[rohrpost] Symposium: Fluid Visualisation & Sound Matters: Bridging Art, Science, and Visualisation, Vienna (AIL), July 6, 2017

[Ingeborg Reichle]

Symposium: Fluid Visualisation & Sound Matters: Bridging Art, Science,
and Visualisation

Date: July 6, 2017

Venue: Angewandte Innovation Lab (AIL), University of Applied Arts
Vienna, Franz-Josefs-Kai 3, 1010 Vienna, Austria

Programme:

14:00-14:15
Welcome
Gerald Bast
Rector, University of Applied Arts Vienna

14:15–14:30
Fluid Visualisation and Sound Matters
Ingeborg Reichle
Department of Media Theory, University of Applied Arts Vienna

14:30–15:00
>From Liquid to Solid and Back
Reiner Maria Matysik
Department of Design, University of Art and Design, Halle (Saale)

15:00–15:30
The Sea Around Us
Pinar Yoldas
Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor

15:30–16:00
Aquatocene — Subaquatic Quest for Serenity
Robertina Šebjanič
Artist, Ljubljana

16:00–16:15 Coffee Break

16:15–16:45
Life in Plankton: Study Methods and Diversity
Thomas Schwaha
Department of Integrative Zoology, University of Vienna

16:45–17:15
>From Images to Models: Using 3D Imaging Techniques for Generating
Accurate Models of Microscopic Animals
Stephan Handschuh
VetCore Facility for Research, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna

17:15–17:45
NOISE AQUARIUM Visualisation
Martina Fröschl and Alfred Vendl
Department of Digital Art, University of Applied Arts Vienna and
Department of Digital Art (Science Visualization Lab), University of
Applied Arts Vienna

17:45–18:00 Coffee Break

18:00–19:00 Keynote
Minding the Macro-Micro BioMe
Victoria Vesna
Director, UCLA Art Sci Center, Department of Design Media Arts,
University of California, Los Angeles, and Visiting Professor at the
universities of Tsukuba and Linz

Concept:

The symposium will bring together artists, scientists, and experts
working in the field of scientific visualisation and visual effects to
develop a cross-disciplinary understanding of how art and science
contribute to raising awareness of the current massive ecological
crisis of marine ecologies and identify a suitable epistemological
framing for this global challenge. Overfishing, pollution,
acidification, and rising temperatures due to climate change are the
main factors that have been putting tremendous stress on marine
ecologies for decades. The oceans cover up to 70% of the Earth’s
surface, 97% of the world’s water is saltwater, 2% is fresh water in
the form of ice, and the remaining 1% is drinking water.

With plastics and plasticisers as well as noise pollution in the
oceans, we now have relatively new, emerging phenomena that defy the
regulatory definitions of pollution. Accurate definitions are lacking
also because modern waste, like plastic pollution, is fundamentally
different from its predecessors. The sciences involved in tracking,
analysing, and understanding the ecological crisis of marine ecologies
face severe epistemological problems, because the methods used
hitherto are failing: The emerging phenomena are both novel and
occurring on an unprecedented global scale. The entire extent to which
plastics and plasticisers are floating in the oceans and seas is not
visible to the naked eye because a great deal floats below the surface
in the form of microparticles. Plastics are not biodegradable, but
they are gradually broken down into smaller and smaller particles in
the ocean through wave action and intense irradiation from sunlight.
Marine organisms confuse these microplastics with plankton; this means
that plastics (and the toxins they contain) are increasingly entering
the food chain, irretrievably and irreversibly. Around 70 % of plastic
waste deposited in the oceans sinks to the sea floor, but in 1997
scientists observed for the first time that an enormous amount of tiny
plastic particles were collecting on the surface of the water in the
vortexes of ocean currents, also known as gyres. The discovery of the
so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch made it clear that millions of
tons of plastic garbage are drifting in the oceans. Since the
discovery of high concentrations of microplastics in other gyres as
well, it can no longer be denied that a new ecosystem has emerged in
which artificial and natural aspects are inseparably connected.

The symposium will provide a spectrum of artists’ responses to the
current transformation of our oceans at the dawning of the Plasticene
age, a human-made system in which the natural and the artificial are
no longer distinguishable and speculative biologies evolve.
Collaborative projects will be presented that identify unnatural noise
in the oceans as a further environmental issue, especially the effect
of noise on microscopic organisms such as plankton, for example. Noise
Aquarium — a project which seeks to raise attention about the current
loss of marine biodiversity introduces a collection of accurate 3D
models as a resource for scientific and artistic research. Another
artistic project Aquatocene — Subaquatic Quest for Serenity will
present the efforts to make recordings using hydrophones in different
locations around the globe. Underwater noise has an impact on a great
number of marine life forms, which depend on the sub-aquatic sonic
environment to survive. Despite the availability of popular aquatic
sounds, there is hardly any awareness that the underwater soundscape
is as rich as the one heard by terrestrial creatures above water.

The symposium presents aesthetically powerful art projects that seek
to reach out to and inform a global audience about plastic pollution
and noise pollution in the oceans and will demonstrate how current
modes of scientific visualisation are able to address underestimated
(and invisible) effects on our marine ecologies, with the aim to
foster positive changes in consumer habits. The symposium will also
launch an exchange between the University of Applied Arts Vienna’s
Department of Media Theory and the Science Visualization Lab of the
Department of Digital Art and Faculty of Design at the University of
Art and Design, Halle (Saale), Germany (Burg Giebichenstein
Kunsthochschule Halle), which will also involve the Department of
Design Media Arts, University of California, Los Angeles, USA, and the
University of Art and Design Linz, Austria.

Venue: Angewandte Innovation Lab (AIL), University of Applied Arts
Vienna, Franz-Josefs-Kai 3, 1010 Vienna, Austria

http://www.medientheorie.ac.at/wordpress/?p=5780&lang=de