Machine Wilderness symposium

Datum: Monday November 2 2015
Time: 10 – 6 PM uur (lunch included)
Location: Artis, Northern pavillion right side of main entrance
Registration: Places are limited to reserve a (free) seat before 24 October email
info@machinewilderness.net

Machine Wilderness is bringing together experts from many different disciplines and backgrounds to explore emerging hybrid ecologies where nature, technology and art intertwine, on the 2nd of November at Artis Royal Zoo in Amsterdam. With keynote speakers, presentations, performances and live demos this symposium navigates through current and imminent machine wildernesses. The day includes introductions to the three hands-on workshops later this year.

About Machine Wilderness
The emerging climate crisis and environmental damage show that our design processes underestimate the level of exposure of our landscapes to human activity. Our infrastructures, technologies and machines are not temporary visitors to our landscapes, they are permanent inhabitants.

Machine Wilderness is an arts and science program which explores what design processes could look like if they take local conditions in landscapes as their starting point. How can our technologies relate to the subtleties and grace of natural populations, mineral flows, foodchains and layers of communication? There is a focus on environmental robotics, or ‘entities’ as actors in shared habitats. What does their presence mean ecologically, culturally and sociologically, within a longterm view of interacting populations surfing collectively on the geological and meteorological currents that carry them.

In this opening symposium we set out to map the hybrid relationships between our technologies and landscapes. We look forward to your participation.

Program:

The symposium features contributions (amongst others):
keynote speaker Prof. Dr. Gusz Eiben, head of the Computational Intelligence Group at VU ‘Evolving Robotic Ecosystems’, on evolution and artificial intelligence
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keynote speaker Prof. Em. Petran Kockelkoren, philosopher and emeritus professor Art and Technology, University of Twente on landscapes and technology
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Dr. Erik de Jong Special Professor of Culture Landscape and Nature in the Faculty of Humanities at UVA and Artis Academy ‘on new relations to nature, Artis in the Anthropocene and the extended museum’
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Kenzo Kusuda choreographer and dancer on how to connect with a landscape or a space
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ir. Paul Roncken Assistant Professor at the department of Landscape Architecture at WU Environmental Sciences on his concept of Landscape Machines
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Artist Špela Petrič will conclude ‘Imbibition’, the 10-day durational performance/experiment within her ‘Confronting Vegetal Otherness’ series
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Xavier San Georgi Architect, Landscape architect & Ecologist at Foodforestry.nl on technology and foodforestry

Introductions by artist Ivan Henriques, anthropologist Judith van der Elst and biologist Amber Griffiths to the hands-on workshops in Machine Wilderness later this year.

final program is forthcoming

Schedule
10:00 welcome & introduction
10:20 introduction Artis
10:40 keynote lecture
11:30 short presentations
13:30 lunch (is provided)
14:30 keynote lecture
15:15 workshop sessions
17:30 plenary debate
18:00 drinks

Machine Wilderness is organised by FoAM and Zone2Source in collaboration with Artis Academy

Machine Wilderness is supported by Mondriaan Fonds and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie