This year's RIXC Art Science festival with the title Symbiotic Sense(s) will take place from October 23-25, 2024, in Riga, Latvia, exploring art, technology, and collective intelligence from the perspective of sensual perception and extended cognition. The  festival, positioned at the intersection of symbiotic art aesthetics and visionary scientific paradigms, aims to embrace symbiotic thinking, based on a close collaboration between nature and culture, combining individual responsibility with collective action towards a more symbiotic future.

The key event of the festival is the Symbiotic Sense(s) exhibition, which will open at the National Library of Latvia on October 23, 2024 featuring artworks by both Latvian and international artists. The exhibition will be accompanied by a conference on the symbiosis between art and science, for which artists and researchers are welcome to submit proposals by September 20, 2024. The festival program will also include the opening of the Deep Sensing exhibition at the RIXC Gallery and a workshop on art and AI by artist Rosemary Lee. 

Through exhibitions, performances, workshops, and conference discussions, the festival will explore themes such as: extended cognition, externally sensory systems, naturally-artificial environments, sensing machines, artificial life, symbiotic sciences, nature-cultures, and collective intelligence.

Me AndOther Me (Cenk Güzelis & Anna Pompermaier / Austria). Be my guest!, 2024.

Festival concept

Symbiosis, originating in biology, denotes the collaboration among different species, shaping the course of evolution. From Lynn Margulis's pioneering work on symbiotic systems to contemporary discussions such as extended cognition (understanding that our brains, bodies, and environment are tightly intertwined) or holobionts (formed by the association of different species that become an ecological unit), the understanding of interconnectedness across species has expanded, calling for the urgent need for new artistic and utopian visions. Symbiosis defines our existence, highlighting our complete interdependence on our environment and planetary system. As Caroline A. Jones has put it: 'The sooner we discard the notion of selfishness—whether individual or genetic—the better.' Collaborative sensing of our dependence on planetary systems is crucial for our consciousness and survival. If we fail to adapt, extinction may be our fate.

RIXC festival curators Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits offer the idea about symbiotic senses and its relation to extended cognition and collective intelligence ideas. This symbiotic coexistence, rooted in the shared habitat of the biosphere, underscores the role of sensory perception in facilitating non-linear, indirect communication and collaboration. However, the intricacies of living together are upheld within a complex socio-technosphere, built upon advanced intelligent technologies that prioritize the brain as the centralized mechanism for decision-making. This emphasis tends to exclude that sensing-based learning, knowing and decision making based on sensual experiences and other intelligent and cognitive processes beyond the brain, which are extended throughout the human body, in non-human worlds, and our planetary systems.  

The so-called sixth sense, based on a symbiotic understanding of sensual perception, has been chosen to outline the axes around which new speculations and utopias for a symbiotic future will be built. But it's not just a metaphor; new scientific discoveries also inspire the search for a symbiotic understanding of our worlds. We are aware that the five human senses are perceived through the use of sensory organs. But what about the elusive 'sixth' sense? Recent scientific studies suggest that it may indeed be a 'symbiotic' one, indicating that bacterial communities, for example, on animals play a significant role. One such 'sense' is "magnetoreception," enabling some organisms to detect a magnetic field for navigation purposes. Birds, fish, and other creatures thought to possess this sense may use the Earth’s weak magnetic field to navigate. Another 'symbiotic' sense, ‘solarception’, as described by Douglas Kahn, synchronizes us with the planetary system cycles (circadian rhythms). He argues that our eyes, beyond providing vision, also serve as solar sensors. These senses are even more pronounced in the plant world, where their bodies are very different from humans and animals; they are 'externally sensory systems' without organs, facilitating intelligent behavior despite lacking brains. Hence, symbiotic senses are crucial for understanding extended cognition serving the fundamentally new perspective towards living together on our planet.

The festival seeks new ways of nurturing symbiotic relationships to shape our future. If the individualism dominant in Western culture faces criticism, urging its abandonment for symbiotic evolution, then conversely, in other (Central-North-Eastern) European cultures, influenced by historically imposed collectivism, exemplified by Latvia, the festival's host, seek revised forms of mutual cooperation by collaborating with indigenous, traditional, and minority cultures with different backgrounds and historical paths. In the context of current global conflicts and political polarization, these divergent viewpoints between these historical parallels of development offer fertile ground for new ideas and visions towards a more sustainable future based on symbiotic coexistence.

Drawing inspiration from these tensions between parallel developments—ranging from the original proposal of symbiosis as an evolutionary theory in biology to the contemporary idea of holobionts as a complex entity of organisms living in close association with each other—on one side, and from early visions of 'human-computer' symbiosis to contemporary 'sensing machines' on the other,  the festival will provide a platform for artists, scientists, technologists, and theorists to engage with these concepts.

