Projects

Definition of the Research Project: IN>TRA2. Reading as an artistic practice: new models of creative decoding. 2019-2021

The artistic research, understood from within the practice, has led us to establish certain questions to which we would to give some response: ¿What are the parallels between reading and artistic practice? ¿What is the role of reading in artistic research and what kind of voices it activates? ¿What is the role of memory in the act of reading? ¿Does the lecture that we do of reality is simultaneous to the act of codifying it? ¿How could we explore the creative dimension of the decodification act? ¿Can we generate new decodification models from the artistic practice?
Our baseline scenario is that reading implies a creative process, which does not only involves a passive and rational process of knowledge decodification, but also a proactive and creative dimension related to the different forms of perception and sensible apprehension of the world.
The relation between the artistic practice and reading processes within a research context is a challenge that, in our opinion, deserves special attention. Reading is not just an interpretative act from the outside to the inside; it is also a dynamic from the inside to the outside, in which the reader produces a singular contribution that enriches and transforms knowledge.
Reading as an artistic practice is a constructive process that allows the emergence of what is new and unexpected. Within the dynamics of coding all language is pre-established according to conventions, and it is in its decoding where a space of freedom is opened to explore the generation of new languages. Therefore, the proposal of IN>TRA II is to explore decodifcation processes in order to generate semiotic-material openness within the entanglement of art, science, technology and society.

Coordinator project: Meta-reading from the artistic practice. Dimensions of creative decoding

We propose to explore reading from the perspective of three different areas of artistic practice that are intra-related:
1. Epistemology of reading (ER). In this section we will explore the active dimension of knowledge that reading implies as an act of decoding and recoding at the same time. To what extent does reading generate both a conceptual and a somatic transformation? Text reading as a human act. Separations and drifts implied by the written-spoken word in human and non-human relationships.
2. Reading, voice and frequencies (RVF). Experimentation of reading as an artistic and performative practice. This section connects with the material part of the word, with sound, which activates both emotion (in common with other animal species) and vibration (perceptible by plants and other materials). This section is proposed not as an instrument of human, futuristic and hierarchical accelerationism, but as a common intra-corporeal resonant material, that affects all forms of life and technology.
3. Techno-readings (TR). In this section we aim to examine the ways of reading by human and non-human agents (artificial intelligence, word processors, vocoders, etc.) to generate areas of experimentation between the two of them and identify changes in the reading and editing modalities (singular publications, micro-publishing or other editorial devices) that emerge from new technologies.

Subproject: Printed Matter/Net Laboratory
This project is based on two aspects that give continuity to the research developed in the Materia Impresa II project. First, to consolidate the online platform we have developed in the previous project, which we will present this year. Second, to turn it into a space of production and reflection, emphasizing on the new possibilities that open up from the digital environment, and specifically in what refers to the terrain of the sculptural. In this sense, our network laboratory wants to become a collaborative space, where prototypes are not just devised, elaborated and studied, but also where shared creation processes are enhanced. Likewise, the means of production will be analyzed - whether in its virtual or material form - from its conception to its reading, its reception and finally its impact on people.

Definition of the Research Project: CONNECTED BODIES. Identity art and cartography in transmedia society. 2018-2020

Research project and creative artistic practice on self-representation, identity construction and its social impact, focused on the analysis of the new processes of creation, reception and sharing of audiovisual and transmedia content related to the body and identity.

Definition of the Research Project: IN>TRA. The Artistic Collaborative Practice as a Model of Experience: New Forms and Prototypes. 2016-2019

IN>TRA is the qualitative development of the results obtained in the previous research projects MetaMethods I and II. In this project we want to go beyond the collaboration based in the mutual observation and the comparative study of work methodologies in techno-scientific and artistic domains to propose axes of conjoint production among different agents in order to build new prototypes

The prototype understood as a functional model (albeit provisional and therefore not yet stable) in which makes visible the main problematics and active principles of something that is still close to intuition, to inaccuracy and error, but that will bear the collaborative work between potential agents in different domains: universities, entreprises, institutions and social organizations that act both in the artistic and the techno-scientific fields.

The Coordinated Project IN>TRA is structured in two sub-projects with specific goals and interests and an horizontal activity that draw traversal research lines which allows identify problematics and elaborate common knowledge.

