ART x SCIENCE
October 31 - November 2 | 2016
2016 HIGHLIGHTS
the universe playsthe universe plays airport and airthe universe plays Mozart and milky waythe universe plays multiple sclerosisthe universe plays Socrates and Euripides and Sapphothe universe plays I am you and you are methe universe plays bluebottle fly and yarrow and Amanita virosathe universe plays highway and aluminumthe universe plays polar bear and heavy metalthe universe plays vanilla and mint and mutationthe universe plays breast cancer and skimmed milkthe universe plays big bang and beehive and consciousnessthe universe playsuniverse
(Morten Søndergaard - 'The Universe Plays' - translated from Danish)
Uni-verse
The Universe is all of time and space and its contents. In short where we are. And in a strange way it is also something that seems to be beyond us. That is the wonderful thing about the universe: We are in it and it is within us. We feel small compared to the infinite cosmos, but inside our bodies and our minds we contain other universes. We are a home to an infinity of universes. The small and innocent word universe tries to contain everything we want to express with it: The universe is scale and volume, it is depth and time, it is movement and sound. It is light and life. The universe is one and an unimaginable many at the same time. The meaning of the word flows in many directions and at the AHA-festival we will curiously follow some of them. The universe is the grand architecture and atmosphere we inhabit. The universe is our physics and circumstance. Our ideas about the universe have been many since the dawn of mankind and they will be reformulated many times in the future.
During the festival we have chosen to divide the word universe into three: uni and "-" and verse. Uni means that something is combined into a whole. Verse means that we are turned in a direction, the origin of the
word tells us that it is the plow that turns at the end of the field. And the dash "-" is all the spaces and cracks where new discoveries can grow. Art and science unfolds in the gap between what we know and what we want to know. So it is just natural that this meeting takes place. The third AHA festival creates possibilities to share thoughts and experiences, it is a platform to let science and art meet. And hopefully
it is a way to maybe understand a little bit more of what the universe contains. Or as physicist Stephen Hawking puts it ‘look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.’
Program
Day 1: Curiosity
Monday | 2016-10-31
Day 2: Atmosphere
Tuesday | 2016.11.01
Day 3: Reformulate
Wednesday | 2016.11.02
Kickoff
Riccardo Pes, Arthur I Miller, Fredrik Nilsson, Peter Apell, The AHA team
seminar
RUNAN
Monday 09:00-09:30
Unlimited number of seats
Strings
Peter Christensson
Exhibition
During the festival
Exhibition Photos of Anja Lechner at AHA! Festival 2015 by Peter Christensson
Unlimited number of seats
Side Orders
Exhibition
During the festival
An exhibition of student projects
Unlimited number of seats
Curiosity: (How ideas come into being)
Klas Parknäs, Biruta Kresling, Dan Ringgaard, Arthur I Miller, Morten Riis, Morten Søndergaard
seminar
RUNAN
Monday 9:30-11:00
Curiosity: (How ideas come into being): Klas Parknäs, Catharina Dyrssen, Biruta Kresling, Dan Ringgaard, Morten Sœndergaard with WORD generator
Unlimited number of seats
Deconstruction the order of the Compact Disc
Sigrid Laurel Östlund, Hye Kyung Lim, Karl-Johan Sellberg, Ásgeír Sigurjónsson, Jonas Johansson
workshop
Starts in seminar room Catella
Monday 11:00-17:00
Participants explore chaos and order through the destruction and reconstruction of an object’s physical and abstract qualities, as well as the way in which these qualities respond to movement. You will build with compact discs, light and sound to create a spatial experience that responds to people's movement in the space. A complex whole is formed through static, periodic, complex, and chaotic behaviors. The resulting light, sound, chaos ...action! will remain in the space for the duration of the festival and be part of a performance with Ljudlabbet on the 2nd of November.
Limited to 20 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Lunch with Anja Lechner
Anja Lechner
music performance
FOYER
Monday 12:00-13:00
Unlimited number of seats
Colliding Science and Art
Sofie Arfwidson and Christoffer Petersson
workshop
SEMINAR ROOM LEDNINGSRUMMET
Monday 13:00-15:00
Particle physics and art are different but complementary ways to explore the world around us and our place in the universe. By colliding particles at almost the speed of light, the particle accelerator Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, addresses questions concerning what the universe is made of and how it began. You are invited to make your own interpretation, in the form of a painting or a collage, of the images and videos of LHC particle collisions and related research that you will see and learn about.
Limited to 30 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Art, Science, Technology and Creativity - Now
Arthur I. Miller
seminar
RUNAN
Monday 13:00-14:00
The most important scientist of the twentieth century – Albert Einstein – and its most important artist- Pablo Picasso – went through their period of greatest creativity almost simultaneously and in remarkably similar circumstances. This parallel biography of Einstein and Picasso as young men focuses on their greatest achievements: Einstein’s special theory of relativity and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the painting that brought art into the twentieth century. When they produced these astonishing breakthroughs, Einstein and Picasso were in their twenties, unknown, feisty, dirt-poor, and prone to getting into trouble. Einstein and Picasso came of age at the exact moment in history when it was first becoming apparent that classical, intuitive ways of understanding space and time were not adequate. Each in his own way – Einstein with relativity and Picasso with cubism – was striving for a deeper, more satisfying way to represent space and time. In the most important sense, they were both working on the same problem.
Unlimited number of seats
One Second Workshop
Biruta Kresling
workshop
LEDNINGSRUMMET
Monday 15:00-17:00
Bionics - the way to learn from natural structures and eventually apply the findings to engineering. Biruta runs courses in European and Japanese universities on experimental methods in form-finding, especially in folding techniques. With magic precision regular folding patterns appear in her "one-second-workshops". Follow her instructions and you will be able to produce deployable tree leaves, bellow-like tubes and pine-cone patterns. Have fun while exploring some secrets of natural forms.
