MTF Aveiro 2020
MTF Aveiro 2020
MTF Aveiro
ANOTHER GREEN WORLD
12 - 17 October 2020
In the city of Aveiro, Portugal, 50 experts from the MTF community representing 22 countries assembled to collaborate, experiment and plan how we are now going to invent new, sustainable, just and equitable worlds.
Despite a worsening global Covid situation and Portugal being placed on the Red Zone travel list for many countries, the event was cleared to proceed according to strict guidelines. Music, performance and creativity formed the centrepiece for cross-disciplinary innovation, bringing together AI, neuroscience, clean energy tech, space data, marine biology and more, to find hybrid solutions to some of the most important challenges that face our world today.
MTF Aveiro
ANOTHER GREEN WORLD
12 - 17 October 2020
In the city of Aveiro, Portugal, 50 experts from the MTF community representing 22 countries assembled to collaborate, experiment and plan how we are now going to invent new, sustainable, just and equitable worlds.
Despite a worsening global Covid situation and Portugal being placed on the Red Zone travel list for many countries, the event was cleared to proceed according to strict guidelines. Music, performance and creativity formed the centrepiece for cross-disciplinary innovation, bringing together AI, neuroscience, clean energy tech, space data, marine biology and more, to find hybrid solutions to some of the most important challenges that face our world today.
#MTF AVEIRO PROJECTS
International collaborations between artists and scientists
Responding to the theme ‘Another Green World’, inspired by exclusive presentations and a day of brainstorming with members of the MTF community from around the world, participants formed interdisciplinary teams and initiated a diverse range of projects. The experts shared knowledge and insight from their own disciplines with brilliant people they might otherwise never have had the occasion to meet, and teamed up to build creative and technological approaches to the grand challenges. MTF Aveiro resulted in 6 new international collaborations, in which the experts developed working prototypes that were showcased in a series of public performances conceived and designed by the participants.
#MTF AVEIRO PROJECTS
International collaborations between artists and scientists
Responding to the theme ‘Another Green World’, inspired by exclusive presentations and a day of brainstorming with members of the MTF community from around the world, participants formed interdisciplinary teams and initiated a diverse range of projects. The experts shared knowledge and insight from their own disciplines with brilliant people they might otherwise never have had the occasion to meet, and teamed up to build creative and technological approaches to the grand challenges. MTF Aveiro resulted in 6 new international collaborations, in which the experts developed working prototypes that were showcased in a series of public performances conceived and designed by the participants.
Entanglement
Two subjects were seated on the stage and connected to EEG brainwave readers and heart rate monitors. Sitting face to face, recalling Marina Abramovic’s famous work ‘The Artist is Present’, the participants were brought to a state of empathy through physical co-presence (at a safe distance). Their connection was both stimulated through live musical performance as well as provoked with dissonance and noise, to challenge whether their levels of empathy could be deliberately broken.
Live Soundscapes Lagoon Project
Sound artist Grant Smith (UK) mapped and created a live-streamed performance of the soundscape of the Aveiro lagoons, creating a unique sonic signature of Aveiro for the theatre stage with new ways of producing sounds using a combination of recordings and existing digital technologies. His research investigations influenced the thinking of several other groups, particularly the Artificial Life and Third Sonorous Body projects.
Interactive Cork Interface
Tiago Margaça from Aveiro band Musgos, mechanical engineer André Maia and sound designer Rui Carvalhos teamed up to combine technology with natural materials found in and around the Laguna de Aveiro. Working with electronic capacitive paint, the team created an instrument that uses local sounds recorded in Aveiro, triggered by touching ancient cork that had circuitry applied using the conductive paint.
Artificial Life
Generative artists Sofia Crespo (Argentinian) and Feileacan McCormick (Norwegian) work at the intersection of natural systems, machine learning, AI and neural networks. During the brainstorming sessions with fellow lab and online participants it became apparent that there was a possibility to raise awareness of the importance of the Laguna de Aveiro ecosystem by generating speculative life forms to draw attention to this thriving ecosystem.
