay of empowered women, politics, circular economies, leadership, and societal growth, creating a space where the past, present, and future converge in a thought-provoking and innovative narrative.
Facilitators:
Angie Abdilla, Old Ways, New
Gabriela Ferraro, ANU School of Cybernetics
Safiya Okai-Ugbaje, ANU School of Cybernetics
in partnership with Australian Network of Art and Technology (ANAT)
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Venue:QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-607
Capacity: 15
Workshop information: Please note that participation in this workshop is by invitation only.
Abstract: This participatory workshop will share the histories of AI and its development into contemporary practices. Through two-way learning, we will explore data, algorithms, models, and the concepts and methodologies of programming rules, protocols, training, and learning methods within Machine Learning. Concurrently, we will interrogate the cultural affordances and capacity of ML by investigating the differences between Indigenous automated systems and current ML to further engineering possibilities through cultural practice. Workshop participants will benefit from this conceptually technical and culturally focused explorative learning, centred on caring for Country and kin within artificially intelligent (AI) systems.
Facilitators:
Danielle Wilde, Umeå University and University of Southern Denmark
Tau Lenskjold, University of Southern Denmark
Lindsay Kelley, Australian National University
Tarsh Bates, Umeå University
Daphné Hamilton-Jones, Umeå University and ENS Paris-Saclay
Lucas Ihlein, University of Wollongong
Leena Naqvi, Umeå University
Alia Parker, Australian National University
Helen Pynor, Independent artist
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, E-558
Capacity: 35
Workshop information: Participants are asked to prepare a short but rich vignette developed using the self as the site of inquiry as a route to ecological understanding. We are interested in narratives involving relations with microbiomes, activated using text, collage, illustration or other means. We invite participants to: (i) bring an object that can serve as a boundary object to guide them in (re)narrating their vignettes in the workshop; and (ii) disrupt common hygiene practices by leaving a small but accessible patch of skin (e.g., on the upper forearm) unwashed for at least three days before the workshop, to literally and metaphorically cultivate the growth of their skin microbiome.
Abstract: This workshop is the third in a series that aims to engage questions of giving voice to our microbiomes – the plethora of critters who co-constitute us as embodied and social beings, often invisible in human experience. The aim is to experiment with collective and experiential ways of making tangibly present the microorganisms that live around, on and within us and make us hosts of living assemblages, or what biologists refer to as holobionts. Over four activities, workshop participants are invited to collectively materialise, narrate, and perform more-than-human co-presence; engage microbial-human interdependence, making it conceptually and methodically relatable; and speculate relational futures. In practical terms, we take a multi-tier approach:
CULTIVATION (PRE-WORKSHOP): Participants should arrive prepared with a short but rich vignette developed using the self as the site of inquiry as a route to ecological understanding. We are interested in narratives involving relations with microbiomes, activated using text, collage, illustration or other means. We invite participants to: (i) bring an object that can serve as a boundary object to guide them in (re)narrating their vignettes in the workshop; and (ii) disrupt common hygiene practices by leaving a small but accessible patch of skin (eg. on the upper forearm) unwashed for at least three days before the workshop, to literally and metaphorically cultivate the growth of their skin microbiome.
IN WORKSHOP:
1: (RE)NARRATION: Participants use their boundary objects to open a reflective space around their vignettes using the Object Theatre method to bring the (re)narrations into a collectively negotiated, embodied space, repositioning the object as relational, using it literally to animate an unfolding story. Resulting objects are considered ‘relational entities’ or ‘social objects’ that can only be experienced through the enactment of particular social acts, in our case the human-microbiome encounter of the vignette.
2: MATERIAL EXPERIMENTATION: In small groups, participants make a vegan agar agar paste and lay a thin layer on their unwashed skin. Once dry, it is peeled away to harvest a microscopic—we hope, flourishing—section of skin and microbiome. The aim is to capture an invisible element of our holobionts and separate it for inspection and reflection. Using microscopes to view the harvests, we make our holobiontic selves visible.
3: SPECULATIVE CO-NARRATION: We introduce threshold concepts to breach the socially constituted separation between human and microbial lives. In small groups, participants apply this notion to the experiences gained from their material experimentation: they identify possible means of human-microbial communication, then collectively narrate and materialise human-microbial futures. Each group develops a brief written vignette depicting a future scenario involving the microbiome; then embody these vignettes using performative methods and paper prototyping, and present the outcomes to the other participants.