Limited to 30 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Uni - Our Inner Universe
Maria Mebius Schröder
workshop
SEMINAR ROOM CATELLA
Monday 15:00-17:00
An exclusive workshop (twelve seats only) with the purpose to develop the individual thinking and group learning skills. The ancient philosopher Socrates had the reasons right to impartially test all options as basis in his dialogues. Today many people often believe they know how things are and even what other people hink. In the open, reflective dialogue it will be shown that we are blinded by our preconceptions. In an intellectual examination of our conceptions we will get a deeper understanding of ourselves and the dilemmas we struggle with everyday – a glimpse of our inner universe.
This is the first of three independent workshops, focusing on the theme this day.
Limited to 12 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Art Walk
Starts at the building Origo
Guided tour
PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
Monday 17:00-18:30
An art walk at the Department of Physics, consisting of more than 15 pieces from contemporary artists. At 18:00 a new piece by the Belgium artist Win de Prez will be inaugurated. Wim de Prez creates sculptures and paintings. He works on part of the office space at the Department of Physics at Chalmers, creating his interpretation of five paradigm within physics: thermodynamics and statistical physics; electrodynamics; classical mechanics; quantum mechanics, and; relativity.
Limited number of seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Naqsh Duo
Naqsh Duo with special guest Anja Lecher
music performance
FOYER
Monday 19:00-20:30
Unlimited number of seats
- - Our Inner Universe
Maria Mebius Schröder
workshop
SEMINAR ROOM CATELLA
Tuesday 09:00-11:00
An exclusive workshop (twelve seats only) with the purpose to develop the individual thinking and group learning skills. The ancient philosopher Socrates had the reasons right to impartially test all options as basis in his dialogues. Today many people often believe they know how things are and even what other peoplet hink. In the open, reflective dialogue it will be shown that we are blinded by our preconceptions. In an intellectual examination of our conceptions we will get a deeper understanding of ourselves and the dilemmas we struggle with everyday – a glimpse of our inner universe.
This is the second of three independent workshops, focusing on the theme this day.
Note: This event is in Swedish only
Limited to 12 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Who says that an individual can’t wear two different socks?
Wim de Prez
seminar
RUNAN
Tuesday 09:00-10:00
Wim de Prez (°1962 Aalst, Belgium) creates sculptures and paintings. His work makes the viewer smile and asks questions about our suffocating beauty ideal. Why is someone beautiful? Does he or she have to look like a model? Why is the ideal of a symmetrical face and a malnourished figure so compelling? Wim De Prez shatters these delusions and mocks the dominant impossible expectations. It's his quest. Who says that an individual can't wear two different socks? Each work begins from scratch. Some ideas become paintings and continue their lives in acrylics and pastels on canvas. Other ideas are developed with 3D software before being printed and painted.
Unlimited number of seats
Playing the Uni-verse: Matter, Vibration & Transduction
Morten Riis
seminar
SEMINAR ROOM CATELLA
Tuesday 11:00-12:00
- Explorations into the physicality of sound This workshop invites the participants to actively engage with and explore sound as a physical phenomenon. By experimenting with various transducer technologies, we will transform everyday objects into sounding musical entities that by the end of the day will be used in a musical performance. Normally transduction names how sound changes as it traverses media, as it undergoes transformations in its energetic substrate (from electrical to mechanical, for example), as it goes through transubstantiations that modulate both its matter and meaning. When an antenna converts electromagnetic waves into electrical signals and when those are converted via a loudspeaker into patterns of air pressure, we have a chain of transductions, material transformations that are also changes in how a signal can be apprehended and interpreted. In the workshop transduction will additionally be used as a way of investigation and reflecting on the nature of sound. Thus transduction becomes a physical way of thinking (or thinkering) through and with the physical materiality of sound.
Limited to 30 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Some Values of Landscape, Body and Weather
Carmen Olsson, Anna Maria Orrù, Dan Ringgaard
seminar
SEMINAR ROOM LEDNINGSRUMMET
Tuesday 10:00-12:00
This is an introduction seminar to the workshop 'Body Weather.' We will take a stroll through atmospheres and weathers of diverse varieties; theory and imagination behind clouds, metamorphosis and body weather practice. Dan Ringgaard joins Anna Maria Orru and Carmen Olsson into an introduction to the day's practice. This is followed by an all-day Body Weather workshop exploring the sensitivity of body and space, inside and outside.
Note: This seminar is part of the workshop Body Weather, which continues 13:00 - 17:00. This morning seminar is open to all, however, please sign up for the workshop.
Limited to 30 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Can we understand human creativity from an understanding of Darwinian evolution?
Fredrik Höök
seminar
RUNAN
Tuesday 10:30-11:30
What is LIFE? Scientists have long struggled to define “life” in a way that is broad enough to encompass both life as we know it and forms not yet discovered. Chemist Gerald Joyce’s “working definition,” adopted by NASA, is that life is “a self-sustaining molecular system capable of Darwinian evolution.” Although a still debated definition, the remarkable diversity of life on Earth, including our conscious mind, stands as grand testimony to the creativity of Darwinian evolution during the past three billion years: virtually any extant feature of an organism can become the subject of natural selection, and if selected in the appropriate environment, an innovative functionality emerges. The technological evolution, having expanded from some 1000 goods and services say 50,000 years ago to perhaps 10 billion today, is similarly creative, as is the human creation of art, music, philosophy, religion... But what is the meaning of creativity in these different contexts, and what can we learn by investigating different “creative” processes?
Unlimited number of seats
Extreme Symbiosis - Welcome to Our Universe
Acrobalance
performance
FOYER
Tuesday 12:00-13:00
“Extreme Symbiosis” is the result of a research project, where we have tried to examine our circus discipline pair acrobatic on a deeper level. Outside the stage and behind the risky moments there is a whole practice that we want to highlight, and we therefore decided to explore what our practice consists of. What happens in the interaction between us when we perform our practice? A collaboration between bodies and minds, individual systems and common senses. A long-standing partnership based on extreme trust which is challenged every day in the practice. In our practice a non-verbal communication takes place, one that contains technical information on how the trick is performed, but also emotional conditions. What we talk about is the acrobatic moments in which we have physical contact. Which is the starting point for our discipline pair acrobatic. It is through interaction that everything begins. It is not pair acrobatic unless there are two interacting acrobats. To be able to have the senses open for this tacit languages a common atmosphere is vital. In what we call our “intercom system” there is a constant flow of information and signals, conscious or unconscious, controllable and uncontrollable. It is also the communication that we call an “honest language” because from the moment we grip each other, we feel each other and like many other things in our practice this exchange of energies has become our universe.