Chicks on Speed Epic Shoes
Artist and technologist David Cox, fashion technologist Carolin Vogler, and multimedia engineer, roboticist and audio systems programmer Daniel Rosero were inspired by the Chicks on Speed presentation and decided to create a playable musical instrument that responds to a variety of movements, impacts and step styles, and also detects the position and behaviour of the other shoe in the pair and responds accordingly.
Tercer Cuerpo Sonoro
The Art+Science research group at UNAM in Mexico City explored and mapped a third body or third space between two different realities: one in the abandoned mine and mostly unexplored biosphere of the Parque Ecológico Experimental in the center of Mexico City, and the other at the Laguna de Aveiro. Using field recordings made in both locations, they combined the environmental audio to create an entirely new sonic space in a search for a resonance and remote togetherness with Aveiro.
#MTF EXCLUSIVES*
50 GLOBAL EXPERT PRESENTATIONS
& PERFORMANCES
*EXCLUSIVE TO #MTFLabs participants AND VIPS
To inspire the participants and inform their work, MTF Labs Aveiro featured an exclusive conference with 50 live presentations and performances from high level experts across the United States, Britain, Mexico, Italy, Slovenia, Israel, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Portugal, in a blend of online presentations and live in-person talks.
A small selection of presentations from the conference sessions are included below. For the full programme, see Aveiro Exclusives.
#MTF EXCLUSIVES*
50 GLOBAL EXPERT PRESENTATIONS
& PERFORMANCES
*EXCLUSIVE TO #MTFLabs participants AND VIPS
To inspire the participants and inform their work, MTF Labs Aveiro featured an exclusive conference with 50 live presentations and performances from high level experts across the United States, Britain, Mexico, Italy, Slovenia, Israel, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Portugal, in a blend of online presentations and live in-person talks.
A small selection of presentations from the conference sessions are included below. For the full programme, see Aveiro Exclusives.
Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky - Sonifying Antarctica
Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, is a composer, multimedia artist and writer whose work immerses audiences in a blend of genres, global culture and environmental and social issues. His current work is the artistic research project ‘Virtual Antartica”.
David Cox - Humans Since 1982
Head of technology and partner at art studio Humans since 1982, responsible for the technology of the kinetic projects “Clock Clock” and “A million Times”: hardware, firmware, network, server application and choreography design platform. David played a key role in shaping the studio which comprises a large group of specialists from different backgrounds.
Carolin Vogler - Knitting DNA
Vogler is a S+T+ARTS alumna with “Knitted DNA” and winner of the IEEE Brain Prize at a hackathon of Ars Electronica 2019 for creating a personalisable 3D printed light and ornamental EEG cap. Merging marketing skills, design ideas and maker knowledge she combines traditional processes and new technologies to create new viewpoints and sustainable solutions.
Robertina Šebjanič - Aquatocene Art
Robertina uses art to explore the cultural, (bio)political, chemical and biological realities of aquatic environments, which serves as a starting point to investigate and tackle the philosophical questions on the intersection of art, technology and science.
Mónica Pedro - Fish-based materials
Mónica Pedro is an applied researcher with a background in project management for cutting-edge technologies and in fashion. She uses fish skin and local and ecological (non-petrochemical) substances in order to create leathers and textiles. Her work raises discussions about aesthetics, localism, whole-animal use and ecology awareness.
Marta de Menezes - Nature?
In 1999 Portuguese artist de Menezes created her first biological artwork (Nature?) by modifying the wing patterns of live butterflies. Since then, she has used diverse biological techniques using live neurons and bacteria - as well as functional MRI of the brain to create portraits where the mind can be visualised and fluorescent DNA probes to create micro-sculptures in human cell nuclei.
Alexandra Murray-Leslie & Melissa E. Logan - Chicks On Speed
Chicks on Speed is a feminist music and fine art ensemble, formed in Munich in 1997. They reached cult status throughout the 2000s as catalysts of the musical genre electroclash, but were founded as a multidisciplinary art group working in performance art, collage, textiles and fashion.
Kika Goncalves - Ocean Soundscape Awareness
A PhD researcher in ecoacoustics and artistic creation focusing on the ocean soundscapes, Goncalves creates awareness of noise pollution in aquatic environments through artistic practices and artworks, with a special interest in low frequencies, vibration and particle motion disturbances.
