MTF Labs Aveiro 2022 Exclusives
MTF Labs 2022 in Aveiro featured over 20 inspirational keynotes, presentations and performances. These included panels of high-level international experts live on stage in the main theatre, a diverse range of speeches from leading international artists and scientists, and a blend of online video presentations and in-person discussions in the Labs for attending participants and satellite events. resulting in 17 original new projects and a final collaborative performance.
Watch the videos of those exclusive talks and performances here.
Welby Ings - Invisible Leadership
Welby Ings was expelled from school and until the age of fifteen, he could neither read nor write. He is currently a Professor in Design at Auckland University of Technology. He is a disobedient thinker, an elected Fellow of the British Royal Society of Arts and he has been a consultant to many international organizations on issues of creativity and leadership. He is also an internationally acclaimed author, designer, illustrator, and filmmaker. Welby has taught at all levels of the school system. His internationally acclaimed book Disobedient Teaching has become an influential reference in rethinking pedagogy and the culture of schooling. In 2001 Welby was awarded the New Zealand Prime Minister’s inaugural, Supreme Award for Tertiary Teaching Excellence and in 2014 he was awarded the Auckland University of Technology medal for his contributions to research, pedagogy, and creativity. His new feature film PUNCH starring Tim Roth is currently receiving accolades at international film festivals.
Ravi Kapur - Imperative Space
Ravi Kapur is a multi-disciplinary producer and social innovator who has worked for 25 years at the interface of media, education, science communication, social policy, technology, the arts and music. He has founded multiple commercial and non-profit ventures in these fields, and is a senior advisor on numerous projects relating to climate change, environmental communications and the role of space technology for social good. Ravi is the founder of Imperative Space (www.imperative.space), a media, education, technology, design and innovation company working across the space sector, with diverse clients including ESA, European Commission, EUMETSAT, ECMWF, RAL Space, the World Bank, UKSA and Google. Ravi has been a senior advisor to the EarthX data platform, PandaSat with WWF, ESA Climate Change Initiative Knowledge Exchange, Copernicus Marine and Ocean Training Service, and the SOLSTICE marine sustainable development training project.
Francisca Goncalves & Johannes Goessling - Cutting-edge Photonic Nanomaterials in Aveiro Salt Pans
Francisca is a researcher from Porto, with a background in biological sciences with a degree in Veterinary Medicine and a Multimedia Master in Interactive Music and Sound Design. Her passion for biology and music led her to find synergies between nature and sound. Bridging these two worlds, she attempts to find new musical approaches, for musical compositions and live performances. Focusing on acoustic ecology as a tool for environmental awareness concerning the ocean soundscape she develops artistic artefacts that reveal the problem of noise pollution in underwater environments and changes in vibration and particle motion, both vital components in aquatic life.
Johannes is a researcher at CESAM (University of Aveiro) where he investigates photonic and optical phenomena in natural nanostructured materials. With his team, he found that some diatom structures are advanced photonic materials. Why do such structures exist in nature?
Jaan Altosaar - Crafting Auditory Experience with Artificial Intelligence
Jaan runs the One Fact Foundation with a mission to change global health care using open source principles. Previously he was an Officer of Research at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, completed his PhD in Physics at Princeton, and during grad school worked at artificial intelligence labs at DeepMind and Google AI. He supports the sauna, improv, and other tools accessible to anyone that can engender psychological safety for creative exploration at scale.
Luis Menezes Pinheiro - The UN Ocean Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development
PhD in Marine Geophysics, Imperial College, London. Associate Professor in Marine Geology and Geophysics, and Integrated Researcher at the Center for Environmental and Marine Studies,the of University of Aveiro (UA). Chairman of the Portuguese Committee to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, and National Delegate to the IOC Executive Council. Coordinator of the Research Shiptime Allocation (FCT). Participated in 50 Research Cruises (Chief/Co-Chief Scientist: 34). Author/co-author of more than 250 publications, including 62 ISI papers. Research interests: Marine Geology and Geophysics; geophysical data processing and interpretation; structure and evolution of continental passive margins; mud volcanism, shallow gas and gas hydrates; Seismic Oceanography.
Peter Keen - The Independent Variable
Peter is a Marine Ecologist, an Environmental Scientist and an Oceanographer with an interest in environmental characterisation through sampling and monitoring. Interested in the interrelationship between biological systems and the physical environment Peter has worked on a wide variety of interdisciplinary projects in the 30 years he has been working in these fields. Previous projects he has been involved in span model assessment, policy analysis, Arctic and Antarctic environmental characterisation, field team management, client liaison, scientific instrument design and issues surrounding robotic autonomy. Peter’s research interests are the development of methods of traceability providing assurance through the food supply chain. Recent work includes Bayesian belief networks for assessing Ecosystem Services, designing instrumentation to quantifying microplastic in the ocean interior, and mapping hydrothermal vent plumes with sound.
