Intensive programmes for teaching staff: “On Doing and Sharing Transdisciplinary Research” (A7)

Duration: 2 days

This intensive program for teaching staff will be a 2 day workshop centered on how to disseminate and publicly communicate works of art resulting from a transdisciplinary research. The workshop is aimed at having a highly intensive 2 day process for the selected teaching staff to focus particularly on developing a proposal how objects and installations of art and design born in a transdisciplinary research can be communicated more effectively to today’s public. The workshop participants will be 3 representatives of the teaching staff from each of the strategic partners, i.e. soft robotics from Aalborg University, artificial biology from Trento University, arts from Aalto University, and sustainable design from the ADES Institute. The selection criteria for the participants are:

a) they represent the respective scientific fields of the strategic partners; b) they are familiar with the ABRA project aims and methodology by being fully or have been partly engaged with the project; c) they have experience in transdicisplinary HE and are motivated by the callenge presented in this workshop.

In this intensive 2 day workshop, the participants will focus on exploring best practices and innovative ways of communicating to a wider public objects and installations of art and design born in a transdisciplinary research. New transdisciplinary works require a new language, terminology which helps the prospective viewers to define and interpret the meanings, the narrative and the relevance of the scientific knowledge that has lead to the particular outcome and what might be learnt from it. A good example of this are the works by the British speculative designer Agi Haines (https://www.agihaines.com/), who emphasises through her work the ethics of technological developments in medical industry. Her works are difficult to communicate as objects of art or as objects of technology design, and hence their exhibition value may be placed in galleries of arts or in technological expos, yet both would require a narrative that makes the object’s existence clear, due to their strong transdisciplinary profile, to the different viewers. It is also a valid issue, for instance, for advancements in artificial biology, or robotics as these might be relevantly exhibited and their value communicated in art or in technology related exhibitions, yet their particular message from transdisciplinary research still lacks the language and value gained from an effective communication. Another deeply related issue is the narrative of sustainability in works born in transdisciplinary research. We still associate the value of sustainability by detecting colour green on a given object, whereas the value of course is integrated in the today’s society in a deeper and multilayered way than by the simplified symbol of green in nature. The issues elevated here relate to all multimedial works of art and design, which proves to increasingly necessitate appropriate infrastructure and new curatorial practices, placing new demands on cultural institutions, curators, and other stakeholders. The workshop participants will have the task to address these issues and to work on proposing new innovative ways in how to share knowledge gained from transdisciplinary research and how to advance communication on sustainability in objects and installations of art and design.

The workshop will take place in the ADES Institute’s facilities at Art Quarter Budapest, Hungary