Curation of the ARTcib SciArt Residency: Space Art
Claudia was invited to be the first curator of the ARTcib SciArt Residency at acib. She developed the open call for artists to connect the research of the microbiologists at acib at the three research groups including the Metabolic and Cell Engineering group at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, the Research Group Biochemistry at Technische Universität Vienna, and the Biochemical Network Analysis group at University of Vienna, to the ongoing discourse in the field of space art. She curates the residency of the artist in Vienna throughout 2024 and beginning of 2025 and will bring the artwork to a group show in 2025. The ARTcib SciArt programme is being developed at acib under the lead of Sonja Schachinger who collaborates with this first iteration of the ARTcib SciArt Residency on space art as artscience mediator.
The call for artists was open till 12 May 2024, the selected artist will work with the team at acib 2024-2025, and a final presentation will take place in 2025.
The selected artist is Kristina Pulejkova with her project The Metabolic Guide for Space Survival. Here you can find details of the project: https://acib.at/art/
Venus Conversations 2024-2034
Venus Conversations 2024-2034 is a series of dialogues and art projects launching from the planet Venus to explore cultural, scientific and artistic forcefields. This ten-year project is initiated by artist Lily Hibberd (AUS/FR), with curator and art critic Annick Bureaud (FR), and art-science curator and researcher Claudia Schnugg (AT). The project aims to establish a strong creative community around Venus to transform how the planet is understood and represented as a cultural, artistic and scientific object. A collective approach will empower more inclusive ways of doing art & science.
The project is launched at Science Museum London on 23 November 2024. This marks the first in a decade of transnational conversations, the three co-organizers will share their vision for Venus Conversations 2024-2034, along with curators from the Science Museum, and scientists leading the EnVision European Space Agency-NASA mission to Venus, as well as the audience.
Here you can find details of the project: https://www.lilyhibberd.com/venus-conversations.html
Universe Pavilion
Claudia has been invited to be the founding curator of the ambitious project to realize the Universe Pavilion in Venice. The first pavilion will be presented in 2025. Stay tuned for updates.
Here you can find details of the project: https://www.universepavilion.com/
NaturArchy: Towards a Natural Contract
NaturArchy exhibition at iMAL Brussels co-curated by Caterina Benincasa, Claudia Schnugg, Ingeborg Reichle, Adriaan Eeckels and in collaboration with iMAL Brussels.
Based on the 2-years process with the wonderful SciArt Project team at the European Commission’s JRC in Ispra, the Resonances IV project cycle on NaturArchy culminates in this exhibition. Here you can find more information about the project: https://science-art-society.ec.europa.eu/naturarchy
Embracing the arts for systemic change, NaturArchy proposes to re-consider our imaginaries on nature and the non-human. The exhibition probes issues of deep ecology, sustainability and the decolonisation of nature. A number of art and science works explore and query nature and law, the entanglement of human and non-human, green technologies and new materials, nature and law, ecology and economy, ancient and new knowledge. From global oceans to water flows, from contamination and bacteria to climate tipping points, pollinators, and landscapes of natural hazards; from natural and artificial intelligence to non-human values, forests, lands, soils, composting; from grief and mourning to rituals, wonder and collective action.
Artists in the exhibition: Kristin Bergaust, Yiannis Kranidiotis, Sam Nester, Giovanni Randazzo, Ingrid M. Ogenstedt, Ingrid Mayrhofer-Hufnagl, Nonhuman Nonsense, JD Whitman, Penelope Cain, Jemma Woolmore, Marina Wainer, Claus Schöning, Gala Berger, Metsá Rama, Margherita Pevere, Coline Ramonet-Bonis, Collectif Le Biais Vert, Lawrence Malstaf.
Here you can find details of the exhibition: https://imal.org/en/events/naturarchy
Curation of the artist-in-residence programme in the RepliFate Network
Claudia was invited to curate an artist-in-residence programme for the European doctoral network (Marie Sklodowksa Curie Network) RepliFate to bring the next generation of scientists in the network in touch with artscience processes and artistic investigation into their scientific research. The artist-in-residence programme supports three artists-in-residence to work with the young scientists, their supervisors and labs in line with three themes that emerged from the individual projects within the RepliFate project. The European network addresses crucial challenges in human health by looking at DNA duplication in cell identity and cancer. The three themes are „Faces of Stress and Malignance“, „(In)Stability and Damage Repair“, and „Transformation through Replication“.
The call for artists was open till 23 November 2023, the selected artists Helen Pynor, Pei Ying-Lin and Solveig Lill were announced in December 2023, the (hybrid) residencies will take place 2024-2025, and a final presentation is planned for 2026.
Here you can find details of the project: https://replifate.eu/
RepliFate has received funding from the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme under grant agreement N.101046314.
The Mutability of Memories and Fates Exhibition
„The Mutability of Memories and Fates“ exhibition presents the culmination of the project cycle of Anna Dumitriu’s residency at Helmholtz Zentrum Munich after over 4 years of artscience research and artistic production. The exhibition takes place in Hallein at the newly refurbished Saline Hallein. Claudia curated the exhibition and supporting event programme that takes place within the Ynselzeit 2024 programme.
