SYMBIOSIS
https://www.isea2023-proposals.org
In an era of global crisis — ecologic and economic; sanitary and socio-political — symbiosis is a notion that allows us to explore the metamorphoses afoot and to imagine possible futures. This symposium offers an incubator where artists, designers, scientists, and other thinkers will dialogue and debate on process and practice, exhibiting novel projects along the way.
Symbiosis is a cornerstone of life itself — no organism, nor any species more widely, could survive in isolation and without reciprocity. This applies as much to human societies as to the rapport of those societies with their surrounding environments. More than a simple co-existence, symbiosis implies interdependence. It can be positive, neutral, or negative, varying according to the dynamic between the rapport’s attendant parts. We must, then, choose our symbiotic models wisely. This is the orienting goal of this year’s conference.
A MAJOR EVENT IN DIGITAL CREATION
Host to 60 participating countries, ISEA — the International Symposium on Electronic Art — is a major international event focused on digital creation. Each year, the event is held in a different country. This trans-disciplinary conference reunites actors in digital arts, design, research, and cultural and creative industries (CCI) effecting tremendous creative progress.
Between round-table meetings, networking events, project presentations, and exhibitions of artistic projects, ISEA highlights the best in digital creation from around the world with creative discernment and an eye for novelty.
The 28th edition will be held in Paris, France, following past editions in China, Colombia, South Africa, South Korea, and Canada.
ISEA2023 will bring together nearly 2000 international creators, researchers, and innovators, along with more than 100 000 anticipated visitors. Partnered with actors in 60 participating countries, the event will lend international visibility digital ecosystems around the world, and to the French scene in particular. The event is also intended to raise public awareness regarding new forms of digital creation and the contemporary social issues to which they pertain.
FUSING TRANS-DISCIPLINARY REFLECTION AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Virtuality, connectivity, AI, robotics, NFTs and the metaverse, cognitive design and neuroscience — over the last few years, each in their turn has catalyzed major shifts in the creative sphere, thus participating in its reinvention. The transformation of uses and practices in the era of algorithmic intelligence has renewed the productive models on hand. This evolution is part of a wider trend in digital transformation, questioning the meaning we ascribe to progress, especially regarding the environment and public health.
To better anticipate and understand our era’s creative evolutions, ISEA2023 is dedicated to the transversal perspectives and aptitudes of different actors in the ecosystem of digital creation and innovation. The event will comprise two major axes:
Over a period of several weeks, the artistic programme will be held across 100 partner venues in Paris and France more widely. Various thematic routes will permit spectators to discover a wide selection of digital works: installations, virtual or augmented realities, performances, concerts, video games, design, films, and digital publications will be presented throughout the trajectory.
For one week, the academic program will bring together a number of actors in digital creation at Paris’ Forum des images – TUMO, as well as on a dedicated virtual platform. This rich academic program will include conferences, panels & round tables, posters & demos, institutional presentations, artists’ talks & work-in-progress presentations, and workshops & tutorials…. It aims to highlight the latest advances in digital creation and other creative industries:
— Digital creations: At the intersection of science, innovation, and creativity, the hybrid art forms of digital cultures have catalyzed the apparition of new forms of expression for artists and novel experiences for the public. They have allowed us clear glimpses of the transformations afoot in the world around us, and to envision a field of desirable futures and fruitful narratives. The economic, political, social, and ecological changes that our era will collectively traverse are an invitation to thought — to different ways of seeking and creating — and it is at this crossroads that hybrid arts and digital cultures reside.
— Cultural and Creative Industries: The complexity today’s issues calls for a renewed transdisciplinarity in our economic models and customs. The creative industry and its professional fields — new media, sports, video games, augmented reality, immersive performances or entirely virtual worlds — are undergoing a transformation. In addition, creative industries also lend their skills in other domains, such as healthcare, to take just one example among many.
Symbiosis — at once object, subject, and pre-condition for this international gathering.
ISEA2023 is a symbiotic event: trans-disciplinary (including visual arts, theater, music, design, cinema, sociology, philosophy, economics, engineering, mathematics, biology, and more) and inter-sectorial, concerning the arts, creatives industries, research, and citizenship more widely.
View themes and details in ISEA2023’s call for proposals.
ISEA2023 invites artists, designers, academics, researchers, innovators, and creators to contribute to the conversation on our symbiotic world, using the following sub-categories as guidance:
Sub-theme
SYMBIOTIC INDIVIDUATIONS
THE PLANET’S NEXT INHABITANTS TRANS-HUMANISM
HYBRID BEINGS • INTER-SPECIFICITY • NEW INDIVIDUATIONS
What “hybrid beings” are coming into existence today, and thereby associating the human and the non-human? What new forms will they take, and will they be the next inhabitants of our planet?
Experiments on trans-humanism, the emergence of new artificial autonomies, and new representations of natural elements are examples of the exploratory perspectives to be presented and discussed.
Sub-theme
SYMBIOTIC ORGANIZATIONS
NEW ALLIANCES
ECOSYSTEMS • COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS • RESILIENT SOCIETIES • BIOSPHERE • SCALE
Human societies have founded their equilibrium upon multitudinous and interdependent forms of symbiosis across a wide swathe of domains: ecology, economy, culture, technology, and more. What happens when a given event destroys this fragile equilibrium?
Covid-19 and the ecological crisis have more than demonstrated to us the necessity and urgency of such reflection. How can the marrying of art, science, and technology help us to surmount new challenges?
Researchers, artists, designers, and leading experts will offer their perspectives on these resolutely trans-disciplinary approaches, with the shared ambition of contributing to a world that’s more resilient and at ease in its alterity.
Sub-theme
SYMBIOTIC IMAGINARIES
INVENTING WORLD
UTOPIA • THE UNTHOUGHT • HYBRIDIZATION • ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVES • MYTHS • REPRESENTATIONS
In order to exist and prosper, symbiotic relationships — relationships in which each partner derives reciprocal benefits indispensable to their survival — are essential. Symbiosis is a vital necessity at all levels of all known eco-systems. But “necessary” does not imply that it should be reduced to its pragmatism or instrumentality. Symbiosis also opens us to new imaginaries, be they novel or redundant in the context of their corresponding era. If modes of collective imagination vary according to perspectives, they are always multiple and in dialogue with reality — what, therefore, constitutes the symbiotic imaginary?
More: https://www.isea2023-proposals.org
For all questions, please contact: isea2023@lecube.com
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