Unlimited number of seats
Body Weather
Carmen Olsson, Anna Maria Orrù, Dan Ringgaard, Morten Søndergaard
workshop
SEMINAR ROOM LEDNINGSRUMMET
Tuesday 10:00-12:00/13:00-17:00
This is an immersion into atmospheres and weathers of a diverse variety; theoretically, corporeally and artistically. We begin by embracing atmosphere as a spatial material, visual delight, curiosity driver and artistic matter for stirring the imagination. Dan Ringgaard joins Anna Maria Orrù and Carmen Olsson into an introduction to the day's practice. This is followed by a Body Weather workshop exploring the sensitivity of body and space, inside and outside. Carmen Olsson and Anna Maria Orrù explore how to use the body as a device for an embodied approach to spatial knowledge. Body weather consists of a number of practice techniques. Elements used to navigate in, through and around our universe(s). As body and space dwell together, an exchange is constantly taking place. We intercept this dialogue and turn the volume higher on what is being exchanged. Essentially, we activate the body to absorb the external landscape. An imagined script begins to unfold... We wrap up the practice through (per)forming scripts with poet Morten Søndergaard that capture the vocabulary and sentences within the dialogue. How is the dialogue shaped, who speaks first, and what are they discussing?
Note: a small portion of the workshop will be outdoors. Please prepare to dress warmly
Limited to 30 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Playing the Uni-verse: Matter, Vibration & Transduction
Morten Riis
workshop
FOYER
Tuesday 13:00-17:00
Explorations into the physicality of sound
This workshop invites the participants to actively engage with and explore sound as a physical phenomenon. By experimenting with various transducer technologies, we will transform everyday objects into sounding musical entities that by the end of the day will be used in a musical performance. Normally transduction names how sound changes as it traverses media, as it undergoes transformations in its energetic substrate (from electrical to mechanical, for example), as it goes through transubstantiations that modulate both its matter and meaning. When an antenna converts electromagnetic waves into electrical signals and when those are converted via a loudspeaker into patterns of air pressure, we have a chain of transductions, material transformations that are also changes in how a signal can be apprehended and interpreted.
In the workshop transduction will additionally be used as a way of investigation and reflecting on the nature of sound. Thus transduction becomes a physical way of thinking (or thinkering) through and with the physical materiality of sound.
Limited to 30 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
CIVILISATION
IAMSOAREYOU
workshop
SEMINAR ROOM, CATELLA
Tuesday 13:00-14:00
When taking part in this workshop you will be given a specific task and identity and then invited to enter and explore a new world using your senses and by taking a personal initiative. The workshop is limited to 12 participants and will be followed up by an open screening and panel discussion between the participants, the audience and IAMSOAREYOU. All participants in the workshop area asked to wear black clothes.
Limited number of seats. Wear black clothes
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
CIVILISATION - DISCUSSION
IAMSOAREYOU
seminar
RUNAN
Tuesday 14:00-15:00
Discussion on individual standpoint, sensuous investigation and experience. An open screening and panel discussion together with the participants of the workshop Civilisation, the audience, IAMSOAREYOU and moderator Pernilla Glaser.
Unlimited number of seats
Bea Szenfeldt
Bea Szenfeldt
seminar
RUNAN
Tuesday 13:00-14:00
Seminar with Bea Szenfeldt
Unlimited number of seats
Bea Szenfeldt
Bea Szenfeldt
workshop
SEMINAR ROOM, CATELLA
Tuesday 15:00-16:00
Workshop with Bea Szenfeldt
Limited to 20 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Immersion Into Noise
Joseph Nechvatal
seminar
RUNAN
Tuesday 15:00-16:00
Joseph Nechvatal has extensively researched the topic of artistic noise for his book Immersion Into Noise that has been open-source published by the Open Humanities Press in conjunction with the University of Michigan. Dr. Nechvatal's presentation will focus on the history of the art of noise and its present aesthetic manifestations in both the audio and visual fields. After recapping and demonstrating the essence of the book Immersion Into Noise as field-oriented meshwork that places emphasis on what is between the facade of empirical reality and the chasm of shattering incoherence, Dr. Nechvatal will discuss some social-political-scientific issues concerning us today that directly relate to his artistic activities where figure/ground merge and flip the common emphasis to some extent. Immersion Into Noise by Joseph Nechvatal
Unlimited number of seats
The Living room - Domesticity in Public Space
Samuel Dias Carvalho, Emilio Brandao and MPDSD Students
seminar
RUNAN
Tuesday 16:00-17:00
The Living Room space at AHA is the outcome of a workshop run by the design collective ONOFF in the architecture studio “Social Inclusion” run by Emilio Brandao at Chalmers. Sam Carvalho, Emilio Brandao and students will talk about the process of designing and building this space. The project reflects on the theme of “Domesticity” in public space, taking objects from the domestic realm and building hybrids as “street animals” in a design/build/deploy methodology. By using recycled materials and reclaimed furniture and making observations of everyday life, a space for gathering and meeting is created in public space. The objective was to first create a site specific installation in Hammarkullen built by students, and then move it to Chalmers for its second life as the “Living Room” for the AHA festival.
Unlimited number of seats
Art Walk
Starts at the building Origo
Guided Tour
PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
Tuesday 17:00-18:00
An art walk at the Department of Physics, consisting of more than 15 pieces from contemporary artists.
Limited number of seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Anders Jormin
Anders Jormin
music performance
FOYER
Tuesday 18:00-19:00
Unimited number of seats
Poetry Concert evening
Morten Riis, Body Weather, Morten Søndergaard, Riccardo Pes, Catharina Dyrssen
performance
FOYER
Tuesday 19:00-20:30
Join us for an evening where the borders of poetry are investigated through words, sound, music, and movement. The evening is woven together by AHA's poet-in-residence Morten Søndergaard.
In Program: Morten Riis solo "Sensations of the pure" (25 min.)
Morten Riis workshop results (10-15 min.)