The exhibition opens on 5th September 2024 with an opening panel at 18:30 and a guided tour by the artist, scientists and curator at 19:30. During the first days of the exhibition, an event programme guides the visitors through the scientific backgrounds and narrative of each artwork. The exhibition presents all resulting artworks from the artist’s work at Helmholtz Zentrum Munich and presents new artworks that connect to Dumitriu’s research for The Mutability of Memories and Fates. The exhibition is open till 20th September 2024.
Here you find a link to watch the opening panel of the exhibition.
Chronicles from in-between 495 to 570nm
Kasia Molga‘s new body of work Chronicles from in-between 495 to 570nm was commissioned to develop one main storyline of this new artistic production in Romania. After a first work-in-progress presentation of this extensive artistic project at the Intersecting Realities exhibition in Timisoara in 2023, one of the seven regional storylines in the art project has been developed in Romania, in collaboration with the team at Marginal. The local production led by Andrei Tudose involved Dr. Roxana Nicoara scientist at the Institute of Biology in Bucharest (IBB) , cultural researcher Irina Bobei, and 3D and technical development by Alina Rusu and Gabi Stoiciu coordinated by Mirela Vlad (UNATC), and production support for the sculptures by Cosmin Ciobanu. Claudia worked as curator with Kasia on this new commission.
The results will be displayed in an exhibition curated by Claudia Schnugg and Andrei Tudose at Goethe Pavilion, Bucharest, 2-16 November 2024.
Cyber-Body-Systems
In collaboration with the team of Marginal, the team of DIGI-Sense project is thrilled to continue the artistic research of the DIGI-Sense project in a fourth art-science collaboration in Bucharest. The project team for this fourth research artistic phase consists of Claudia Schnugg and Andrei Tudose as curators, Daniela Brill Estrada and Cip Făcăreu as artists, Raluca Ghită as performer, and Alexandra Sofonea as neuroscience consultant. Sound artist Andrei Raicu and programmers Sabin Serban and Dan Făcăreu joined in the course of the project. The performance artist was selected in an audition in June 2024. Over the course of spring, summer and autumn 2024 the team worked together to produce new insights into embodied sensemaking with digital technologies. Additional key partners are the Institute of Business Informatics Communications Engineering at JKU in Linz, CNDB in Bucharest, UNATC, Augmented Space Agency and the Austrian Cultural Forum to support this project, financed by AFCN.
A first work-in-porgress presentation was shown at Zirkus des Wissens on 4 September 2024 at JKU in Linz, while one final version of the performance (including visuals and digital live sound) was shown at Cinetic on 1 November 2024 in Bucharest, and the second version of the performance (with live analog sound performance and without visuals) the IRIDESCENT Festival at CNDB on 5 November 2024.
Detailed information about the project to be found on the Marginal webpage.
DIGI-Sense: Sensemaking at the Intersection of Dance, Performance, Digital Twins and Robots
In collaboration with the communications engineering group at Johannes Kepler University Claudia conceived this artscience project to advance approaches to build cyber-physical-systems in communications engineering/business informatics and contribute to the sensemaking theory (Weick) in social sciences, especially organization studies, to better understand aesthetics and embodiment within sensemaking. Sensemaking theory has previously been employed to explain the impact and potential contribution of artscience projects in scientific settings and artistic interventions in organisational settings. Nevertheless, aesthetics and embodiment are underexplored parts of the theory. Thus, DIGI-sense employs artscience collaboration to contribute to sensemaking theory.
DIGI-Sense is a research project realized at the Linz Institute of Technology at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, led by Claudia and in collaboration with Prof. Christian Stary, head of the Institute of Business Informatics & Communications Engineering. DIGI-Sense is a 2-year project and aims at realizing at least three artistic interventions. PhD student on the team is Daniela Brill Estrada.
The project focuses on sensemaking in digitalization processes, especially in the interaction with digital twins and robotics. Artistic engagement – with a specific focus on dance and performance – is central to the research method to gain insights into the embodiment and relevance of aesthetic/sensory knowledge in sensemaking processes. Thereby the team aims at advancing understanding of the mechanisms underlying artful articulation and sensemaking in digital transformation projects by examining the socio-technical design and development process through the lens of digital twins (DT). Moreover, a special focus will be on researching aesthetics, aesthetic experiences and embodied knowledge in relation to sensemaking processes. Find more information on the project webpage.
Cosmic Elements: Star-Pacing Songs
Claudia served as one of the three main curators of the exhibition “Cosmic Elements: Star-pacing Songs”. Together with Iris Long she contributed as art curators. Additionally, the show brings in a broader view on experiencing the universe, with Angel An as astrophotography curator, and Lijun Gou as science co-curator. Group exhibition with 22 art-science positions (13 international artistic contributions, 9 works reflecting on scientific data, astrophotography, and experience of the night sky), 22 July 2023 till 8 October 2023, Times Art Museum, Beijing.
