Hexagram’s 2021-2022 Interdisciplinary season programming on the theme EMERGENCE/Y launched last September at the Ars Electronica Festival.
Hexagram presented a series of synchronous and asynchronous streaming-based events specifically curated and produced for the Festival. Over 50 co-investigator members, student members and Hexagram collaborators, as well as their collaborators, presented their most recent research and artistic work. Following a new call, launched last December during our 20th anniversary celebrations, our members suggested new outreach activities for their most recent research-creation projects, aligned with the EMERGENCE/Y themes.
The following activities will resume the 2021-2022 Hexagram Rencontres interdisciplinaires programming:
Hexagram Network/ Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology
RECREATE is a large-scale international network being developed by several members of Hexagram. The network’s objective is to empirically study research-creation in the context of media art and new technologies through an array of case study projects. In this first workshop, a group of researchers, at the center of the project will gather to reflect on the research axes, scope, research-design and the key theories that will be unfolded in the project.
Minwashin, organization to support and develop anicinabé culture, Le Petit Théâtre du vieux-Noranda, Espace O Lab, community laboratory for creation and social innovation [Jean-Ambroise Vesac, member co-investigator, UQAT].
This collaboration by means of research and creation between investigators, artists, and the Anicinabe organization Minwashin aims to develop a digital “dispositif” for the transmission and presentation of Anicinabe intangible heritage. WIKWEMOT – “bark basket” in Anicinabemowin – has been used since time immemorial by the Anicinabek to carry food, water and other essential goods. The methodology deployed in this project is a co-creation residency, allowing three teams to explore concepts of playful mediation of traditional knowledge. Reflections on the experience of this research and co-creation residency will be presented at the Forum avantage numérique 2022 and at the Colloquium Apports de la recherche-création : co-création intersectorielle, médiation culturelle numérique, pédagogie et organisation, in the framework of the 89th ACFAS conference.
This roundtable will focus on how artificial intelligence, robotics and performance interact to make possible the emergence of new relational models that are more just, complex, ethical and sensitive. Drawing on artistic practices that explore these technologies on the margins of uses proposed by the industry, participants will explore how these works open into redefinition of the concepts of normality, care and relationships of kindness.
Nina Czegledy [member collaborator, OCAD / University of Toronto], Gisèle Trudel [co-investigator member, UQAM], chantal t paris [student member, UQAM], Annick Bureaud (art critic and independent curator), Beatriz Herrera (multidisciplinary artist), François-Joseph Lapointe (member co-investigator, Université de Montréal), Matthew Halpenny (student-member, Université de Montréal).
The curatorial collective Traveling Plant (Europe) encounters the Critical Gardening Collective (Montréal). Participants will discuss the exhibition Cruel of Tucuman by Paula Bruna and Towards a Fourth Nature concerned with cybrionts, a sympoiesis between bipolar mosses, cybernetic sculptures and microbial fuel cells.
As a brief introduction to the new LASER series at Hexagram, Nina Czegledy, Gisèle Trudel and chantal t paris will share their analysis of the previous ten editions. LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) is Leonardo/ISAST’s international program of evening gatherings that bring artists and scientists together for informal presentations and conversations with audiences.
*The number of seats available will be limited, but the event will be live-streamed here.*
Christopher Salter [member co-investigator, Concordia University] and Sofian Audry [member co-investigator, UQAM]
Authors Christopher Salter and Sofian Audry will get together to discuss their recent publications, respectively, “Art in the Age of Machine Learning” (MIT Press, 2021) and “Sensing machines: How sensors shape our everyday life” (MIT Press, 2022). The roundtable will be followed by a book launch and signature session.
Alice Jarry [member co-investigator, Concordia University], Guillaume Pascale [UQAM], Jean Dubois [member co-investigator, UQAM], Marie-Pier Boucher [member collaborator, University of Toronto] and affiliated students to the Concordia University Research Chair in Critical Practices in Materials and Materiality.
Inertia intersects the disappearance of the Earth in the eyes of the Voyager probes with the ecological situation in the east end of Montreal. As Voyager’s scientific instruments are gradually shut down, how do we create meaning with space debris? How do these artifacts allow us to envision new scenarios for the waste – material and digital – produced on Earth? The activity will include workshops and presentation-discussions.
Yan Breuleux [member co-investigator, UQAC-NAD], Marie-Ève Bilodeau [student member, UQAC-NAD] and Ghyslain Gagnon [member co-investigator, ÉTS]
Using the Nuage interface metaphor as a starting point for generating multiple immersive environments, a new iteration of the Nuages experiment will be conducted at the SAT dome. The wireless tangible interface offers eight dynamic controls using pressure sensors and a gyroscope for the spatialization of constantly changing particle masses. The primary objective of this experiment is to combine within the same space the different metaphors, interpretations and visualizations of the cloud.
A two-part workshop on building inclusive research-creation projects and environments. In part one, through an open-forum method, participants will collectively identify the EDI issues and challenges they encounter in their professional activities, which will be discussed with invited speakers.
The afternoon part will be dedicated to a guided writing exercise with the goals of producing text excerpts that articulate the EDI challenges associated with participants’ own research. Outcomes will include advancing research descriptions, sharing strategies and resources.
This “walk + workshop” takes participants through the Quartier des Spectacles. It explores the use of walking as a reflective tool on the political-ethical-cultural narratives held within and told by the space. Debris will be collected and used at the end to create temporal mappings, using papermaking techniques, of the experience.
To sign-up, email tricia.enns@gmail.com with subject “Sign-up for Mapping Debris Together”. Please indicate how many people will join, and any accessibility needs.
Juliette Lusven [student member, UQAM], Anne De Vernal (GEOTOP-UQAM)
Taking the Atlantic Ocean as a starting point, this roundtable will be an opportunity to dialogue and experiment with new transdisciplinary approaches at the intersection of research-creation and geosciences to question our relationship to the world.