Body Weather workshop results (10-15 min.)
Morten Søndergaard (universe poem) with Riccardo Pes (15 min.)
and readings by Catharina Dyrssen with Morten Søndergaard
Unlimited number of seats
ODD IN A KNOT
Jim de Block, Oleg Stepanov, Arika Yamada
performance
FOYER
Tuesday 21:00-22:00
WORLD PREMIERE
Strangely intertwined, these Scandinavian based group of artists have a common purpose. To reach out to other artists of various fields, starting a discourse with them and collaborating on a project together. To eventually produce art works that cannot be specified to a singular art form. A collaborative experience all together. The purpose of ODD IN A KNOT is to become a platform for shared investigation and creation, to initiate, facilitate and eventually produce works of art that reflect on us human beings, on our society and our place within. ODD IN A KNOT’s core group comprises of Jim de Block, Oleg Stepanov and Arika Yamada. www.oddinaknot.com
Unlimited number of seats
The State of Mind Where Ideas Arise
Klas Parknäs
workshop
SEMINAR ROOM, LEDNINGSRUMMET
Wednesday 9:00-12:00
En workshop där vi genom bild, musik och ordexperiment når tillståndet av inspiration. Där inte intellektet står i vägen för den verkliga intelligensen. Vi minns vår förmåga att ta emot oväntad genialitet. Experiment varvas med berättande och samtal.
A workshop where we use image, music and wordexperiments to reach a state of inspiration. The state where the intellect isn't blocking our true intelligence is where we recognise our ability to embrace unexpected genious. Experimentation mixes with conversation and storytelling.
Note: This event is in Swedish only.
Limited to 20 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Verse - Our Inner Universe
Maria Mebius Schröder
workshop
SEMINAR ROOM CATELLA
Wednesday 09:00-11:00
An exclusive workshop (twelve seats only) with the purpose to develop the individual thinking and group learning skills. The ancient philosopher Socrates had the reasons right to impartially test all options as basis in his dialogues. Today many people often believe they know how things are and even what other peoplet hink. In the open, reflective dialogue it will be shown that we are blinded by our preconceptions. In an intellectual examination of our conceptions we will get a deeper understanding of ourselves and the dilemmas we struggle with everyday – a glimpse of our inner universe.>br> This is the third of three independent workshops, focusing on the theme this day.
Limited to 12 seats
PLEASE CLICK ON EVENT TO BOOK
Colliding Black Holes
Ulf Gran
seminar
RUNAN
Wednesday 09:00-10:00
Earlier this year, the direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO experiment was announced, exactly 100 years after Einstein predicted them. The detected gravitational waves were generated by two large colliding black holes, hence this result also constitutes the first direct detection of black holes. In this talk I will give an introduction to gravitational waves and black holes, and then describe the LIGO experiment and how they managed to measure this incredibly feeble signal. Finally, I will elaborate on what kind of discoveries might be possible in the new era of gravitational wave astronomy.
Unlimited number of seats
Sonica Sequence
Lisa Nordström
seminar
RUNAN
Wednesday 10:30-11:30
Sonica Sequence is an unique film and music project by Swedish musician/composer Lisa Nordström and producer Pether Lindgren/ajabu! In Sonica Sequence Lisa Nordström travels the world to meet with musicians from different genres and backgrounds, iniviting them to take part in improvised live sessions unexpectedly taking place in the public space. It’s a project about communication beyond words, taking risks and about the uniting language of music. The sessions are recorded and filmed and will be part of a documentary film and released as an album in 2017. At the AHA-festival Lisa will screen material from the upcoming film and talk about the process and ideas behind the project.
Unlimited number of seats
An Improvised Galaxy
Riccardo Pes, Matilda Lidberg
performance
FOYER
Wednesday 12:00-13:00
Celloist Riccardo Pes and contemporary dancer Matilda Lidberg take us into an afternoon improvisation, performing for the first time together. They wrap us into an improvised galaxy of sound, movement and an atmosphere where we reformulate our thinking of instrument as movement, and movement as sound.
Unlimited number of seats
Le Corbusier and the universe – ambitions and poetry
Johan Linton
seminar
RUNAN
Wednesday 13:00-14:00
Le Corbusier is one of the most ambitious personalities in the history of architecture. In this lecture we get a glimpse of how his view of the universe relates to his visions of the modern world.
Unlimited number of seats
Playing with order: Arduinos, chaos machines and dodecahedrons
Jonas Johansson, Karl-Johan Sellberg, Ásgeír Sigurjónsson
discussion
THE LIVING ROOM
Wednesday 14:00-15:00
The installation "Light, Sound, Chaos...Action!" was created in the AHA workshop "Deconstructing the Order of the Compact Disc". This talk is an opportunity to learn a little bit behind some of the technological tricks that make it all possible.
Unimited number of seats
Being a Pioneer and Becoming Earth Independent at Mars, What Will it Take?
Larry Toups
seminar
RUNAN
Wednesday 15:00-16:00
In planning human missions for travel to Mars in the 2030’s and 2040’s, what will be required to make the journey? The talk will focus on how the crew members will establish a Mars surface field station and how they will become more “Earth independent”
Unlimited number of seats
"Light, Sound, Chaos, Action!"
Ljudlabbet
performance
COATROOM, GROUND FLOOR
Wednesday 17:00-18:00
The edge of chaos and order is investigated through an instrumental accompaniment to the installation in the space by the band Ljudlabbet (The Sound Lab). The band will improvise with self-built experimental instruments to the sounds generated and thereby further explore the ways in which chaos and order can create complex musical ‘verses’. The resulting light, sound, chaos ...action! from the workshop Deconstructing the Order of the Compact Disc, will be part of the performance.
Unimited number of seats
Reformulation of AHA! with presentation of the winner of the AHA photo contest
Elena Carlini, George Wade, Catharina Dyrssen, Morten Søndergaard, Pernilla Glaser (moderator) + AHA team and guests
discussion
FOYER
Wednesday 16:00-17:00
Join us for a discussion to digest the present and past AHA festivals; our motives, values, learnings, aims and future forms. We look upwards and outwards, since we have stopped looking at our feet. For our minds are like parachutes, they only work when open.