Contributing artists are: Makoto Azuma, Ranjit Bhatnagar, Daniela Brill Estrada, Anna Hoetjes, Eli Joteva, Enjoy the Lunar Soil, Yiannis Kranidiotis, Liang Lanbo & Li Jiaying, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Output, Quadrature, Victoria Vesna, Florian Voggeneder.
The exhibition toured: it also travelled to Shenzhen at China Resources Tower Arts Centre Gallery 2 December 2023 till 31 March 2024 and to Chengdu 5 June 2024 till 7 October 2024 at Times Art Museum, Chengdu.
Intersecting Realities
Claudia Schnugg and Andrei Tudose curated the exhibition „Intersecting Realities“ as part of the Post-digital Intersections exhibition and mentoring programme by Marginal within the framework of Cultural Capital Timisoara 2023. The project is funded by the Ministul Culturii in Romania. Find details about the Post-digital Intersections project by Marginal here.
The exhibition shows works by Anderwald+Grond, Antoni Rayzhekov, Kasia Molga, Marco Barotti, Sabina Suru, and Theresa Schubert.
Excerpt from the curatorial statement: „How to grasp the knowledge at the basis of this transformation? And how to make their causes and effects accessible in a sensible way? The sheer volume of flowing information is growing exponentially, most of it in a virtual realm, provoking our minds to intertwine the material and immaterial worlds. Seamless integration of artificial entities, both physical and digital, into everyday life enmeshes humanity into a novel territory where it is essential to rethink control over the immediate and long-term future. The role of art as a way to represent and make sense of the world is increasingly critical through its capacity to tap into sensible ways of knowing.
Intersecting Realities navigates the intersection of these seemingly disconnected realities and scales by inviting artists whose work takes an active role as social change catalyst, creates an open space for critical discussions related to our immediate context, and an experiential setup for people to make sense of our natural, social and technoscientific environment. The artists featured in this exhibition enter in collaborations to invite scientific, artificial, and vernacular knowledge in a dialogue with their artistic research. At the same time, their artworks aim at enriching the discourses they connect to and encourage the public to take part. By also allowing a glimpse into this process, Intersecting Realities is an invitation for the public to intersect their path with artistic and technoscientific research.“
Kunst der Verschränkung: Science Gallery Berlin at TU Berlin and BIFOLD Residency Programme
Kunst der Verschränkung is a new residency programme in collaboration between TU Berlin and BIFOLD. Claudia was invited to work with the team of both organizations to develop the residency programme, lead the open call and jury process, curate the artist-in-residence process, to consult the TU Berlin and BIFOLD team in the process with the artists, and to design the open call, main structures, and give a name the residency programme. The goal of the residency is to artistically engage with the central themes discussed at BIFOLD, to critically engage, bring in new perspectives, trigger discussions, or to engage with one of the projects such as the work on algorithms and databases.
The winning artist Marco Barotti is invited to the residency throughout fall and winter 2022. The process between the artist, scientists, and the institutions is supported and curated by Claudia, including the first exhibition of the resulting artwork in Berlin at TU Berlin in June 2023. CORALS is the winning project by Marco Barotti that Claudia curates.
The artwork CORALS by Marco Barotti was premiered at UNI_VERSUM of TU Berlin at 9 June 2023. The first exhibition is open between 9 June 2023 and 7 July 2023. Find more information on Marco Barotti’s webpage.
Find additional information about the collaboration, process, and the idea of the artwork in the following short videos:
CORALS part 2: Kunst der Verschränkung (art of entanglement) programme at BIFOLD
Cosmological Elements
Claudia Schnugg and Iris Long curated the exhibition Cosmological Elements. The exhibtion was commissioned by Chinese National Astronomy, initated by Angel An, and presented at Fosun Foundation in Shanghai as the main show in its incredible building. It is part of a three year collaboration between Nookland and Chinese National Astronomy. The exhibition is open between 15 December 2022 and 11 February 2023.
The following artists are included into the show: Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Angel An, Angela Davies, Ani Liu, Anna Hoetjes, Aoife van Linden Tol, Cath Le Couteur and Nick Ryan, Daniela Brill Estrada, Eli Joteva, Enjoy the Lunar Soil, Florian Voggeneder, Jefferson Chen, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla with Ted Chiang, Lucy McRae, Makoto Azuma, Michèle Boulogne, Mingqiang Chen, Quadrature, Ranjit Bhatnagar, Seph Li, Shuchang Dong, Victoria Vesna, Weihan Yi
Please find the information on the exhibition at Fosun Foundation here.
All details about the exhibition concept, artistic contributions, and artists can be found in three episodes of Cosmological Elements Insights hosted by UCLA Art|Sci Center and Lab. The episodes can be found here:
Cosmological Elements Insights Episode 1
Cosmological Elements Insights Episode 2
Cosmological Elements Insights Episode 3
Claudia Schnugg and Iris Long with their exhibition Cosmological Elements were finalist at Falling Walls Breakthrough in the category Art & Science 2023.