The process inhabits the sensorial and conceptual ‘blank’ space through ‘probiotic experimentation’ (aimed at promoting a flourishing of our microbiome); collaborative skin cartographies; and the performance of speculative (re)narrations of relations. The work sits within a sustained commitment to workshops as a methodology to expand art and design research practice through situated, diffractive—theoretical, conceptual, and methodological—inquiry.
Facilitator: Josh Harle, Tactical Space Lab
Time: 5.00pm – 8.00pm
Venue:The Edge, State Library of Queensland
Capacity: 10
Workshop information: A personal smartphone is needed to participate in workshop activities.
Abstract: Zuk and Meta have no imagination when it comes to the possibilities for representing ourselves in virtual reality spaces! In this workshop we’ll be creating our own virtual digital avatars, by sculpting them out of plasticine. Feel free to get adventurous / imaginative, and we’ll 3D scan them, rig them with a skeleton, and let you pilot them in VR in front of a virtual mirror.
Description:
Virtual reality co-presence has been touted as the future of human interaction, and the way we are represented within them is extremely important. So far, Meta’s approach to avatar creation has proven totally unimaginative, trying to create banal copies of ourselves with no capacity for all the amazing potential the virtual canvas could offer. This workshop lets you explore a very different, novel creative method, free from the constraints of conventional avatar design.
Participants can play with the tangible artistry of sculpting plasticine figures, which will be scanned into 3D using an iPhone/Android photogrammetry app. The host walk through the process to automatically rig the sculpture with a digital skeleton, allowing it to be easily animated. This process will preserve the details of the sculptures.
Participants will then be invited to ‘puppet’ their avatars in virtual reality, using the headset and controllers to track their bodies and show themselves as their sculpted creations.
Thursday 27 June and Friday 28 June – two day workshop (one hour each day)
Facilitators: Suzon Fuks
Time: 10.00am – 11.00am each day
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-321
Capacity: 15
Abstract: I invite people to meditate, dismantle old devices, share their thoughts, and add components to the in-stallation, symbolically transforming the ‘e-galaxy’ and concretely manipulating electronic compo-nents, addressing the difference between our tools / technology and our body / senses, to dig inside, to be aware and mindful, to explore the layers.
I approach obsolescence in order to explore the hidden side of things, to discover layers of knowledge amalgamated over time, and to have a better understanding of what seems to escape us in the use of our current tools.
All of our electronic devices, although marketed as new and innovative, hold a long history of techno-logical development. My process of dismantling ‘obsolete’ ones to repurpose the components high-lights for me these histories. Seeing these components repurposed makes us aware of the full life cy-cles of our devices – from design, production, marketing, use, disuse, partial reuse, and waste, to a very slow decomposition, which takes far longer than all the previous processes put together – a ‘galactic’ time scale.
I also wish to raise awareness of the unfair global distribution of these processes, with access to new technologies predominant in developed countries, while workers mining rare earth elements are ex-ploited in developing countries, where much of the electronic waste ends up, again buried in landfill, or alternatively, end up as space junk orbiting the planet.
With the creation of robots, Al and the Internet of Things, some of the ways in which we use our minds and bodies are being replaced. While we are researching and quantifying how human brains function, our senses, perception and creativity are arguably what differentiates us from our machines and makes us unique as humans. We need to delve into the knowledge of our bodies, and our relation-ships with each other and the natural world.
Friday 28 June – one day workshops
Facilitator: Clinton Watkins, Auckland University of Technology
Time: 10.00am – 1.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z2-232
Capacity: 50
Abstract: Reverberation (commonly shortened to reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound after it is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected. This causes numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is absorbed by the surfaces of objects in the space. This is most noticeable when the sound source stops but the reflections continue, their amplitude decreasing, until zero is reached.
The Attack Decay Sustain Release workshop focuses upon the generation of acoustic and electronic sounds inside ‘The Tank’ a large disused chemical silo. This environment offers a unique context for the recording of sound due to the highly reflective qualities of the structure interior. The inherent reverberation time of this particular space is also unique due to the substantially long durations for sounds to decay. A range of specialized microphones and recording equipment will be utilized to capture sounds interacting with the natural reverberation within The Tank. The collected sounds will then be categorized to form a library of material to be incorporated into experimental sound compositions.
The workshop will consist of the presentation of project concepts, sound generation recording processes, post-production and outcomes. Participants will also engage in critical discussion regarding site specific sound recording, production technologies and composition.