Unlimited number of seats
14 billion years of theatrical physics
Cecilia Runesson, Jean-Louis Huhta, Olle Pettersson
Performance
RUNAN
Wednesday 18:00-19:00
There is a storm coming. Be there! The night club is in your head. It´s about gravity, predictions, scale and expansion. A lecture performance in three acts, dealing with mankinds unstoppable curiosity and our equally unstoppable destructiveness. It´s about Pythagoras student, Newton and Leibniz, and the so called Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe. The text is based on a transcribed conversation with the Greek mathematician Alexis Propodoupolos in the spring of 2015, describing three great breakthroughs in human thinking, leading up to the modern physics of today. The performance is approximately 60 minutes and consists of three parts: sound, a text and a tune. The performance likes to connect to the tradition of ”memory theatres”, the 14th century idea of using the theatre format as a vehicle for knowledge. The performance also likes to act in the realms beyond the concepts of good and bad. The text in the performance is based on a conversation with Alexis, the greek mathematician, on a Sunday afternoon in Athens, Greece.
Unlimited number of seats
ODD IN A KNOT
Odd in a Knot
Performance
FOYER
Wednesday 19:30-20:00
Strangely intertwined, these Scandinavian based group of artists have a common purpose. To reach out to other artists of various fields, starting a discourse with them and collaborating on a project together. To eventually produce art works that cannot be specified to a singular art form. A collaborative experience all together. The purpose of ODD IN A KNOT is to become a platform for shared investigation and creation, to initiate, facilitate and eventually produce works of art that reflect on us human beings, on our society and our place within. ODD IN A KNOT’s core group comprises of Jim de Block, Oleg Stepanov and Arika Yamada. www.oddinaknot.com
Unlimited number of seats
AHA! Photo Contest
I seek the question, to which the human life is the answer.
From Mästaren Ma by Willy KyrklundA Call for Contributions!
This year the AHA festival is staging a photo contest and we invite you to send in your images and to participate.
For further information please download the following poster: AHA! Photo Contest Call
For further questions, and to email in your contribution, please contact: contest@ahafestival.se
Open call: from 15 September, 2016
Deadline: 15 October, 2016.
Speakers / Performers
Acrobalance
Henrik Agger and Louise v. Euler Bjurholm have worked together since 2001. They are educated at Moscow State School of Circus and at the Univeristy of Dance and Circus in Stockholm (DOCH). The master program at DOCH was the starting point for their research project “the art of working in pairs, a deeper look into our practice” which began in the summer of 2011 and resulted in the performance and the booklet called Extreme Symbiosis. As freelance artists they been working with traditional circuses like the Russian State Circus, but mostly in so-called contemporary circus contexts.
Anders Jormin
Anders Jormin is born 1957 in Jönköping, Sweden. He studied double-bass and improvisation at Musikhögskolan in Gothenburg. Anders has been given several prestigious prizes and awards internationally as well as nationally. Today as a doublebass-player and composer, Anders Jormin is a frequent and highly respected performer on the international concert scene. As a musician in great demand, Anders has recorded and toured with many of the legends in jazz. Gilberto Gil, Lee Konitz, Elvin Jones, Joe Henderson, Don Cherry, Charles Lloyd, Mike Manieri, Ann-Sofi von Otter, Norma Winstone, Trio Mediaeval and Marilyn Crispell, just to name a few. Today Anders performs regularly all over Europe, USA/Canada, Japan and is an “ECM recording artist.”
Anja Lechner
Anja Lechner, born in Kassel, Germany, studied with Heinrich Schiff and Janos Starker. She has performed as soloist with orchestras including the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Armenian Philharmonic Orchetra and plays chamber music with partners including pianists Alexei Lubimov and Silke Avenhaus, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and clarinetist Reto Bieri. cellist Agnès Vesterman. Anja Lechner has premiered compositions by Tigran Mansurian, Valentin Silvestrov, Tõnu Kõrvits and Annette Focks amongst others. For 18 years she was the cellist of the Rosamunde Quartet, whose acclaimed ECM New Series recordings embrace a scope of music from Joseph Haydn to Thomas Larcher. The range of Anja Lechner’s artistic endeavours is exceptionally broad: at home in all aspects of classical music, she is also fluent in diverse improvisational traditions. She has a long-running collaboration with post-tango bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi, works with the Tarkovsky Quartet, on the group Il Pergolese including singer Maria Pia de Vito, and plays with pianist François Couturier in music drawing freely upon the compositions of G.I. Gurdjieff, F. Mompou and Anouar Brahem.
Anna Maria Orrù
The foundation of Anna Maria Orrù’s work is embedded in biomimicry, artistic research, food and in curating performative research, providing an alternate approach to the field of ecological urbanism, architecture, art and design. She behaves as a connective tissue, working in the interstitial spaces between disciplines by bringing a variety of approaches and talents to the table to creatively tackle issues around climate change. Her projects, and ongoing PhD research at Chalmers, cover the distinct topics of bodily engagement, food resource, architecture, senses and urbanism, explored through the study of organoleptic qualities in choreography of urban foodscapes. www.annamariaorru.com
Arthur I. Miller
Arthur I. Miller is fascinated by the nature of creative thinking in art and science. He has published many critically acclaimed books, including Insights of Genius; Einstein, Picasso; Empire of the Stars; and 137, and writes for the Guardian and The New York Times. He is professor emeritus of history and philosophy of science at University College London. His recent book Colliding Worlds: How Cutting-Edge Science is Redefining Contemporary Art (W.W. Norton) tells the story of how art, science and technology are fusing in the twenty-first century. Presently he is completing a book entitled, Can Computers Be Creative? www.arthurimiller.com and www.collidingworlds.org
Ásgeir Sigurjónsson
Ásgeir Sigurjónsson is an architect and works as a coordinator at the Centre for Healthcare Architecture at Chalmers. He is a member of earthLab, a group that develops sustainable building methods and also a band member at Ljudlabbet (The Sound Lab).