Mission: Art-Space Exchange – An Art Research Residency at ESA/ESTEC
Within an ongoing consulting process with a team at ESA/ESTEC Claudia co-developed this pilot artistic research residency. Mission: Art-Space Exchange is an opportunity for an artist in The Netherlands to be hosted for an art-science research residency at ESA/ESTEC. Due to possible COVID-19 travel restrictions in autumn/winter 2021, the call had to be focused on artists living in The Netherlands. To widen the scope, the open call proposes two themes the artists can link their artistic proposal to: „Worlds beyond our Solar System“ including question about conditions of life, and „Many colours, different views – revealing the invisible Universe“ including working with the understanding and technology to detect multipe wavethengths.
Partner of this residency opportunity is Science Gallery Rotterdam: first, through workshops with young local audiences, the ideas generated in the art-science process and themes the artist is working on will reach a broader and local public. Second, the artist will have the opportunity to also connect to researchers at MC Erasmus University in order to embed their thinking in a broader context.
The call was open until 24 October 2021. Artist Anna Hoetjes has been selected for the residency and will start her residency period in the week of 22nd November 2021. As curator Claudia works with the artist as curator and support the team at ESA/ESTEC to develop the artscience programme further.
NaturArchy: Curating Resonances IV and Consulting the SciArt Project
The talented SciArt team at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission in Ispra invited Claudia to become part of the curatorial team and to consult for their Resonances IV project, which is themed NaturArchy.
Claudia is part of the whole process, starting with consultancy and co-development of the open call in 2021, preceded by the artist selection and the process of outlining and curating the Summer School, Resonances IV will further unfold in the selection of the artists for residencies at the JRC, support of the artists and the artscience proccess, and artwork production for the festival/exhibition in 2023.
In autumn 2022 14 art proposals were selected by the curatorial team for residencies at the JRC. The curatorial team follows all 14 projects, with each curator having a particular focus on about 4 artistic processes throughout spring/summer 2023, including residency support on site and supporting other artistic processes wherever necessary. Caterina Benincasa, Ingeborg Reichle and Claudia Schnugg form the core team of curators, with the curatorial committee including Adriaan Eeckels and Céline Chevariat, and the extended support in the committee including the full SciArt team and a selection of JRC scientists and policy makers.
Throughout this process, the curators also develop an exhibition narrative and plan for publications about the exhibition and NaturArchy.
For information about Resonances IV please visit the website of the JRC SciArt Project.
BioXXI: Research Projects and Processes tackling Biodiversity Crisis
In 2021 Claudia was invited to become the Art & Science Collaboration Expert Advisor for the Roots & Seeds XXI (BioXXI) project, a Creative Europe collaborative project led by Quo Artis. As the project unfolded, Claudia was invited to also support the research on art and science projects tackling the biodiversity crisis, sustainability, and global challenges. Moreover, she was invited to do the analysis of the data gathered on these projects. Her contribution to the research of the Roots & Seeds XXI extends to working on guidelines for projects to work across disciplines.
This project is co-funded by the European Commission’s Creative Europe Programme.
Guest Curator: Selected artworks in the exhibition „Cosmos Archaeology“ at EPFL Pavilion
Claudia was invited by Sarah Kenderdine as guest curator at EPFL Pavilions for the show „Cosmos Archaelogy“. The exhibition opened on 16th September 2022 in Lausanne, EPFL Pavilion B, open until 5th February 2023. The exhibition guide can be downloaded here.
As guest curator, Claudia was invited to contribute a selection of artworks that fit into the story and exhibition design of Cosmos Archaeology, curated by Prof. Sarah Kenderdine and Prof. Jean-Paul Kneib.
ArtScience Spotlight Lecture Series at Helmholtz Zentrum Munich
In 2022 Claudia was commissioned to develop a concept to bring artscience knowledge, experience, and inputs to a broader audience within the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich. The ArtScience Spotlight lecture series has been developed as an ongoing series of two annual lectures by artists working at the intersection of art and science. This lecture series has been integrated in the Helena lecture series of the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich for their PhD students.
The series was kicked off in November 2022 by an introduction to ArtScience Collaboration by Claudia and by a lecture of Anna Dumitriu reflecting on her artistic process and her residency at the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich.
JECT-SENSE
JECT-SENSE is a collaboration between JECT.AI, a start-up working in the news media sector, media artist Antoni Rayzhekov and Claudia Schnugg, to be realized in 2021. It will develop novel and unconventional ways for journalists and a general audience to engage with news coverage, including scientific coverage, which in turn be realized as a visualization component for JECT.AI’s digital product, an artwork and a video demonstration. JECT.AI manipulates a news information set that is very large. It is difficult to understand this news coverage using text outputs. News landscape concepts, such as information clusters and patterns of biased information, are difficult to detect and represent. Therefore, the new artwork, called Fragile Perspectives, will stimulate new insights about news coverage through multi-sensory experiences including landscapes, tangible objects, soundscapes, and spatial arrangements. The artwork will inform new news visualizations to build into JECT.AI. The project pitch is to be found here.