Jamer Hunt - Scaling and Unraveling
Jamer Hunt is Professor of Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons School of Design in New York. He collaboratively designs open and adaptable frameworks for participation that respond to emergent cultural conditions. He was founding director of the graduate program in Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons School of Design (2009-2015). From 2016-2021 he served as Vice Provost for Transdisciplinary Initiatives at The New School. He is the author of Not to Scale: How the Small Becomes Large, the Large Becomes Unthinkable, and the Unthinkable Becomes Possible (2020), a book that repositions scale as a practice-based framework for navigating social change in complex systems. Fast Company has named him to their list of “Most Creative People.” With Paola Antonelli at the MoMA he was co-creator of the award-winning, curatorial experiment and book Design and Violence (2013-15). With Hilary Jay he co-founded DesignPhiladelphia in 2005, at that time the country’s largest design week. He has published over twenty articles on the poetics and politics of design, including for Fast Company and the Huffington Post, and he is co-author, with Meredith Davis, of Visual Communication Design (2017).
DJ Arthro - Live from the Spaceship
Tim Palm, aka DJ Arthro, performed live from his studio in Stockholm to kick off the Saturday evening showcase event in Aveiro.
As well as being a member of the MTF team, Tim is an engineer, a teacher, a researcher, an electronic music producer signed to a Swedish independent dance music label, and an inventor. He calls his studio setup ‘The Spaceship’ - a rig he built himself to suit his needs. Tim builds things with software and electronics, he composes, produces and releases electronic dance music - sometimes in collaboration with singers and instrumentalists, and performs it live - mostly using his nose and tongue to control all of the instruments.
Fransisca Tan - Food Experience Design
Fransisca Tan is an Austrian-based food experience designer and event manager with a background in cognitive sciences, communication & media, IT and gastronomy, who explores human experiences, meaning-making, and community arts through the multi-sensory world of food.
Manifesto for Ecosystem Living
New European Bauhaus High Level Roundtable member Michela Magas of the Industry Commons Foundation speaks with Jan Åman (author of the Duved and Norrlands Model), Jan Bunge (CEO, Squint/Opera) and Markus Reymann (TBA21 Academy). Ecosystem Living transcends the idea of spatial planning, since the focus of spatial planning is limited to the physical space and not the complex interactions between cohabiting species. Nor is it ecosystem planning because we do not seek to impose order, encourage extractive practices or create the conditions for entirely anthropocentric habitation. How can we consider human beings and their activities to be part of nature and not separate from it? True ecosystem living is about harmony, alignment and balance, and finding an entire value network within a holistic cohabitation. This balance must synthesise and integrate artistic practice, scientific research, traditional craft professions and local cultural practices.
Terhi Marttila - Playful Interaction to Reconfigure Ecosystems Relationships
Terhi is a PhD in digital media (voice/interaction, art, games, playful interactive technology, migration), MA in art education. Interested in people, in equality, inclusion, diversity, pluriversality and in engaging people in dialogue about complex topics and critical perspectives on technology, consumption and sustainability.
Marta de Menezes - Art and Immunology
Marta de Menezes is a Portuguese artist, with a Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Lisbon and a MSt from the University of Oxford. De Menezes is director of Cultivamos Cultura, the leading institution devoted to experimental art in Portugal and Ectopia, dedicated to facilitate the collaborative work between artists and scientists. Marta de Menezes has worked in the intersection of art and biology since the late 90s, in the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, and Portugal, exploring the conceptual and aesthetic opportunities offered by biological sciences for visual representation in the arts.
JP Carrascal - Count Me In Collaborative Sequencing
Juan Pablo “JP” Carrascal is a UX Researcher and musician. He currently works as a UX Researcher manager at Microsoft, leading a team of researchers focused on improving the experience of cloud developers. He has a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction. He composes music, sings and performs with Spacebarman, an electronic-rock band based in Barcelona. JP also creates interactive technology to enhance Spacebarman’s live shows.
Mónica Pedro - Crafting/Playing With and By Nature
Mónica Pedro is a natural born innovator. PhD student on New Media and Pervasive Systems, with a long track as a researcher in Human Computer Interaction and Technology Enhanced Learning. She has been working in technology and business innovation, promoting technology and knowledge transfer from academia to business and society. Mónica specialised in Knowledge and Operational management of Collaborative projects, involving fundamental and applied research, technology and knowledge transfer, and business design. Monica also plays with fashion tech, digital fabrication, open source and new bio based materials.