Martim Sousa Tavares - Ways of Hearing
Maestro orchestra conductor and music communicator. Beyond conducting orchestras in several countries, Martim is an avid communicator of classical music, being involved in several projects that aim to reignite interest in classical music, and bring it to remote parts of Portugal.
Dan Hill - The Slowdown Papers
Head of Strategic Design at Vinnova, the Swedish Innovation Agency, Visiting Professor Eindhoven, RMIT and Bartlett; ex Head of BBC Music, and Head of the Cities Catapult. Author at cityofsound.com
Harry Yeff (Reeps One) - Vocal AI
Artist in Residence at the World Economic Forum and Nokia Bell Labs, Yeff explores the evolution of the human voice, art and science. His work blends experimental vocal performance with AI, and transforms the voice into visible, physical form through performance, installation, sculpture, photography and film as well as curatorial, directorial and academic projects.
Christian Guttmann - How Our Lives Change in the Age of AI
Global Vice-President for Artificial Intelligence, TietoEVRY, named one of the top 100 global AI leaders in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science, Guttmann has built hundreds of wide-ranging AI systems. He is also involved in major European initiatives, advising EU commissioners in Brussels on AI regulation.
Davys Espindola Moreno & Ana Maia - Inclusion Through Music
Morena and Maia use music in inclusive education for children with and without special needs. Their work includes the development of children’s orchestras, as well as solutions that allow children with motor disability due to Cerebral Palsy to access Art Education Programs, and develop their potential and artistic skills using ICT.
Joseph Wilk / Andreas Bergsland / Kirsi Mustalahti / Lilian Jap - Dance AI
Ongoing international collaboration to create, explore and perform a novel system for language and movement that repositions the relationship between movement, music and meaning and addressing communication and accessibility.
Stanza - The Emergent City
Stanza is an internationally recognised artist, who has been exhibiting worldwide since 1984. His artworks have won twenty international art prizes and art awards including: Vidalife 6.0 First Prize Spain; SeNef Grand Prix Korea; Videobrasil First Prize Brazil; and Cynet Art First Prize Germany. His art has also been rewarded with a prestigious Nesta Dreamtime Award, an Arts Humanities Creative Fellowship and a Clarks bursary.
#MTF AVEIRO SATELLITES
International MTF SATELLITE events at universities and research institutes
Art+Science Research Centre at UNAM in Mexico City
INESC at the University of Porto
ESMAD at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto,
NTNU – the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology
Participants from around the world also joined MTF Labs as part of MTF Aveiro satellite events hosted at universities and research institutions. This new format mixed the onsite expert labs and inspirational talks with an educational component from the universities, joining research teams across the world and creating new curricula and teaching models.
#MTF AVEIRO SATELLITES
International MTF SATELLITE events at universities and research institutes
Art+Science Research Centre at UNAM in Mexico City
INESC at the University of Porto
ESMAD at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto,
NTNU – the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology
Participants from around the world also joined MTF Labs as part of MTF Aveiro satellite events hosted at universities and research institutions. This new format mixed the onsite expert labs and inspirational talks with an educational component from the universities, joining research teams across the world and creating new curricula and teaching models.
#MTF SPARKS
Saturday 17th October
Biblioteca Municipal de Aveiro
MTF Sparks brought together educational experts Tom Fox and Alexandra Antonopoulou to construct a programme that combines a range of STEAM skills, from programming and electronics, to narrative and performance.
20 children from local schools, accompanied by school teachers and representatives from the Aveiro Creative Science Park joined in at the MTF Sparks event where, with the guidance of MTF experts and facilitators, the students built experimental electronic musical instruments using their newly acquired skills.
#MTF SPARKS
Saturday 17th October
Biblioteca Municipal de Aveiro
MTF Sparks brought together educational experts Tom Fox and Alexandra Antonopoulou to construct a programme that combines a range of STEAM skills, from programming and electronics, to narrative and performance.
20 children from local schools, accompanied by school teachers and representatives from the Aveiro Creative Science Park joined in at the MTF Sparks event where, with the guidance of MTF experts and facilitators, the students built experimental electronic musical instruments using their newly acquired skills.
MTF Aveiro Participants
Meet the MTF Labs experts, artists, inventors, creators and students who contributed to MTF Aveiro.