Bea Szenfeld
Spectacular creations that paraded down the catwalk together with the artists at the opening of 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. The creator of these fanciful costumes are the Swedish designer Bea Szenfeld.She works experimental and artistic, making costumes in unexpected materials, mostly paper, entirely by hand. She has made paper craft a genre all its own.Bea Szenfeld (b. 1972 in Poland, now living in Stockholm) is educated at Beckmans College of Design. Her work have been exhibited at, among other venues, Dunkers Culture, Röhsska Museum, Liljevalchs and Somerset House in London, and she is represented in the collections of, National Public Art, Lund Culture and the Nordic Museum. Her clothes have been worn by the likes of Lady Gaga, Björk, Ola Salo, Loreen and Laleh. She has received numerous awards, including H & M's design scholarship, TV3 Fashion House of the Year, eye-catcher at the Elle Awards and Artist Board working grant. Szenfeld did a “Sommar” at Swedish Radio in 2014 and was responsible for the artistic decoration of the Polar Music Prize ceremony in Stockholm in 2015. She is a member of the jury for the Young Swedish Design and Innovative Culture. Recycling and remake are important themes for her.
Photo by Joel Rhodin.
Biruta Kresling
Biruta Kresling is a Berlin born architect - she works as a free lancer scientist in Paris, where she cooperated with the Museum of Natural History for a major exhibition on Bionics - the way to learn from natural structures and eventually apply the findings to engineering. Biruta runs courses in European and Japanese universities on experimental methods in form- finding, especially in folding techniques. With magic precision regular folding patterns appear in her "one-second-workshops". Follow her instructions and you will be able to produce deployable tree leaves, bellow-like tubes and pine-cone patterns. Have fun while exploringsome secrets of natural forms.
Carmen Olsson
Carmen Olsson is a dancer and choreographer. During the early 90's Carmen came in contact with butoh. Taken by the work she went to Japan to experience its origin. This, and subsequent meeting with the performance art Noh Kyogen, has made way for her inquiry into the body and dance. Carmen’s work has evolved during numerous choreographies for various situations and stage spaces. Carmen is also educated in landscape architecture, which she finds closely linked to the dancing body's physical and mental presence in a place. Since 1993 she has worked with Body Weather, a comprehensive training and performance practice created by dancer Min Tanaka. www.carmenolsson.com
Catharina Dyrssen
Catharina Dyrssen is an architect and musicologist, PhD and tenure professor in Architecture and Design Methods at the Department of Architecture, Chalmers. Since her PhD thesis Musical Space: Metaphors, rituals, institutions (1995), her research covers three main themes: artistic and design based research methods; design thinking in urbanism, planning and public space; and various intersections between architecture, music, urban space and sound. She has long experience of teaching architectural and urban design at master level and of supervising doctoral students. Catharina Dyrssen has been part of the art-based, interdisciplinary research group Urban Sound Institute (www.usit.nu), and has recently published the book Sound and Other Spaces, a popular summary of sonic experimental work. She is currently Head of the Committee for Artistic Research in the Swedish Research Council.
Cecilia Runesson
Cecilia Runesson is an actress and performance artist. Born in Gothenburg 1966, she trained classical theatre in London and physical theatre in Århus, Denmark. She holds a MA in Contemporary Peformative Arts from Gothenburg University. She is a member and co-founder of performance collective Force Majeure whose work has been seen in Scandinavia and beyond. This is the third version on a work she started with concerning the link between theatre and physics - the first one being showed at Park Lane Night Club and the secondat 3:e Våningen during 2016.
Dan Ringgaard
Dan Ringgaard (born 1963) Associate professor at School of Communication and Culture, Århus University, teaching Scandinavian literature. Author of a number of books on poets, poetry and poetics, a couple on place and one (up coming) on creativity. Co-editor of A Literary History of Nordic Literary Cultures 1-3. Currently working on weather and climate, atmosphere and catastrophe, on the post-literary or literature in an expanded field, on the relationship between poetry and prose, on creative and critical writing, and on cross aesthetics, especially the relationships between literature, film and architecture.
Elena Carlini
Elena Carlini, graduate of the Venice School of Architecture and Columbia University in New York as a Fulbright Scholar, collaborating with offices of Emilio Ambasz and Davis & Brody in New York, and Richard Meier in Los Angeles. She teaches internationally as; visiting professor at Syracuse University NY and Firenze, and at the University of Texas in Austin. her current position is at the Graduate School of Architecture in Ferrara. Carlini is also one of the four critics at the International Architectural Quartet during the Architecture World Congress in Berlin, and has lectured and published internationally. In 1998 she co-founded Carlini & Valle, an architectural office in Trieste with projects both in Italy and the United States, in which she continues to work. The office has co-curated and designed various exhibitions on architecture, urbanism and contemporary art.
Fredrik Höök
Fredrik Höök, head of the Biological Physics division at Chalmers, develops surface-based bioanalytical sensors, with special emphasis on studies of cell-membrane mimics and biological nanoparticls such as virions, lipid vesicles and exosomes for medical diagnostic and drug-discovery applications. His laboratory is presently focused on microfluidic platforms for separation of cell-membrane components to facilitate improved analysis of membrane proteins and virus binding. The group also work on flow-cytometry like approaches for improved characterization of biological nanoparticles. FH has been awarded the Göran Gustafsson prize in Physics by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA) and is member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).
Fredrik Nilsson
Fredrik Nilsson is architect and professor of Architectural Theory at Chalmers, where he leads the strong research environment ‘Architecture in the Making’ in a national collaboration between the schools of architecture. He is also Chief Research Strategist at White Arkitekter, where he was Head of Research and Development 2007-2014.. Nilsson’s research is directed to developments in contemporary architecture, architectural theory and philosophy with special interest in the epistemology of architecture and interaction between theory, conceptual thinking and design practice. Important aims are contributions to reinforced exchange between research and architectural practice.
Hye Kyung Lim
Hye Kyung Lim is a doctoral candidate at Chalmers University of Technology at the department of architecture with architect background. Educated in Stockholm, and having practiced in Tokyo, her research investigates diverse urban qualities as outputs of different planning systems, especially looking into rule-based, or design-based systems. Her current interests lie in complex adaptive systems and multi-actor input in urban systems, which she is experimenting with various strategies to understand what ‘co-creation’ in urban context truly means. Her ongoing research includes a development of an augmented reality based co-creative tool.