In June 2022 the resulting artwork Fragile Perspective will be shown at the exhibition of the ACM C&C Conference in Venice. From September 2022, Fragile Perspectives is also part of a group exhibition at Structura Gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria, and will be shown in Singapore from end November 2022 for three months as one of the ten shortlisted artworks of the NTU Global Digital Art Prize. Antoni Rayzhekov and Fragile Perspectives within the JECT-Sense project were finalist for Falling Walls Breakthrough in the category Art & Science in 2022.
JECT-SENSE is part of the MediaFutures project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s framework Horizon 2020 for research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 951962.
Bias When Using Algorithms and Implications for Fundamental Rights
For this project, Claudia teamed up with an interdisciplinary consortium led by Rania Wazir in order to work on (sources of and analysis of the manifestation of) bias in systems for algorithmic decision making, especially using machine learning and in the context of human rights througout 2021. The consortium is composed of data scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, human rights experts, jurists and a team working on reflection, contextualization, ethical, cultural and social implications of the outcomes, and on adding visual storytelling about the project’s core issues and outcomes.
Find the FRA report based upon the research of the consortium here: Bias in algorithms – Artificial intelligence and discrimination
Artist-in-Residence Programme at Helmholtz Center Munich Institute for Epigenetics and Stem Cells
Beginning of 2020 Claudia teamed up with the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells to launch the first Artist in Residence Program at the Helmholtz Zentrum München. With Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, the Director of the institute, and Amelie J. Kraus, the Scientific Coordinator of the Epigenetics@HMGU community, the team designed a program pushing the boundaries of collaborations in the field, inspiring conversations between an artist and the scientific team at the institute, and to enable the development of a wonderful new artwork. Find more info about the programme called „Art the IES“ here.
After an exciting selection process with an incredible shortlist of artists, bioartist and experienced art-science collaborator Anna Dumitriu won the residency with her proposal on „The Mutability of Memories and Fates“.
The Covid-19 lockdown prevented immediate joint collaboration on site, but Zoom meetings helped to ignite ideas and inspire all partners, and everybody is very much looking forward to working together on site in the lab in Munich. The residency format was transformed into a hybrid format, after the virtual interactions, Anna Dumitriu can finaly visit the lab in September 2021.
In November 2021 the first resulting artworks „The Cellular Reprogramming Necklace“ and „Cellular Memory“ have been premiered at the Helmholtz Zentrum’s 60th anniversary celebrations at Deutsches Museum in Munich.
Stay tuned, more to come! In the meantime, you can watch a panel in which the team and distinguished guest Prof. Michael John Gorman discuss the first interactions.
Anna Dumitriu and the project The Mutability of Memories and Fates was finalist at Falling Walls Breakthrough in the category Art & Science 2024.
The Veridical Travel Around the World of a Truly Imaginary Plant
The Veridical Travel Around The World of A True Imaginary Plant traces the voyage of a plant —real, artificial or fictitious— around the world, telling her own story, the stories of other plants and living creatures (other than human and humans) she encounters, of whom and what she meets.
Launched in September 2020, the Traveling Plant is a long-term project that will grow over several years. It is the umbrella title for a series of new artworks and events taking place in different times and locations around the world under the direction of the diverse participating organisations and curators.
The Traveling Plant project intends to avoid anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism but to present the point of being and point of view of the plant about herself and her surroundings. It will unfold over several years, in a slow process, in line with plant rhythms. Find all the details here on the Traveling Plant website.
The Traveling Plant has been seeded by Annick Bureaud, Leonardo/Olats; and germinated with Tatiana Kourochkina, Quo Artis; Marta de Menezes, Cultivamos Cultura, Claudia Schnugg, Independent Curator & Researcher; Robertina Šebjanič, Sektor Institute, Artist. The project is collectively run by this Seed Team.
ArtScience, the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences in Management and Industry
In 2020 Claudia was commissioned a research project and subject matter expert consultancy on linking art, artscience, humanities and social sciences to actions for management and industry. This research was commissioned by the Human Insights Lab at Accenture’s The Dock. Research and analysis on academic developments, trends and practitioner work in the field was conducted in order to develop a basis for actions and relevant future strategies for actions. To realize this project, Claudia led a small team of external partners from the artist think thank Office of Life + Art and team members of the Human Insights Lab.
Specialist adviser to Pro Helvetia: PolARTS – NanoARTS – Art Science Technology landscape & directions
Specialist adviser and consultant throughout the development phase of the focus on Art Science and Technology at Pro Helvetia – The Swiss Arts Council. Advising for the development of the PolARTS programme starting from 2019, artscience special adviser for the art-science tandems in the NanoARTS programme 2022-2023, landscape analysis and specialist advisor on the field of Art, Science and Technology in Europe in 2021 and potential for future developments.
Creating ArtScience Collaboration – Bringing Value to Organizations
In order to enable art and science collaboration and create interesting programs at scientific and corporate organizations, Claudia is working on topics that help practitioners to set up residency programs, art and science collaborations, as well as artistic research programs.
