:
(c) Matilde Igual Capdevila

ROUNDTABLE

Third Semester presentations/ installations

Third semester students present one of their recent works developped in the program.
 
Mariia Panina showed her work (RECORD) from the project Information through sound
Ultra-sonic sensor to explore space.
A space-specific model based on the architecture of the mall where the exhibit took place.
Spinning the perspecthive of the map of the mall, taking the exact location of the exhibition as center.
Storing the "sense" of space, creating a record.
Low frequencies.
The sensor calculates the distance through ultra-sound.
 
Irene Zluwa wasn´t present but displayed her construction kit for building models for sustainable and green cities (a work hich was part of the "Care" project)
Works with bits and pieces to raise awareness and convince.
Construction kit to communicate ideas on the issue of sustainable cities 
She started illustrating, making collages as a tool for communication.
Science-communication is one of the big issues on the program. How to transport ideas? Are we subordinates of scientists? How to approach the public?
 
Barbara Macek explained her ongoing project researching pain, her methods and outcome. The presentation leads to a small discussion.


Different types of pain, reconstructed

Elaine Scarry, the body in pain:  How to communicate pain, is there a language for it?
 
Field research, asking experts: institute for linguistics ( sprechen uber schmerzen) also with medical doctors, patients. Thus encountering different perspectives.
 
1. Poems: observations on trauma
2. Pictorial plates: collages
3. Interviews, reaching out
 
Cutting pain and cuts ( cut-up method as a production method), observation protocols, non participant observation ( quite common in social sciences) reverted into empathyc vision. A radical mode of seeing and feeling involving the outside-inside world of the observer, part of the collective sharing time and space.
Forms to profile pains: you can fill up your own profile here.
Build up a catalog of pains, an archive.  Pain can be a medium to go to the limits and beyond, but it can also render one passive.
It is also very important to talk about it, because pain tends to isolate people.
Overcome the dichotomy between physical and psychological pain. 
Cultural differences in describing and approaching pain, a historical dimension to it. 
Not communicating pain, not taking facts for granted. Barbara works with the experts and the patients and the pain, there is an interest in questions.

Barbara´s presentation took us to some important issues regarding research:
How to approach experts, institutes, other subjects,
Pain seen as a luxury, it means one can still feel it.
What is a lab? Can a BDSM club be a pain lab. Is drug abuse a form of research?
 
Anna Lerchbaumer presents her sound installation with transducers

She also announces her project for the open house: bringing summer memories and expanding the project mixing it with pop-culture elements. 

 
Daniela Brill introduced us to her work for Care for the inmaterial, reflecting on cells.
Went to the Vienna open lab (that she highly recommends).
She works with diaries accounting for the field research, poems, biology. Of diatoms and blue whales.
Currently she is drawing a lot and trying to put things together. She is trying to get in touch with the Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal.
At the open house she will give away fanzines, and she might also show the original drawings.
Trying to find a common point or a point, among religion, philosophy, biology. What is the origin of the energy which makes the cell want to divide? 
She has been caring about cells and watching how the cells divide. 
She recounted her research at the Vienna Open lab and her relation to the biologists there.
"He put this drop of violet ink, and killed the cells".
Daring to say something about life. It is something that not many scientists dare to do, talking about their beliefs, jumping from the facts to the faith. Dare to think what this energy is about.
What's the difference between a snowflake and a diatom, even if they are so similar? 
Assigning value and a sense of agency to a collection of chemical entities. Giving them a purpose or an intention. Observing the elements as distant as possible. Why should one assign agency to a cell?

Eleni Boutsika-Palles presented her work Periple.
She introduced us to her work and discussed the difficulties of documenting, preserving installations.

ROUNDTABLE
October 11, 2016