Jean-Louis Huhta
Huhta is a composer, musician & Dj working mainly with hardware instruments such as modular synths drum machines and samplers. He has performed around the world with acts like The Skull Defekts, Lucky People Center and lately his own project Dungeon Acid. Apart from performing live and Dj’ing he as composed for many contemporary dance choreographers and filmakers.
Johan Linton
Johan Linton is an architect and architectural historian who also has a masters degree in engineering physics. He wrote his dissertation on Le Corbusier’s major publication concerning town planning, La ville radieuse (1935), and this fall he is about to publish a translation into Swedish of Le Corbusier's book Poésie sur Alger.
Jon Geib
Jon Geib is an urbanist and architect exploring relations between the city, design and dialogue, with particular focus on the potential of multivocal approaches in animating a cosmopolitan public culture. Dialogue and participation are reframed as ongoing democratic, artistic and cultural practices which take different voices in the city seriously and seek to articulate them through ‘dialogical infrastructures’ which build in space for voices unplanned, unexpected and to-remain-unknown. Jon’s doctoral research at Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Architecture is a collaboration with the Gothenburg Cultural Department as part of the EU project TRADERS (training art and design researchers in participation in/for public space).
Joseph Nechvatal
Joseph Nechvatal is an American post-conceptual artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings, computer animations and soundscapes using custom-created computer viruses. His work is shown regularly in galleries and museums throughout the world. His book of essays Towards an Immersive Intelligence: Essays on the Work of Art in the Age of Computer Technology and Virtual Reality (1993-2006) was published by Edgewise Press in 2009. In 2011 his book Immersion Into Noise was published by the University of Michigan Library's Scholarly Publishing Office Open Humanities Press. He writes regularly on art and art theory from Paris at Hyperallergic. www.nechvatal.net
Karl-Johan Sellberg
Karl-Johan Sellberg is an architect who works artistically with projects that span from sound installations to painting and innovation. He has previously worked with interaction through the creation of board games and sound sculptures and is keenly interested in the relation between reactivity and adaptivity. He has been an active part of organizing and creating installations at the science festival in Gothenburg and creates experimental musical instruments such as the teddy bear orchestra, parasitic music box, fused instruments and a (but not 'the') musical marble machine. Karl-Johan is also part of the improvisational band "Ljudlabbet" (The Sound Lab).
Klas Parknäs
Klas Parknäs is an artist who in addition to his art has made a name for himself for his ability to inspire. He has been active in his studio in Gothenburg for 25 years. Before art-school (painting), he undertook operatic as well as acting training. His book "Tillvarataget" has helped a great number of people to find their inspiration...and stay with it. "The source of the art is much more interesting than the art itself." Klas is also lectures and holds workshops on a regular basis.
Larry Toups
Larry Toups is an Adjunct Professor at Chalmers since fall of 2012 in relation to his responsibilities at NASA’s Exploration Mission Systems Office in the United States as the lead for work related to future habitat concepts for future missions beyond Low Earth Orbit such as the moon and Mars. Mr Toups is an architect with a Master’s Degree in Space Architecture from the University of Houston, Sasakawa Institute for Space Architecture. Since 1989 in the New Initiatives Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center he has contributed to numerous NASA studies including the 90 Day Study on Human Exploration of the Moon and Mars, First Lunar Outpost, and Access to Space.
At Chalmers Mr Toups is mainly involved with the Homes for Tomorrow project focusing on research of sustainable concepts for future housing using the HSB Living Lab, and assists in the planning of studios for Design in Extreme Environments within the Department of Architecture.
Lisa Nordström
Lisa is an acclaimed musician within the electronic and contemporary music scene and works extendedly in Sweden and internationally. She was formerly part of the celebrated duo Midaircondo and is currently focusing on her work as a solo artist, composing and producing music and the international project Sonica Sequence. Extending the range of acoustic sounds through technical and technological means, Lisa’s music is a mix of electronic sounds, field recordings, voice and acoustic instruments, creating layered and intricate soundscapes. In her work she also explores ways to interact with the audience using contextual and site specific situations.
Maria Mebius-Schröder
Maria Mebius Schröder is an artist, process manager, producer, NLP-coach and creative consultant at TILLT AB www.tillt.se. Maria develops people and business through creativity and innovation and helps artists and organisations to achieve a fruitful exchange. She is an established dance artist, nationally and internationally, and as a creative consultant within the private and the public sector, she focus on developing creative leadership and creative co-workers, as well as organizational development.
Matilda Lidberg
Matilda Lidberg is active as a freelance chorographer, dancer and teacher in contemporary dance with focus on improvisation, contact improvisation and partnering. After many years abroad she moved back to Göteborg and since September 2014 she’s combining dancing with architecture studies at Chalmers. In her dance practice she like to think about what kind of access and awareness we have to space; public, private, media, physically etc. and how it influence the way we relate to our surrounding. Architecture has been an interesting way to refine and articulate this even further.
Mickael Eriksson
Michael Eriksson is Vice Head of the Department of Physics and Senior Advisor, with focus on industry-academia collaboration and impact. His research interests are within Innovation Management and Change Management, with projects among others on Artistic Intervention. Before returning to academia a few years ago, he held different positions in private industry.
Morten Riis
Morten Riis (born 1980) holds a PhD degree from Aarhus University and is educated in electronic music composition from the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus. He currently holds a post doc position at Aarhus University, and was director of electronic music composition at the Royal Academy of Music 2013-2014. Besides his academic work he is a very active sound artist having received numerous grants and commissions, released several albums, played numerous concerts and exhibited sound installations in Denmark, Sweden, England, France, Poland, Finland, Germany and China.