Facilitator:
Everardo Reyes, Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis
Anastasia Tyurina, Queensland University of Technology
Time: 10.00am – 1.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z2-235
Capacity: 30
Workshop information: A personal laptop or smartphone is needed to participate in the workshop activities.
Abstract: The workshop is about imagining and creating new images around the topic of water. Participants will be invited to reflect on our relationship with water in all its forms (bodies of water, states of water, properties of water). Through visual materials, participants will also get a glance at the variety of technical instruments, metrics, and interfaces that are commonly used to study water.
The workshop also involves interdisciplinary exploration, merging microphotography, mobile phone cameras, and liquid interfaces. Beyond conventional boundaries, participants will transform ordinary elements into extraordinary lenses, contemplating the interplay between liquids and light. The workshop invites individuals of all backgrounds to uncover the hidden wonders of optical phenomena from liquid interfaces, emphasizing key techniques like refraction, engaging in scientific and artistic inquiry, and forging new paths in the realm of microphotography. Through various experiments involving different surfaces, liquid landscapes, temperature effects, and interactions with additives, it is possible to push the boundaries of artistic expression and scientific understanding. Beyond scientific implications, the workshop becomes a canvas for artistic expression, transcending constraints and seamlessly integrating into science curricula for hands-on experiments. The pedagogical pursuit aims to cultivate a holistic understanding of the natural world while refining creativity and visual storytelling skills.
This workshop is the result of an international Art, Science, and Technology cooperation between four universities, funded from 2020-2023 by the University Research School (EUR) ArTeC in Paris, France. The organizers have been offering this workshop to Masters students in France since 2020, with successful results, and they want to share the experience with attendees and the general public at ISEA 2024. There are no prerequisites to participate in the workshop. We aim at gathering a multidisciplinary group in order to find creative ideas from different perspectives. We expect the event to be joyful and thought-provoking.
The resulting images and experiences from the workshop will be highlighted in the website https://hom.pubpub.org/ with credit and recognition to participants and contributors.
Facilitators: Adam Boonprakob-Naughton
Time: 10.00am – 2.00pm
Venue:QUT Kelvin Grove, Z9-340 The Block
Capacity: 30
Workshop information: Participants will be required to remove all footwear to enter the workshop space. Please wear comfortable clothes to move in.
Abstract: In this workshop dance artist researcher Adam Boonprakob-Naughton invites participants to create their own choreographic scores through a process of iteration and experimentation. moving as many embodies the more-than-human through creative strategies that include poetics, objects and sound. Such strategies germinate movement prompts and fruit performance scores. Inspired by the theme, Ecologies of Place, this workshop improvises and dances in co-existence with other visible and invisible bodies.
Facilitators: Isobel Knowles, Van Sowerwine
Time: 10.00am – 1.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, E-557
Capacity: 10
Workshop information: A personal smartphone is needed to participate in workshop activities.
Abstract: Memory Postcard is a VR workshop investigating the memories connected with items of furniture that have disappeared from our lives. During workshops, participants create paper sculptures of an item of furniture that holds significance for them. We invite them to make a piece of furniture from their past that they no longer have. The sculptures are then scanned with photogrammetry and inserted into a VR environment. The participants also record a statement describing their connection to the furniture item on their personal devices to sit alongside the sculptures. The effect is of a gallery of ephemeral objects that become more solid and real as the participants explore them in the liminal space of virtual reality.
The simple task of customising a paper template with an approximation of the colours and textures of the furniture already has the effect of remembering the significance of furniture in our lives and how the people and experiences we recollect relate to the domestic environment.
By translating it into a space where it can be enlarged to life size and for the participant to be able to re-encounter their visualisation as a solid object has the ability to create new memories and perspectives.
Facilitators: Domestic Light Project in partnership with Leonardo, Ian Winters, Weidong Yang
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z3-109 The Block
Capacity: 30
Workshop information: It is essential that participants bring a personal laptop capable of reading from a USB drive, connecting to WiFi, and installing software. Workshop materials will become available for download 2 weeks before the workshop. For participants interested in modifying sensor code, it is recommended to install the Arduino IDE and esp32 board set as well as bringing a cable for connecting your personal laptop to a USB-C device. For participants interested in working with the data set, a basic knowledge of Python is recommended along with a working Python 3 installation with pandas installed. Prior knowledge and installation of these software is not essential to participate in the workshop, which also features discussion and demonstrations.
