The Renewable Futures is a new conference series in the Baltic Sea and North European region that aims to invent new avenues for more sustainable and imaginative future developments. It will shape new contact zones between traditionally separated domains – art and science, academic research and independent creative practices, sustainable businesses and social engagement in the 21st century.

The 1st conference edition took place in Riga, from October 8–10, 2015, and it primarily focused on exploring the transformative potential of art in the post-media conditions. Today, according to several voices – Rosalind Krauss, Lev Manovich, Peter Weibel and Domenico Quaranta – we have entered the post-media age; there is no any single medium anymore that dominates in contemporary media art practices that are rather engaged with contemporaneity and critical thinking. The huge diversity of "post-media art" was profoundly explored also in the Fields exhibition (Riga 2014, http://fields.rixc.lv), curated by Raitis Smits, Armin Medosch and Rasa Smite. The Fields showed that art in post-media conditions contains highly transformative and visionary potential. However, symbolic and aesthetic qualities, as well as critical, investigative and confrontational aspects also proved to be just as important for "post-media art" to maintain a line between physical and mental, realities and utopias.

The conference themes:

• post-media art, avantgarde practices and theories,

• 'slow' / networked media art – preservation challenges for the museums,
  

• art and science – for building techno-ecological perspective,

• technopolitical investigations into the informational paradigm,

• Big Data and media visualizations,
  

• post-media architecture, sustainable design and open businesses,
  

• art / culture for sustainable development in the North.

The conference was complemented by a broad programme of the RIXC's annual festival, which in its 17th edition will manifest the post-media situation by changing its title and a shift – it now takes a turn from the festival's initial focus on information & communication technologies paradigm to the broader and more contemporary discourse on art and science, culture and sustainability, with particular interest on exploring and building techno-ecological perspective.

Festival's DATA DRIFT exhibition will also contribute to building post-media perspective.

* Public Keynotes:

Prof. Lev MANOVICH / The City University of New York
John THACKARA / Founding director of Doors of Perception

* Plenary Session / Thematic Keynote Speakers:

Prof. Domenico QUARANTA / Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera;
PhD Armin MEDOSCH / University of Arts in Belgrade; 
Prof. Dieter DANIELS / Academy of Visual Arts (HGB) in Leipzig;
Prof. Martha BUSKIRK / Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts; 
Prof. Katja KWASTEK / Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; 
Dr. Andreas BROECKMANN / Leuphana University Lüneburg;
Dr Geoff COX / Aarhus University

* Conference chairs: Dr Rasa SMITE / Art Research Lab of Liepaja University / RIXC and Dr Raitis SMITS / Latvian Academy of Arts 

* DATA DRIFT Exhibition curators: Lev MANOVICH, Raitis SMITS, Rasa SMITE

* Conference International Advisory board:

Dieter DANIELS, Douglas KAHN, Katja KWASTEK, Armin MEDOSCH, Regine DEBATTY, Gediminas URBONAS, Misko SUVAKOVIC, Jussi PARIKKA, Rob VAN KRANENBURG

* Conference Regional (BSR/North Europe) Organizational Board:

Chris HALES, Hege TAPIO, Vytautas MICHELKEVICIUS, Kristin BERGAUST, Lily DIAZ-KOMMONEN, Laura BELOFF, Raivo KELOMEES, Ilva SKULTE

 

 

* Conference Proceedings

Submitted papers from the conference will be published in Acoustic Space Journal. Founded in 1998 by E-Lab as artistic journal for sound art, networked audio experiments and new media culture, since 2007 Acoustic Space comes out as peer-reviewed journal for transdisciplinary research on art, science, technology and society, published by RIXC & Art Research Lab of Liepaja University.

http://acousticspacejournal.com

* Contact: rixc (at) rixc.org

* More information: http://rixc.org

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Organized by RIXC in collaboration with Art Research Lab of Liepaja University

Partners: Renewable Network, NORTH Creative Network, Culturability BSR
Support: State Cultural Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, Latvian Ministry of Culture, Creative Europa, EEA/Norway grants