Exhibition

At the intersection of symbiotic art aesthetics and visionary scientific paradigms, the festival's key event – the Symbiotic Sense(s) exhibition – will be on view from October 24 to December 7, 2024 at the National Library of Latvia, presenting artworks by international and Latvian artists reconsidering the boundaries between self and other, human and machine, and natural and artificial. The exhibition will feature artworks by artists from the European Media Art Platform (EMAP), as well as Latvian and other internationally renowned artists. 

Tatsuru Arai (Japan/Germany). Face of the Universe, 2023.

One of the key exhibition artworks is the Be My Guest! artwork by artist duo Me AndOther Me (Cenk Güzelis & Anna Pompermaier), a mixed-reality (XR) installation, that invites exhibition visitors to a dinner with AI, redefining the fabric of communal gathering in the digital age, mirroring our current condition of dwelling in multiple realities and investigating how we inhabit and interact within networked virtual spaces.

The borders between the human and digital also converge in the Retraining Laziness video artwork by T(n)C (Agnes Varnai & Tina Kult), which follows a conversation between a human worker and a malfunctioning robot as they discuss unhealthy production conditions and their own relationship to work and time.

T(n)C (Agnes Varnai & Tina Kult / Germany/ Hungary). Retraining Laziness, 2023.

Mónica Rikić’s Hipèrbole artwork challenges the predominant role of spoken and written language in human-machine communication. Meanwhile, the artist duo Studio Above & Below investigates multi-species communication in future cities through the means of advanced technologies at the Meditative Cohabitation artwork.

Exhibition artists: Tatsuru ARAI (JP/DE), Po-Hao CHI (TW), Santa FRANCE (LV), Sasha LITVINTSEVA & Beny WAGNER (UK/DE), Me AndOther Me / Cenk GÜZELIS & Anna POMPERMAIER (AT/IT), Mónica RIKIĆ (ES), Studio Above & Below (DE/UK), Sabīne ŠNĒ (LV), T(n)C / Agnes VARNAI & Tina KULT (DE/HU). By giving prominence to our senses and metaphorically understanding the sixth sense as an extension of cognition beyond the human, the exhibition artworks explore new ways of sensing and envisioning our future coexistence. 

Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits. Deep Sensing, 2023. MEET Digital Culture Center, Milan.

As part of the program, the Deep Sensing exhibition by Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, which has been exhibited in Milan (Italy) and Taipei (Taiwan), will open on October 24, 2024 at the RIXC Gallery and will be on view for the first time as part of the RIXC festival in Riga until December 7, 2024.

Conference

The international Open Fields conference taking place from October 23–25, 2024 at the Neiburgs Hotel, National Library of Latvia and online will bring together Latvian and international scholars and artists to discuss topics related to artistic research, the changing role of art in societies, and art and science collaboration.

Symbiotic Sense(s) invites participants to reconsider the boundaries between self and other, human and machine, and natural and artificial, aiming to embrace symbiotic thinking, inspiring conversations on collaboration and fostering collective action towards a more symbiotic future.

Apply for the Open Fields conference by September 20, 2024! Submit applications (short abstract and biography) here:
https://openfields2024.rixc.lv/openconf.php

We welcome proposals by interdisciplinary researchers, artists, artists-researchers, designers, Ph.D. students, curators, media theorists, art historians, science philosophers, cultural innovators, critical engineers as well as scientists related to the following topics:

- sensing machines and artificial life
-extended cognition and externally sensory systems
-symbiotic Sciences and collective intelligence
-nature cultures and naturally-artificial environments

Early Bird festival tickets / registration for the conference until October 10, 2024:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/999218548577?aff=oddtdtcreator

Festival program:
Festival: October 23–25, 2024
Open Fields conference: October 23–25, 2024, Neiburgs Hotel, Jauniela 25/27; National Library of Latvia; online on Zoom.
Symbiotic Sense(s) exhibition: October 24–December 7, 2024, National Library of Latvia. Opening: October 23, 2024, at 18.00.
Deep Sensing exhibition: October 25–December 7, 2024, RIXC Gallery, Lencu iela 2. Opening: October 24, 2024, at 18.00.

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Festival is produced by the RIXC Centre for New Media Culture.

Festival curators and concept authors – Rasa Smite (rasa@rixc.org) and Raitis Smits (raitis@rixc.org)

Festival producers:
Līva Siliņa – PR and information coordinator (rixc@rixc.org, +371 25358541),
Agnese Baranova – festival and exhibition producer (agnese@rixc.org, +371 29635167),
Daina Siliņa – conference (daina@rixc.org, +371 29463054),
Lelde Gūtmane – festival producer assistant (rixc@rixc.org, +371 28365323).

Contact e-mail: rixc@rixc.org

Address: RIXC Centre for New Media Culture, Lencu iela 2, Riga, LV-1010.

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More information:
https://festival2024.rixc.org/

Support:
State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, Creative Europe program in the framework of the EMAP Expanded project, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, National Library of Latvia.

Informative support: We Make Money Not Art, Echo Gone Wrong.