Erich Berger

A Geologic Turn - Deep Time and Deep Futures in contemporary art

The realization that anthropogenic impact is leading to planet wide transformations as well as to their readability and to repercussions in deep futures is not only discussed within natural science and the humanities. The anthropocene and specifically geological topics surface in contemporary artistic practices. We can see an increase in cultural responses which address mining, fossil fuel, global warming or nuclear issues and their relation to deep time and deep futures from an artistic point of view. Bergers own interest, manifesting in his work, is to explore the dichotomy between human time perception and the time in biological, environmental, and geological processes which we humans are part of.

Laura Beloff

ARTefacts

What kind of ecology emerges between artificial and biological things that are based on relations and interactions between living, lifelike, and non-living organisms and their environment? The origins of artifacts and biological organisms are typically considered radically different. Previously humans have divided things into artifacts made by humans and into things that are emerging and evolving within natural/biological world. During the recent decade we have witnessed an increase in design approaches that are directed to biological matter (e.g. synthetic biology and life sciences.) We have also observed several decades of development in artificial life and artificial intelligence. -These are some of the central interests that are speculated in the practice-based research by Beloff. The research is based on a hypothesis about our evolving relationship with nature when both humans and the environment are increasingly enhanced. The outcome of Beloff’s research is typically in the form of artefacts that are based on relations rather than perceived as single isolated objects, and which are a merger of technological, data and biological components.

Erich Berger

is an artist, curator and cultural worker based in Helsinki and Copenhagen. Berger is directing the Bioartsociety in Helsinki/Finland an organisation fostering interactions between arts and natural sciences with a focus on biology, ecology and life sciences.. His artistic interests lie in information processes and feedback structures, which he investigates through installations, situations, performances and interfaces. Throughout his artistic practice he has explored the materiality of information and information and technology as artistic material. His current interest in issues of deep time and hybrid ecology led him to work with geological processes, radiogenic phenomena and their socio-political implications in the here and now. Berger has exhibited widely in museums, galleries and major digital art events in Europe and worldwide. His work has received several awards and prices. randomseed.org

(FI) is an internationally acclaimed artist and researcher with a core in artistic research methods. She has been actively producing art works and exhibiting worldwide in museums, galleries and art events since the 1990’s. She has been a recipient of various grants, art residencies and awards. In 2014 she received with partners the largest art grant within Nordic countries from the Nordic Cultural Fund. Her research interests include practice-based investigations into a combination of information, technology and organic matter, which is located in the cross section of art, technology and science. Her research has a specific focus on technologically enhanced organisms, which are adapting to the evolving and increasingly complex world. The research engages with the fields of: art & science, biotechnologies, and information technology in connection to art, humans and society. Additionally to research papers, articles and book-chapters, the outcome of the research is in a form of process-based and participatory installations, programmed conceptual structures and networked wearable objects. Throughout the years she has been professionally active and engaged in numerous international activities including: participation in international research and art projects, in organizing committees of international conferences and art events, editing an international publication, evaluator and opponent of PhD dissertations, research visits and positions abroad, invited keynote speaker abroad, and an invited expert for EC initiative addressing the divide between the arts and the IT.

2002-06 she was Professor for media arts at the Art Academy in Oslo, Norway.

2007-11 she was awarded a five-year artist grant by the Finnish state.

2009-2010, 2011 she has been a visiting Professor at The University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

Since 2012 (-today) she is Associate Professor and Head of Section at IT University of Copenhagen.

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