This event was made possible thanks to the support of
EDEN
CODY LUKAS
ANCA HORVATH
JONAS JØRGENSEN
“As our knowledge and abilities to manipulate life increase, so does the need to make sense of where we are going. Art can play an important role in creating cultural meaning and informed involvement that are needed in order for our society to comprehend the very significant changes we are facing.”
– Oron Catts & Gary Cass
EDEN
The concept of “life” is something that every person intuitively feels they understand, claiming to easily distinguish that a tree is alive and a rock is not. However, within the scientific community, there are over a hundred different definitions of life, some of which list five, six, or even seven key criteria for living organisms. Some researchers base their work on an organism’s ability to sense, encode/decode, and analyze information as the primary method for identifying life. Experts at NASA claim life to be nothing more than “a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.”
Every day, new research and innovation further chip away at our normalized anthropocentric understanding of life, defining the ethical parameters for how we interact with the world around us. This includes interactions with other living organisms, the environment, and other human beings.
Eden is an exhibition that challenges normative perspectives of life, exploring alternative ways humans perceive and interact with other forms of living processes. At a time when we must overcome our anthropocentric understandings of life to tackle the multilayered environmental challenges we face today, at the end of the Human Goldilocks Era, this exhibition is particularly relevant.
Along the walls of the gallery, visitors are confronted with a range of transdisciplinary artistic works, all pushing the boundaries of what we call living and invoking reflection on the ethical justifications behind our interactions with the living world around us. These works effectively parallel a wide variety of geological, biological, and technological living processes, blurring the borders between systems.
The works are created through art-science encounters with researchers from universities, institutions and companies all across Denmark.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a public symposium will be held at Musikkens Hus, bringing together researchers and artists working within the emerging areas of Artificial Life and Complex Systems, in order to engage in discussions exploring the various ethical and sustainable ramifications that such areas of research and advancement bring about.
Artificial Nature Transposium
Transdisciplinary Symposium on Artificial Life and Sustainable Complex Systems
The Artificial Nature Transposium (ANT): Transdisciplinary Symposium on Artificial Life and Sustainable Complex Systems connects researchers and industry leaders working with data science and complex systems, specifically in the areas of soft ALife (emergent AI, artificial life modeling), hard ALife (robotics and AI), wet ALife (synthetic biology, biochemistry, disease modeling), sustainability research (ecosystem modeling), and arts & design (music modeling, and computational modeling of material architecture).
ANT brings together researchers working within the emerging areas of Artificial Life and Complex Systems, aiming to understand and synthesize life-like systems and apply bio-inspired synthetic methods to other science/engineering disciplines, including AI, Robotics, Computer Modelling, Synthetic Biology, Bio-Materials, and Bio-Architecture, among others. Sustainable development of technologically-mediated complex systems is at the core of ANT, and for this discussion, we bring a transdisciplinary group of innovators, boundary-pushing companies, and creatives in the room. The symposium creates opportunities for experts from diverse fields and sectors to come together to further our understanding of how sciences and technologies of Artificial Nature can advance human–society–nature interactions.
What is Artificial Nature
Artificial Nature extends the systemic approaches of Artificial Life—a field focused on the simulation and creation of living systems. This interdisciplinary field interrogates and leverages billions of years of evolutionary processes in organic life to inform and enhance engineering and creation practices. By studying the diverse, complex, and adaptable designs found in living organisms, researchers are gaining valuable insights that are increasingly influencing various engineering disciplines and the broader Sciences of the Artificial. The principles derived from natural systems and their theoretical extensions are being continually applied to engineering and scientific endeavors, demonstrating the potential for life-as-we-know-it and life-as-it-could-be to inspire innovative solutions and query fixed notions about what life entails.
Program
| 8.30 | Coffee & Registration |
| 9.00 | Welcome and Introduction by Elizabeth Jochum & Cody Lukas |
| 9.15 – 10.00 | Keynote Lecture: Phil Ayres “Beyond Metaphor: histories, advances and futures of living architectures” |
| 10.15 – 11.00 | Keynote Lecture: Hanaa Dahy “Advancing climate-neutral architecture through annually renewable resources and digitalization” |
| 11.00 – 11.45 | Moderated Questions & Discussion with Hanaa Dahy and Phil Ayres (mod. Markus Löchtefeld) |
| 12.00 – 13.00 | Lunch |
| 13.00 – 14.30 | Plenary: When Art and Science Meet – Anca Horvath “Life As Material” – Jonas Jørgensen “Soft Robotics and Ecological Aesthetics” – Kresten Jon Korup Kromphardt: “Uncoupling food production from farming and fishing” – Kasper Lynov “Why should we give a shit? An aesthetics-driven approach to science communication” – Moderator: Markus Löchtefeld |
| 14.30 – 15.30 | Poster Session and Coffee Break – Alberte Spork “Bug Lab” – Karin Victorin “LumenMind – Exploring Agency and Imagination in Sustainable Human-Machine Ecosystems” – Anna Elisabeth Thomassen Vadsten, Sidse Rebien, & Nikoline Lisbeth Holme, “Human Litter” – Victor Vadmand Jensen “Aligning Political and User Visions of Ethically Acceptable Healthcare AI” – Andrea Tešanović ”Soft Robotics” – Søren Lyngsø Knudsen “Vocal Imaginaries” |
| 15.30 – 16.15 | Keynote Lecture: Fara Peluso |
| 16.15 – 16.30 | Discussion and Wrap up |
| 17:00 | EDEN Exhibition Opening – Speech & Bubbles |
Cody Lukas (DK/CAN) is a conceptual artist whose work explores the intersections between living systems, human dynamics, and environmental spaces.
Holding degrees in Art and Tehnology (BA, Aalborg Univerity) and Art, Space and Nature (MFA, Edinburgh College of Arts) Lukas’ work plays with the ever-evolving boundary between Us and Them and challenges the anthropocentric lens through which we perceive and understand the living world around us. Through his work at the edge of art and science, he invites viewers to question their engrained assumptions of the life and embrace the fluid, interconnected nature of ethics, identity and existence.
Since 2020, Cody has been part of the team at the art-tech studio ARTificial Mind, creating artworks that have been exhibited internationally; most notably at Ars Electronica, Onassis Centre, and The International Space Station.
Website: www.codylukas.com
instagram: @cody_lukas
Jonas Jørgensen is an Associate Professor in the Biorobotics section at the University of Southern Denmark and co-directs the SDU Soft Robotics research lab. He holds degrees in physics (BSc) and art history (BA, MA) from Copenhagen University and Columbia University, and a PhD from the IT University of Copenhagen. His research and writings on soft robotics and robotic art have been featured in academic journals, anthologies, and conference proceedings. Jonas has presented at international conferences such as ICRA, HRI, and MediaArtHistories, and his art projects have been exhibited at prestigious venues including Ars Electronica, MSU Museum of Contemporary Art, and Science Gallery Dublin.
Website: www.jonasjoergensen.org
Instagram: @jonasjoergensen
Anca is a computational designer, registered architect and researcher investigating the relationships between emerging technologies, including computational design, digital fabrication, AI and bio-technologies, and creative practices, as well as their place in broader cultural contexts. Anca’s projects have covered a broad range of scopes and scales, from shoe insoles to urban planning and has worked as an architect, urban planner, and computational designer in Romania and Denmark. Anca holds a PhD in architecture from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, and for the last 6 years has been affiliated with the Research Laboratory for Art&Technology at Aalborg University.
Website: www.ancah.myportfolio.com
Instagram: @moi.anqua