Abstract: The Domestic Light Data Hack Day led by lead artist Ian Winters and data scientist Weidong Yang will provide a hands-on introduction to the use and generation of the year+ long multi-spectral light intensity data set generated by the Domestic Light project. As a general framing we are artists working exploring what artistic, performative and compositional possibilities are afforded by collaboratively generated durational environmental data set, using a “hack day” format. We hope to this data sharing can spark other collaborative uses, extensions and ideas.
The project data is generated by a network of multispectral light sensors housed in collaborators homes around the globe with a goal to have a sensor in each time zone on earth that record and stream the color of the light of home in real time. See https://domesticlight.art/locations for current locations.
The data set consists of 11 readings of narrow band spectra from near UV to Near IR recorded on a 10 second interval at the locations that are part of the project. the intensity of light across 11 discrete spectral data create use of the year+ long multi-spectral light color data set created by the Domestic Light project.
The sensor boards have additional STEMMA QT I2C ports on the board to allow the easy addition of other environmental sensors such as a greenhouse gas or VOC sensor by the host and the sensor code is available under an open source license to support such custom additions.
Workshop topics include:
1) An introduction to the sensor platform which uses an ESP32S3 and the AS7341 sensor.
2) Guide to accessing the data set using a series of python-based scripts both locally and via the project’s API endpoint.
3) An introduction to translating the data to an Open Sound Control (OSC) stream for use in music and video tools such as Max-MSP, Pure Data, Supercollider, Isadora and Touchdesigner as well as template files.
4) Demonstration of the multi-spectral LED light developed to replay the data set.
5) A discussion and brainstorm of what tools would make this and other data sets more usable as a performative tool (such translating the data set to an analog control voltage or adding greenhouse gas sensing capabilities.
6) Hands-on work time with the data set to sketch out ideas
7) A final show and tell of outcomes.
Workshop materials will be posted at https://domesticlight.art/isea approximately 2 weeks before the workshop.
Facilitator: David Strang, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Time: 10.00am – 5.00pm
Venue: QUT Kelvin Grove, Z10-118
Capacity: 15
Abstract: T+I: Speculative Dust Circuits
The development for this workshop begins in two places – firstly, the project of transmission+interference (Strang and Van Uffelen) that openly explores the creative making and hacking processes in developing noise machines for installation and performance. Over time, this project has begun exploring the rich power and potentiality hidden within the object of dust as a creative sonic force. This has emerged through exploring materialist processes, and often under the influence of speculative making practices.
The second point of development for this workshop is the journal paper by John Richards titled Speculative Sound Circuits (2018). In this paper, Richards neatly mixes the materialist and object focused sonic practices of Cage and Tudor with the world emerging from speculative design. This particular approach is where the workshop will develop from – through tinkering and t(h)inkering with materials and objects instead of offering a defined set of strict guides for making (in which everyone makes exactly the same thing).
Speculating over the material powers of dust to act as a creative force will require exploring new ways of knowing that, in this situation, can only be achieved through the making process, through the objects, and through the intra-actions of all workshop components (human and non-human). In following Donna Haraway’s writing on making-with the workshop is encouraged to explore new ways of knowing that can only be achieved through an ontological flattening of the workshop, thus enabling the powers of materials and objects to be further realized across the workshop. The workshop aims to raise a material consciousness and generate a knowing through making – also known as t(h)inkering.
As well as developing thoughts around First Nations’ ways of knowing and how this is potentially entangled in Haraway’s thoughts on making-with or sympoiesis, discourse around the shifting temporalities encountered through the objects and materials at play in the workshop will develop as the deep-time of encountering dust will become expressed across the workshop. How dust is created for the workshop and how all actants in the workshop will eventually become dust over varying degrees of time enables the ontological flattening of all in the workshop, explicitly fostering the hidden connections between human and non-human actants across mixed temporalities.
The 1-day workshop will begin with a short introduction to the tools and machines emerging from previous workshops before setting out the scope of the day where the group will actively speculate with dust and electronic noise components. Further reading around the topic will also be shared but will be circulated amongst all those who sign up to the workshop in advance to ensure most time is focused on making. A short reader will be developed to introduce these texts drawing on developments in new materialist ontologies from, for example, Barad, Bennett, Bryant, Coole, Haraway, Harman, and Morton.