In her research and writing project, Claudia authored the book Creating ArtScience Collaboration – Bringing Value to Organizations that elaborates on the practice of artscience collaboration and theoretical perspectives of the effects of such collaborations from an social psychological and organizational point of view.
For research and lectures on the topic, she recently was Visiting Scholar at the Art|Sci Center + Lab at UCLA where shegave an open lecture on theoretical aspects of artscience collaboration, introduced students of the Art|Sci master class to collaboration practices and presented the outlines of the book at LASER.
Additionally, she spent time as Visiting Scientist at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile and was part of a research project with Fernando Comerón from ESO at the ORM in Tenerife. There, she was also able to extend her research to ongoing projects and practices at the University of La Laguna and the Museum of Science and Cosmos in San Cristobal de La Laguna in Tenerife.
The book has been published in February 2019 by Palgrave Macmillan/Springer.
You can find and order the book here or at any online book store you prefer!
CONNECTED
As first Creative Director of Science Gallery Venice, Claudia worked with the team on site to develop strategies for the first Science Gallery Venice program. To start more intense communication about Science Gallery Venice and to reach a big part of the potential audience Claudia developed the pre-season CONNECTED. This pre-season resembles in a smaller format a full season by Science Gallery to provide a taste of what is about to come: it reaches out to a high number of people, creates connections, is participatory, surprising and disruptive, and connects on many different levels to important research from different disciplines.
Heart of the pre-season is Rachel Hanlon’s artwork Hello Machine that pops up throughout 12 weeks (the duration of a full Science Gallery season exhibition) at different places in Venice and Mestre. Two versions of the artwork (a black and an orange phone) are traveling through the city, connecting the mainland and the island, students from different disciplines, Venice to the world where other versions of the Hello Machine are placed, and Science Gallery Venice to the international Science Gallery network as the Hello Machine is also hosted by other Science Gallery spaces.
Additionally to the inauguration of the artwork in Venice with an artist talk and the travel of the phone throughout Venice (including M9, Scientific Campus Mestre, Ca‘ Foscari Zattere, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Biennale di Venezia Biennale Carnevale dei Ragazzi), the artistic research and the ideas of the artwork enabled a row of connections for researchers and students to elaborate in a workshop series. The three workshops Claudia curated for this series were: Communication Games in the Connected Age by Francesca Franco and Stefano Coletto, Talking to a Stranger by Fabio Pittarello, and Robots Playing Language Games by Luc Steels. Additionally, she suggested workshops representing other fields represented by Ca‘ Foscari research, like human-robot interaction, inter-cultural exchange, accessibility, and historical topics. Some of them have been realized.
Development Phase at Science Gallery Venice
As first Creative Director of Science Gallery Venice, Claudia worked with the team on site and in external positions to develop strategies for the first Science Gallery Venice program. She drafted the Science Gallery program and strategies for the development of Science Gallery at Ca‘ Foscari.
In the role as Creative Director of SGV, Claudia curated and developed additionally two exhibition designs, worked with Ariane Koek on the open call for the Earth Water Sky Residency program, led the initial conversations for the exhibition at the San Giobbe Campus on ethical recycling in summer 2019 how to adapt it to SGV requirements, and worked on research and multi-sites workshop ideas with partners from the Science Gallery Network.
Claudia worked with Ca‘ Foscari researchers and partner institutions to start collaboration processes. She also developed guidelines for researchers and scientists how to include SGV activities and collaborations in their research projects. This list of opportunities has been integrated in the conversation with researchers and scientists who are planning to develop research projects and project consortia.
Here you can find the video about the Global Science Gallery Network, including an interview with Claudia (starting at 3:26) in her role as Creative Director of Science Gallery Venice during the opening of Science Gallery London!
Here you can find the 2018 Annual Report by Science Gallery International with a recap of 2018 and the program start 2019 at Science Gallery Venice on page 16.
Bodies Inc. 2.0 & Blockchain
With Victoria Vesna and her team Claudia is working on the new version of her project Bodies Inc. She supported the team in the development of the new market place and created opportunities for the project to integrate the idea of blockchain and create a new system for the market place of Bodies Inc. to include media art, craft, local and global sourcing, and a system that acknowledges individual contributions.
The latest version of the artistic project has been developed in 2017, a chapter on the development of the artwork Bodies Inc and Bodies Inc 2.0 has been published in the edited book Screening Economies.
Evaluations STEAM Imaging I-IV
Claudia was commissioned to realize the evaluations of the projects STEAM Imaging I-IV by looking at the impact of the art-science experience of the high school students in the workshop from different perspectives, grasping the implications of interdisciplinary exposure between art, medical research, digital medicine, physics and mathematics on them.
The evaluations „STEAM Imaging: Art Meets Medical Research“ can be found in the „Research & Evaluation Reports“ section of the publications.