Morten Søndergaard
Morten Søndergaard (born 1964) is a critically acclaimed poet and artist, and since his debut in 1992, he has published a substantial number of poetry books, translated several works by Jorge Luis Borges into Danish. Søndergaard’s explores the various collisions between meaning and materiality has resulted in extra-linguistic works that span sound art, artists books, asemic writing strategies and performance. Søndergaard's versatile oeuvre is perhaps best described as a long flickering walk within language, a search into its corners, edges, vantages and points of observation. In an organic manner the works expand into other genres and media over time. Morten Søndergaard's works have been translated into a large number of languages, he has exhibited throughout Europe and has received several literary awards, most recently the Danish Art's Council life-long grant. Morten Søndergaard lives and works between Paris and Pietrasanta. http://mortensondergaard.net
Naqsh Duo
NAQSH (Farsi word: ornamentation, form, figure or any other shape which is related to visual arts.) Internationally active duo, Golfam Khayam guitar and Mona Matbou Riahi clarinet, is offering a palette of colors in an unforeseen musical territory by discovering the overlaps of Persian and contemporary music. Through this musical synthesis, members of this duo are seeking a path to explore their instruments differently: pushing boundaries for new colors, illusion of timbre, eccentric ornamentations, and uncharacteristic sound effects for the instruments. Musicians, both born in Teheran, have pursued further musical adventures outside Iran while remaining fascinated and strongly influenced by their homeland’s rich and diverse traditions. In this process they have arrived at synthesis of their own, finding points of contact between aspects of Persian tradition and contemporary music. The forms, modes, drones and rhythms of Persian music as well its call for improvisation are redeployed, to new creative ends, in their fresh and vital work. Narrante is the duo’s debut album produced and published by ECM records.
ODD IN A KNOT
ODD IN A KNOTStrangely intertwined, these Scandinavian based group of artists have a common purpose. To reach out to other artists of various fields, starting a discourse with them and collaborating on a project together. To eventually produce art works that cannot be specified to a singular art form. A collaborative experience all together.The purpose of ODD IN A KNOT is to become a platform for shared investigation and creation, to initiate, facilitate and eventually produce works of art that reflect on us human beings, on our society and our place within. ODD IN A KNOT’s core group comprises of Jim de Block, Oleg Stepanov and Arika Yamada. www.oddinaknot.com
Olle Pettersson
Pettersson is a composer and musician trained at the Academy for music and drama in Gothenburg. He works with exploring the boundless world of synthesized sounds. He creates noise, drones and fantastic soundscapes using modular synths, samplers, software algorithms and noiseboxes.
ONOFF
ONOFF is an experimental design collective based in Berlin.We draw on a wide range of skills from within our group, working collaboratively to initiate new experiments combining different mediums and formats like mobile structures, film and projection, building workshops and writing. We like to explore the in-betweens and the overlaps of city-citizen-machine through different technologies and tools to challenge traditional ideas of inhabiting and use of collectively shared space. Over the last 4 years ONOFF have participated in a number of design and cultural festivals throughout Europe and been featured in internationally acclaimed exhibitions such as the Istanbul Design Biennial, Milan Wired Festival and Uneven Growth Exhibition at the Moma New York.
Pernilla Glaser
Pernilla Glaser is a writer and curator of change. She is a teacher of writing, play and critical thinking at The University of Arts and Craft and guest-teacher at Stockholm University of the Arts. She is currently developing a platform for inclusive work with cultural heritage for the Swedish County government. She is Creative Research force at the experimental research institute Interactive Institute. Pernilla Glaser is the writer of several novels and plays. She is now working on a methodological guide-book. Pernilla has been a moderator and curator of conferences and meetings such as ”Society and Existence” Malmö 2016 and ”Samling” for Forum for Living History.
Peter Christensson
Artist, musician and lecturer at the department of architecture at Chalmers university of technology. Main interest is what is to be found in the corner of the eye in art as well as life.
Riccardo Pes
Riccardo Pes was born in Italy . He graduated at the Conservatory of Music in Venice and afterwards at the National Academy “Santa Cecilia” in Rome with Giovanni Sollima. He is attending the Royal College of Music in London with Melissa Phelps. He has performed music for Cello-solo, especially italian composers of the 20th Century, for Cello and Piano and as soloist with orchestras such as “I Solisti Veneti”. He has collaborated with Giovanni Sollima ( Teatro Valle - Rome, 100 Cellos - Milan), Mario Brunello (Suoni delle Dolomiti Festival) and with the astropysician Margherita Hack. He studied composition and countepoint, publishing his first album “Cellina Work” in 2014.
Samuel Dias Caravalho
Samuel Dias Caravalho
Sigrid Laurel Östlund
Sigrid is a doctoral candidate at Chalmers with a background in architecture. Her work pursues an interest in the ways space and objects can influence meaning-making and identity formation. She is particularly interested in how these aspects can be used to foster socio-ecological equity. In her PhD she therefore explores notions of ‘sustainability’ and ‘beyond’ in the design and use of public spaces that include cyclical (or regenerative) resource cycles. In her work she combines a phenomenological inquiry with the art of designing spaces and act of making. She is also a member of "Ljudlabbet" (The Sound Lab).
Sofie Arfwidson and Christoffer Petersson
Sofie Arfwidson works as an artist with exhibitions in Moderna Museet, Galleri Thomas Wallner, Market in Stockholm and an art historian/educator at Malmö Konsthall. Christoffer Petersson is a researcher in particle physics currently working at Chalmers and in Brussels, previously at CERN.
Ulf Gran
Ulf Gran is a theoretical physicist working mainly on string theory and specialising in black holes. Ulf received his PhD at Chalmers in 2001, and was then abroad for six years as a postdoc (in the Netherlands, the UK and Belgium) before returning to Chalmers in 2007. He is now in charge of education at the department of Physics, and a much appreciated teacher having been awarded several pedagogical prizes
Urtė and Johan Oettinger
Urtė and Johan Oettinger are animation and film directors from Århus.
Wim de Prez
Wim de Prez (born 1962 Aalst, Belgium) creates sculptures and paintings. His work makes the viewer smile and asks questions about our suffocating beauty ideal. Why is someone beautiful? Does he or she have to look like a model? Why is the ideal of a symmetrical face and a malnourished figure so compelling? Wim De Prez shatters these delusions and mocks the dominant impossible expectations. It's his quest. Who says that an individual can't wear two different socks? Each work begins from scratch. Some ideas become paintings and continue their lives in acrylics and pastels on canvas. Other ideas are developed with 3D software before being printed and painted.