Friday 28 June and Saturday 29 June (EST: Thursday 27 June and Friday 28 June)
– two day workshop VIRTUAL
Facilitators: Assem Kroma, Carleton University and 23-11-23 Troupe
Time: 12.00am – 6.00am each day
(EST: 10.00am – 4.00pm)
Venue: Zoom
Capacity: 25
Workshop information: This is a virtual workshop. Participation requires a stable internet connection and a personal computer or laptop. The following software are required: Unity (free), Adobe Premiere Pro (7-day trial available), and Zoom (free). Participants will also require a YouTube account to share their 360 videos.
Abstract: The rapidly evolving landscape of immersive storytelling and future cinema is increasingly dominated by virtual reality (VR) technologies, offering unprecedented opportunities for creative expression and audience engagement. This tutorial, “Creating Virtual Reality Animated Films,” situated within this context, is designed as a comprehensive, two-day remote learning experience focusing on the development of VR animated films using Unity.
Part one of the tutorial, “Ideation and Prototyping,” initiates participants into the world of VR storytelling. It begins with an exploration of the theoretical underpinnings of immersive storytelling, emphasizing the unique narrative potentials that VR offers compared to traditional media (Murray, 2017). Participants will engage in ideation sessions, brainstorming concepts that leverage the unique affordances of VR for storytelling. This phase is crucial, as ideation in VR demands an understanding of spatial narrative and user interaction unique to this medium (Ryan, 2015). The latter part of the day will focus on prototyping, where participants will learn the basics of setting up a VR environment in Unity, importing assets, and understanding scene composition and lighting – all essential elements in crafting an immersive VR experience.
Day two, “Practical Implementation,” is a deep dive into the technical aspects of VR animated films. Participants will be guided through the process of animating characters and designing camera movements using Unity Timeline, a tool vital for creating dynamic and engaging VR content. This hands-on session will not only enhance their technical skills but also their understanding of how animated elements and camera work can enhance storytelling in VR.
Crucially, this tutorial is conducted remotely, making it accessible to a global audience. The remote format includes live demonstrations, interactive sessions, and guided practice, ensuring an engaging and educational experience. The final outcome of the tutorial will be participant-created VR animated films, which they will learn to export as 360 videos. These videos will be shared on YouTube, offering a platform for participants to showcase their work and engage with a broader audience.
In summary, this tutorial offers a unique blend of theory and practice in VR animated films, tailored for individuals keen to explore the frontiers of immersive storytelling and future cinema. By the end of the tutorial, participants will not only have a foundational understanding of VR’s narrative potential but will also gain hands-on experience in creating VR animated films that are ready to be shared with the world.
References: Murray, J. (2017). Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. MIT Press.
Ryan, M. L. (2015). Narrative as Virtual Reality 2: Revisiting Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Saturday 29 June – one day workshop
Facilitators:
Quynh Nhu Bui, RMIT University
Lucian Rodriguez Lovell, RMIT University
Time: 12.00pm – 5.00pm
Venue: The Edge, State Library of Queensland
Capacity: 10
Workshop information: Participation in workshop activities will required the following: a charged personal laptop with the software SparkAR Studio installed; a Meta account for working in SparkAR; a charged modern smartphone.
Abstract: Intangible cultural heritage is being threatened by forces of aggressive urbanization and globalization, particularly in developing nations like Vietnam. UNESCO defines intangible cultural heritage as encompassing oral traditions, social practices, rituals, festive events, traditional craft skills, childhood play, and food-making traditions.
This workshop is based on “Play to Preserve the Past”, a series of mobile games, created by the researcher, that investigate Augment Reality (AR) technology as a potential future solution to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. The series investigates the potentials creative practitioners can harness when preserving ICH with AR, and the appropriateness of using advanced tools to preserve heritage, exposing any impacts they might have on the preserved content.
In this workshop “Crafting AR Lanterns: Future Practice to Preserve the Past” the Vietnamese Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival serves as a provocation for ICH preservation of the future, asking “How do we preserve physical lantern crafting practices in a digitally dominated future?”.
The workshop will guide participants through an exploratory lantern decoration practice, bridging contemporary 3D digital art and hand-craft practices. Attendees will learn to integrate their lanterns into an AR system using SparkAR, design simple games to play with their lanterns, and take part in a mixed-reality lantern parade.
By fostering a creative dialogue between tradition, technological innovation, and contemporary creative practice, the workshop will provoke discussions on the preservation of cultural practices in the age of digital transformation. Participants will not only gain practical skills in crafting AR experiences, but also consider the broader implications of using technology to connect the past and the future. The workshop is an opportunity to engage with critical discussion about intangible cultural heritage whilst creating interactive pieces of art that preserve and celebrate our collective past.