MetaMethod III (Coordinator Project). Stands for the power of the artistic practices to identify  technic-conceptual synergies and to provoke transference phenomena. From the experience accumulated in MetaMethod and MetaMethod II and based in the current work of the subprojects it aims to assay and to provoke experiences, technics and work methodologies in order to elaborate a prototype for the detection of indicators which could point out possible knowledge transferences.

Printed Matter II (Sub-project). The goal of this project is to create new research lines about the use of printing technology and 3D scan in the process of plastic creation. Directed from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona, aims to establish a collaboration with RepRapBCN of the CIM Foundation of the Polithenich University of Catalunya, the Spanish Association of Rapid Manufacturing (ASERM), the Fabrication Atheneum of Les Corts, McNeel Europe and Hewlett Packard.

Project Definition: MetaMethod II. Shared Methodologies in Research Processes and New Artistic Practices. 2013-2015

This project analizes the relationships between Art and Research, in order to approach the study of art forms in a globalized cultural environment. To accomplish this we propose new methodological strategies that necessarily involve interaction with another disciplines. Our aim is, firstly, to analyze the changes that occur in art development and its position within the knowledge society and, second, to influence the transformation of artistic practices in these new production conditions.

The procedure involves to get in touch with communication platforms that allow us to establish a critical dialogue among the different models, interpretations and paradigms that are currently investigating the involvement of art practice as a specific and dynamic space of cultural activity.

Subproject 2. Printed Matter: From the digital virtuality to the three-dimensional materiality in artistic research.

To start a research line on innovations with 3D printing technology. To continue the sub-line initiated by the group Imarte on 2D printing. Continue the collaboration with leading companies in these technologies. Analyze from that point of view the arrival of material presence in art projects, through experimentation, documentation and publication of results.

Project Definition: MetaMethods. Shared methodologies and artistic processes in the Knowledge Society. 2010-2013

Our goal is to research on new methodological strategies of display and interpretation of art processes and their relationship with science. These methodologies would be based on the observation of the working methods used in scientific research, mapping such research onto data visualizations that allow for their transformation into art processes. We are interested in expanding the experience we have so far gathered as researchers in the field of digital technology in order to create a network of interactions between artists and scientists. For this reason we propose a space for encounter and collaboration between different research centers.

Objectives:
1. Artistic Research based on  the observation of scientific methods in different laboratories based in the following centers:
-Parque cientifico (PCB).
-Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNC),
-Environmental Health Clinic de NYU (EEUU, New York),
-Departament de Psiquiatria. Hospital de Sant Pau (Barcelona)
-Quality Image. Laboratoris Color EGM (Barcelona)
2. Experimentation and formalization of the research activity in different media, devices and contexts.
3. Conducting a workshop related to the above mentioned research lines.
4. Create an international network together with other research groups in order to share knowledge and methodologies, based on an understanding of the network itself  from the perspective of the paradigm that a digital environment defines, where processes at the simultaneously tools of communication, research and knowledge.
5. Dissemination and theorization of results. (on-line magazine).

Project Definition: Expanded Printing. Art and Printing; the impact of digital media in the context of printed art.2007-2009

The main goal of this project is to develop, contrast and share our studies in the field of artistic production made with digital technologies, from the perspective of their use in new creative methodologies.

Our most immediate objective is to organize an international forum in the shape of a symposium. This activity will be key to allow discussion, debate and exchange of opinions on  the impact that digital media has had over the past ten years in the context of the computerized printed image. It aims to generate an exchange of experiences that should dynamize our research structure, and therefore increase our expertise in the field of contemporary art today.

Objectives:
1. To gather a corpus of art produced through digital media, which will containing within itself (as artworks) the outcome of the research process.
1.1 To develop a technical research line on the materials and technologies of  new media related to two-dimensional and three-dimensional impression.
1.2 To organise, design and produce a "Collaborative Magazine" to be published on-line.
2. To organize and host the following symposium: "The Expanded Print. The Impact of Digital Media in the Context of Printed Image".
2.1 To analyse the impact that innovations in digital language have had over printing processes.
2.2 Confluence of different disciplines.
2.3 To generate a platform of debate that invigorates our knowledge on current contemporary art.
2.4 To share the results obtained.