STEAM Imaging: Art Meets Medical Research 2017 Workshop Evaluation to be found here
STEAM Imaging II: Art Meets Medical Research 2020 Workshop Evaluation to be found here
STEAM Imaging III: Art Meets Medical Research 2020 Course Evaluation to be found here
KunstRaum Goethestrasse xtd – Book on Special Projects
For KunstRaum Goethestrasse xtd Claudia is working on a book that elaborates on their commissioned art projects that take place additionally to their daily operations. The book will present a selection of 29 projects that represent a series of formats and methods they apply in their work with groups and organizations. Moreover, the book will present the effects and valuable outcomes to which their artistic approach leads.
A major topic will be the social, psychological, and health benefits of participation in art projects.
The book will be published bilingual in German and English. Expected publication date is winter 2019.
In the course of the development of the presentation of these projects, Claudia evaluated and wrote about the effects of their previous projects. Based on the outcomes, additionally Claudia worked with the team of KunstRaum Goethestrasse xtd on methods to evaluate their future work.
Art, Resilience, (Mental) Health & Wellbeing
Research on the interplay of art and health, resilience and mental health with international partners on following aspects:
- Exploration of new technologies through art to develop new interdisciplinary opportunities to benefit health and wellbeing.
- Research on scientific evidence/studies on the effects of art engagement on physical health, mental health, and wellbeing.
- Research on public engagement and changes on communication through artscience on public health.
- Exploration of effects of artistic workshops and artistic interventions on mental health and wellbeing.
- Development of methodologies for the evaluation of the effects of artistic workshops and artistic interventions on mental health and wellbeing.
Dark Wind Trilogy
Claudia produced a trilogy of performances with noise artists raum.null and a wide range of guest artists like White Sample, Didi Bruckmayr of Fuckhead, Flockaroo, VeroVisual, and voidsignal, who focus on performance, new technologies, and visuals. Throughout the years of 2014 – 2016, a new part of the trilogy was premiered at the Ars Electronica Festival. The performances aimed at interruption, disruption, and radical intervention. The objective was an artistic and intellectual investigation in the political and social dimension of art.
The first performance, Quadrature, announced a dark age to come by using a technical and geometric visual language. An interview with Claudia with all artists involved can be read here. Part two, The Sixth Wave of Mass Extinction, reflects on human emotions in an era lacking any form of wilderness. Find an interview with Claudia and the artists here. The final act, Chants of the Proto-Alchemists, seeks to trace back to the very human side of nature, reflecting on Dionysian versus Apollonian aspects of life, the sensual growth and spiritual development. Announcement and the performance’s introductory text can be found here and a short video clip is available here.
Corporate Bodies FilmFest
Through the lens of film, Corporate Bodies presents and analyzes bright and dark sides of organisations, their people and systems, possible future and heritage. The film festival invites filmmakers, students, scholars, managers, CEOs, politicians, and film-afficionados to three days of films, discussions, lectures, reflections, celebrating, and relaxing. The first edition was held February 11th-13th, 2016, at Filmhuis Den Haag, NL. The Corporate Bodies FilmFest idea was born in late 2014, together with Jacco van Uden of the University of Applied Sciences The Hague, philosopher and writer Luc Peters, and Anke Strauß of the University Frankfurt an der Oder. For more information please visit the official website. Since then, presentations and smaller projects connected to the film festival developed.
Sparks
At the Ars Electronica, Claudia was affiliated with the Sparks project as responsible project manager, curator of the artscience collaborations and the artist-in-residence programme. The Sparks EU project was an H2020 project focusing on making Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) accessible and comprehensible for general public. One of the major initiatives of Sparks is a traveling exhibition which is shown in each EU country and Switzerland, for displaying recent examples of RRI, and combining cutting edge technology with medicine and health care by applying artistic approaches. Claudia curated the artscience section of the exhibition with her colleague at the Ars Electronica Futurelab. Find an interview with Claudia here, regarding the open call and explaining Sparks in more detail. Claudia worked as curator, mentor and producer with the artists Anouk Wipprecht, Lucy McRae and Jakob and Lea Illera, helped them finding stimulating scientific associates, and provided support throughout the whole development process. Read more about the selection procedure here and about the final overview on the outcomes here.
With artist and body architect Lucy McRae Claudia worked intensely on The Institute of Isolation: as producer, but also as location scout, filming assistant in Austria, and many other tasks.
The Institute of Isolation was awarded an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica in 2017.
With fashion tech designer Anouk Wipprecht Claudia worked on the curation and production of Agent Unicorn.
SPARKS has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement no. 665825
European Digital Art and Science Network
At Ars Electronica, Claudia was also part of the team working eith the European Digital Art and Science Network as curator, mentor and producer of the residencies at ESO, CERN and the introduction of the residency to ESA.
Here you can find the first open call for the residency at the ESO observatories in Chile, an interview with Claudia and the head of the Ars Electronica festival team. The first residency at ESO was won by Chilean contemporary artist Maria Ignacia Edwards. The interview with Claudia for the second open call for the residency clarifies the possibilities the artists have during their visit in Chile and in Austria. Claudia also guided Quadrature during their visit to the ESO observatories and their visit to the ESO labs at the headquarters in Garching.
Semiconductor won the Collide@CERN Award that was granted within the European Digital Art and Science Network.
