[ISEA2022] Institutional Presentation: Manuelle Freire, Sofian Audry & Christopher Salter — Hexagram Network – Emergence/Y

Institutional Presentation Statement 

CCCB Auditorium, June 14th. Session: Networks and communities

Keywords: Research-Creation, Emergence, Emergency, interdisciplinary research, Practice-based research

HEXAGRAM, the international Network dedicated to research-creation in arts, cultures and technologies celebrates its 20th. anniversary.

Over the last 20 years, Hexagram has played a seminal role in the recognition of practice-based art and design research in Canada and abroad, as well as in promoting knowledge-sharing between artistic and scientific disciplines. Founded in 2001, Hexagram supports research-creation projects and foster collaborations amongst its members from eight Québec research institutions, as well as with local and international partners from academic, cultural and creative sectors. To celebrate this milestone, in September 2021 Hexagram initiated an ambitious season programming on the theme EMERGENCE/Y, which launched in the framework of Ars Electronica 2021. This research-creation (RC) programme of activities will run until June 2022. Hexagram presents the highlights and the sequel to EMERGENCE/Y, to which Network members as well as international partners are invited to contribute. http://Hexagram.ca

  • Manuelle Freire is Professeure associée – UQAM (Canada) and general coordinator of Hexagram – International network of research-creation in arts, cultures and technologies. She holds a PhD in Arts Education from Concordia University and currently works on research-creation and curriculum development in arts and technologies, examines interdisciplinary and intersectorial collaborative creative practices, and practice-based learning in art and design.
  • Sofian Audry is an artist, scholar, Professor of Interactive Media within the School of Media at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), Canada, and Co-Director of the Hexagram Network for Research-Creation in Art, Culture and Technology. Their work explores the behavior of hybrid agents at the frontier of art, artificial intelligence, and artificial life, through artworks and writings. Audry’s book Art in the Age of Machine Learning examines machine learning art and its practice in art and music (MIT Press, 2021). Their artistic practice branches through multiple forms including robotics, installations, bio-art, and electronic literature.
  • Chris Salter is an artist, Professor of Immersive Arts and Director of the Immersive Arts Space at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) as well as Co-Director of the Hexagram Network (until August 2022). He is also Professor Emeritus, Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University Canada. He studied philosophy, economics, theatre and computer music at Emory and Stanford Universities. His artistic work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Barbican Centre, Berliner Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen, ZKM, Musée d’art Contemporain, EXIT Festival and Place des Arts-Montreal, among many others. He is the author of Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance (2010) Alien Agency: Experimental Encounters with Art in the Making (2015). and the just released Sensing Machines (2002) all published by MIT Press.