Jan Åman - Switched positions: the village as the societal innovation engine, not the city
Jan Åman is an entrepreneur, curator, writer and activist specialising in the intersection between cities, buildings, food, art and societal development. His extensive teaching and lecturing is based on bringing innovation needs into practical results IRL, then forming models to be implemented and scaled. His interest in societal and democratic processes is combined with a rather unique network within art, architecture, design and food, using top talent to deliver on citizen’s ideas and needs. Since January 2018 he is the creative director – responsible for strategy, narration and innovation – for the development of Duved, a small village in the North of Sweden. It has become both a local, national and international success story based on a very simple turnaround of how things are done. Duved shows that today it is the village on the country-side that is the engine of societal innovation, not the city. Åman’s strategy is to use the scale of the village as a tool to prototype and enhance local democracy models to make citizens part of creating the future of their own village (models for governance, food systems, affordable housing, mobility and knowledge production).
A Language for Ecosystem Living
To question who gets to speak in the discussion on better ecosystem living, this short film poses the question, who has a voice, and in which language is that voice expressed? The participants in the piece were asked one question, what does a healthy ecosystem look like to you? Through the diversity of answers expressed, we also understand the diversity of languages present at MTF Labs.
Geraint Rhys Whittaker - Measuring the Success of Art Science Collaborations in the UN Ocean Decade
Geraint is an artist researcher who combines both his experience as a practicing musician, film maker and sound artist with a background as a political and cultural geographer. He is interested in exploring how art-science collaborations can be used to investigate, challenge and change public perceptions on some of the most pressing threats facing our oceans. Specifically, he is interested in how to combine sound and audio data with artistic methods to investigate the impacts anthropogenic changes are having on our seas.
Jung In Jung - Movement for Collaborative Composition
Jung In Jung is a sound artist and researcher based in Scotland, originally from South Korea. Her research focuses on creative experiments using interactive game technology, embodied digital expression, digital art/game aesthetics, accessibility/inclusivity, and playful engagement. Her sound and interactive dance works have been shown at national/international conferences and festivals such as Sonica, ISEA, xCoAx, ICLI, PlayAway Festival, NEoN Digital Arts Festival, MIVSC São Carlos Videodance Festival, Athens Video Dance Project, Vivarium Festival, and among others. For her PhD, she used ‘restriction’ as a core stimulus for both choreography and sound composition, and endeavoured to integrate her interactive sound system into the creative process of choreographic composition. In 2019, she joined the AHRC-funded research centre InGAME in Dundee as a Postdoctoral R&D in Interactive Engagement. From March 2022, Jung In started teaching at Abertay University as a Lecturer in Creative Computing.
Michela Magas - 10 Years of MTF
Michela Magas is a designer who bridges the worlds of science and art, design and technology, academic research and industry with a track record of over 25 years of innovation. She is innovation advisor to the European Commission and the G7 leaders, member of President von der Leyen’s High Level Round Table for the New European Bauhaus, and member of the Advisory Board of CERN IdeaSquare (ISAB-G). In 2017 she was the first woman from the creative industries to be awarded European Woman Innovator, and in 2016 she was presented with an Innovation Luminary Award for Creative Innovation by the European Commission and Intel Labs Europe. She created the concept of the Industry Commons which has galvanised European industry around cross-domain data interoperability. She is the Founder and CEO of Stockholm-based MTF Labs, a global community platform of around 8000 creative innovators and scientific researchers, which provides a test case for innovation in areas as diverse as neuroscience, forestry and microcomputing. For 20 years she ran Stromatolite Design Lab in London creating design futures with global clients such as Apple, Nike and Nokia.
Jaygo Bloom - Radical Uncertainty
Jaygo Bloom is a digital performer and educator whose professional practice is informed by over a decade of international digital media art practice. Since the early 2000s Jaygo has been pushing at the boundaries of digital art practice, disrupting and rethinking his approach to media in the production of cinematic, immersive, audiovisual experience. Through his recent NFT artworks Jaygo responds to the current technological hypecycle and its influence over contemporary culture, fascinated by the NFT scene its historical roots and myths of authenticity and scarcity. A regular on the international VJ circut, Jaygo has held creative partnerships with many artists and organisations including Franz Ferdinand, Philip Glass, Luke Slater, Mungos Hi Fi, Festival Forte, Time Warp, Pixelazo, Dekmantel, Berghain, Amnesia, Space, AgeHa, Fabric, Death Disco, The Southbank Centre, The Haywood Gallery, The VoiceLab Orchestra, Dundee Contemporary Art Centre, New Media Scotland, CCA Scotland, FutureEverything, The Wrong Biennale, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, NEoN Digital Arts Festival, Domino, Mote-Evolver, OstGut Ton and Kompakt records. Jaygo believes NFTs have the power to change the live events industry with transformational capability. Traditionally live experiences have been something that money can’t buy, now with NFT we can incorporate these experiences into digital artworks, and relive them time and time again. This new phase for the NFT ecology, will introduce meaningful, NFT structure that has the capability to take advantage of the convergence of many different layers on the web3 stack and provide a revolutionary new financial layer, incentivised by real world value. NFTX proposes to combine this with the layering of audio visual, social, lived experiences, facilitated by industry partners, building out communities that tie into the dance music and live events space.
