Recommended Event “Relating, Sensing, Being: Conversations on Arts x Science x AI”

On May 27, the UU Special Interest Group “AI in Cultural Inquiry and Art” presents a conversation with the Holistic Technology Salon (HTS). HTS is an artists’ collective led by Annika Kappner, Ginevra Petrozzi and Sieta van Horck, and has been co-produced by V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. Through incorporating different types of knowledge with artistic practice, from corporeal and mystical practices to cutting-edge materials science and quantum physics, the collective invites audience to weave new, holistic ways of being with technology, and explore eco- and care-centric perspectives with contemporary and future technologies.

In this 3-hour conversation, moderated by Dr Evelyn Wan, the artists will present the three pillars that underpin their work, the ‘relational’, the ‘cognitive’, and the ‘(ultra-)sensorial’, which together form their ‘holistic’ approach to technology.

Sieta van Horck will zoom into the notion of ‘relating’ with technology, to reflect on the role of human senses, intelligence, and consciousness in this AI-mediated world. She will guide us into embodied exercises, that re-emphasise the centrality of human body and human intelligence in counterbalance with artificial and technological intelligence.

Ginevra Petrozzi will look into the theme of ‘uncertainty’ from the perspective of magic, divination, and quantum physics, rooted in her artistic and design practice, and her ongoing PhD research. Her work challenges how AI and predictive technologies intervene in our decision-making processes and mediate our relationship to the world.

Annika Kappner will turn the focus to ‘inner technologies’ and innate abilities of ultra-sensorial sensing through entrainment of bodily attunement and expanded consciousness in relation to the cosmos. She has been researching the materiality of nano-materials that enable quantum computing, and the question of memory transmission through and beyond technology.

By bringing disparate fields together, the three artists challenge conventional definitions of technology and AI, and open up new ways of relating to ourselves, to each other, and to the world around us, in the midst of a technologically-driven world.

About the speakers

Sieta van Horck is a project manager in the V2_ Lab. Projects she guides include a wide range of artworks  and exhibitions, hosting the Critical AI meetups, the Summer Sessions network for Talent Development. Sieta is part of  the Slow reading Group focussing on AI and gender inequality as well as the Holistic Technology Salon, exploring how to integrate eco- and carecentric perspectives into our relationship with contemporary and future technologies through direct experience. She holds a BA in Digital Media and Culture and MSc in Media Technology, and the co-founder of AuthentiCare, a company focussing on human relating and social safety. As a multidisciplinary artist, she works at the intersection of ecology, technology and somatics. In her installations, gatherings, retreats  and rituals she combines emerging science with ancient wisdom to explore the shift from the age of Newtonian physics to the new paradigm of interbeing and supports the natural process of expanding consciousness.

Ginevra Petrozzi is an artist and interdisciplinary designer currently living and working in The Netherlands. Her work wishes to expand the notion of magical thinking in the context of modern predictive systems, such as AI, machine learning and algorithmic processes. Through academic research, writing and creative production she aims to make space for other ideas and forms of intelligence, knowledge and wisdom, both human and non-human. Currently, she is exploring the possibilities of mysticism and the occult within the landscape of contemporary techno-politics. In this framework, she took the role of a “digital witch”, reclaiming the archetypal role of the sorceress as a healer, and as a political rebel.

Annika Kappner is a visual artist and researcher creating sensory scenographies that combine landscape, installation, video, performance, guided meditation, scent and sound into multidimensional experiences. Kappner’s practice explores the interconnected evolution of consciousness, archetypal imagery and technology as well as its reflection on the shifting perception of (self) image and The Other. Selected exhibitions and commissions include: Ars Electronica, Het Nieuwe Instituut, IMPAKT, Julidans, MU Hybrid Art House, New European Bauhaus, Sonic Acts, and V2_Lab for Unstable Media.

Dr. Evelyn Wan (organizer and moderator) is an artist-scholar and dramaturg. She is Assistant Professor in Media, Arts, and Society at the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, where she coordinates the MA Arts and Society programme and works on interdisciplinary curriculum innovation in the domain of Humane AI. Her award-winning research studies historical and contemporary technologies through the lens of decolonial media studies and performance studies.