This Project was funded by the Office of the Federal Chancellor Austria and the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
Connecting Cities Network Research Residencies
Claudia curated, mentored and produced the projects of Anita Brunnauer aka nita, Ursula Feuersinger, Dietmar Offenhuber as well as Florian Born & Christoph Fraundorfer created projects that explored the invisible city. These residencies at Ars Electronica Futurelab took place in early 2015 as part of the Connecting Cities Network, an EU Culture Programme project. The projects have also been presented at the sound:frame festival in Vienna 2015.
Together with her colleague at the Ars Electronica Futurelab, Claudia also produced and moderated the Connecting Cities Conference at the Ars Electronica Festival 2015.
Ars Electronica Residency Network
As head of the Ars Electronica Residency Network Claudia worked as curator, researcher, project manager, producer, mentor, communicator, and many more roles in these diverse projects. The Ars Electronica Residency Network combined all residency activities at Ars Electronica in one framework. Residency programs like e.g., Collide@CERN, TRANSMIT³ and CAT@Ars Electronica created a formal possibility to spend time at the Ars Electronica Futurelab. Some exceptions were allowed that enabled to support artists or scientists to visit for a limited period and get some mentoring. But also other projects that included residencies have been produced within the framework of the Ars Electronica Residency Network. These projects are Sparks, European Digital Art and Science Network and the Connecting Cities Network Research Residencies. As head and curator of the Ars Electronica Residency Network, Claudia also produced all the projects at the respective Ars Electronica Festival.
TRANSMIT³ was the residency program in collaboration with QUT. Three residency projects have been realized for the Cube at QUT: with Lauren McCarthy in 2016, with Friedrich Kirschner in 2015 and with Zachary Lieberman in 2014.
CAT@Ars Electronica was a program in collaboration with the South Korean organization CTIA. I intensely mentored the two projects that have been developed in up to 4-month long residencies. The first project planted by Korean sound artist YoungSun Kim has been realized in 2014, the second project Jangdna by Korean media artist Hyungjoong Kim has been realized in 2015.
The last two winners of [the next idea] voestalpine art and technology grant have also been part of the Ars Electronica Residency Network. In 2014 Markus Schmeiduch, Ruben van der Vleuten and Andrew Spitz won the grant for their project BlindMaps. In 2015 XXLab won with their project Soya C(o)u(l)ture.
Ryoji Ikeda won the last Prix Ars Electronicy Collide@CERN residency which has been realized within the Ars Electronica Residency Network.
The first artist in residence Claudia worked with was Daniel Crooks. He was the last of six Australian artists who had the possibility to work with the Ars Electronica Futurelab based on a collaboration with the Australian Council for the Arts and Novamedia.
Organizational Aesthetics, Organizational Behavior & Change
Bringing art into organizations implies also impact on sensory perception: the visual artwork, music, distrubing noise or uneasy silence. Art and aesthetics enable creation of references to stories and experiences, creating awareness of routines, encorporated processes and embodied knowledge. In order to better understand how art affects individuals in organizations, Claudia explored aspects of certain organizational behavior and their entanglement with aesthetics and art in her research projects as Assistant Professor at Johannes Kepler University, Linz, and Visiting Researcher at Copenhagen Business School.
- Study on the entanglement of art, communication, and status behavior in organizations.
- Study on the embodiment of knowledge workers.
- Exploration of the interplay of rhythms, architecture, and noise in organizational behavior through artistic investigation.
- Research into the embodiment of art, craft, and production processes.
Artistic Initiatives and Residencies in Organizations
Artistic initiatives – or arts-based interventions – in organizations seem to be a curious thing. Why are organizations like corporations, industrial production companies, consultancies, creative agencies or scientific and governmental organizations interested to invite art and artists into their processes? Claudia’s research went into several directions to explore this question through a meta-study on cases of artistic initiatives in organizations that claimed effects of these interventions. She analyzed these claims from organizational theoretical and art theoretical points of view. Why should managers, scientists, consultants, craftspeople and artists be interested in realizing these joint initiatives? Claudia explored this question that led me to categorized types of arts-based initiatives, mainly based on the three possibilities: working with the artist, applying artistic processes, and experiencing artwork. Also claimed effects – on organizations, teams, individuals and processes in the organization – where categorized. Problems of instrumentatization of art, effects on the artist, and artistic freedom were additional central aspects of the discussion of the outcome of this study.
In the course of further research, case studies and in-depth qualitative interviews in diverse organizations (residency projects in a production company, residencies and artistic collaboration in a creative agency, arts-based initatives in a corporation in a building company, small and medium-sized craftmanship organizations, office work, service organization) led Claudia to explore specific questions like embodied knowledge, organizational aesthetics and gestures in work processes, artistic initiatives and change in organizations, creation of liminal spaces, and enhancement of creative processes.
Results can be found in various of her publications, including her doctoral dissertation, a book chapter on creativity, journal articles on artistic initiatives and liminality, rites of passage, gestures and resistance, and an overview of formats and effects of artistic initiatives in a more descriptive journal contribution.