Daniela DE PAULIS / Karen LANCEL and Hermen MAAT Moderator: Anna PRIEDOLA LOCATION: ZOOM / RIXC GALLERY https://festival2022.rixc.org/ Daniela DE PAULIS. Mare Incognito Mare Incognito is an interdisciplinary project exploring the poetic and philosophical aspects of transitional states of consciousness during sleep. The project includes a series of live performances poetically highlighting the gradual dissolution of consciousness and of the thinking process while falling asleep, alternatively shifting from the subjective to the cosmic perspective. During each performance, the brain activity of sleep is transmitted into space, in real time, by a radio antenna of the Square Kilometre Array in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The project crosses various fields of research, including radio astronomy, neuroscience, performance art, cosmology and intellectual history. Mare Incognito is a collaboration bringing together and stimulating intellectual exchange among researchers from renowned international institutions. Daniela De Paulis is a former contemporary dancer and a media artist exhibiting internationally. She is also a licensed radio operator (IU0IDY) and a radio telescope operator. Her artistic practice is informed by Space in its widest meaning. Since 2009 she has been implementing radio technologies and philosophies in her art projects. She is currently artist in residence at the SETI Institute and recipient of the Baruch Bloomberg Fellowship in Astrobiology at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. She is collaborating with some prominent research institutes such as INAF (Italian Research Institute for Radio Astronomy), the Donders Centre for Neuroimaging and the University of Cambridge. For her projects, she has been using state of the art radio telescopes, such as the Square Kilometre Array in the UK, as well as historical antennas, such as the Bochum Radio Observatory (DE) and the Dwingeloo radio telescope (NL). Here she initiated the art activities, working there from 2009 and 2019. At the Dwingeloo radio telescope she has developed the Visual Moonbounce technology (also called EME-SSTV), in collaboration with international radio operators, and a series of innovative projects combining radio technologies with live performance art and neuroscience. From 2010 to 2019 she has been collaborating with Astronomers Without Borders as the founder and director of the Arts programme. More recently, she has been collaborating with the Human Space Program, lead by space philosopher Frank White, with the Space and Society Working Group lead by philosopher James Schwartz and with the Lifeboat Foundation. Karen LANCEL, Hermen MAAT, Frances Maria BRAZIER. ‘Empathy Ecologies’: New Connections between Humans and Plants in Techno-Ecological Sensoriums. Can empathic new connections between humans, plants and technology be orchestrated in shared neurofeedback systems? This paper discusses the art and science research ‘Empathy Ecologies’ (Lancel/Maat 2020-2022); a critical and hopeful narrative about future Techno-Ecological Sensoriums. Increasingly, sustainable eco-systems are explored on the basis of actor-oriented approaches in which both human and non-human actors co-exist. This requires new awareness of different modes of multi-species interaction (Latour 1990, Haraway 2016, Morton 2018). This paper’s research focuses specifically on co-existence between humans, plants and digital technology. It explores whether ambiguous relations in splintered realities can facilitate shared empathetic awareness in such co-existence. A speculative, participatory ‘empathy script’ has been designed for an artistic performance; that includes a neural network in which a) biometric feedback of human-plant sensitivity (in a mini-forest of aerial root-plants) and b) human empathic interaction of kissing and caressing, are connected in c) an synthesised neurofeedback system and real-time soundscape. To this purpose, a brain computer interface is connected to plant C02 consumption and photosynthesis sensors. Together, humans and plants explore a new perspective on planetary, yet unpredictable ecologies of empathy. Performance presentations include Frascati Theaters Amsterdam (2020) and Museum for Circular Economy and MuHKA Museum Antwerpen (2022). This paper presents the first results of the ‘empathy script’ orchestrated for the performance installation, based on artist observations and participants responses. New, promising insights are presented on human-plant interaction, of hybridity and symbiosis. This fundamental research inspires new perspectives on future development of AI/AE neural networks and Techno-Ecological Sensoriums. Media art and science research duo Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat (Lancel/Maat, www.lancelmaat.nl) have presented their work internationally at Venice Biennial 2015; Ars Electronica Linz; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; RIXC Riga; LABoral Gijon; HeK Basel; ZKM Karlsruhe; Transmediale Berlin; Waag Society Amsterdam; Nabi Art Centre Seoul; Eyebeam New York; ISEA Istanbul, Hongkong, Gwangju and Helsinki. Their pioneering performance research in the field of neuro-bio-technological entanglement and AI is supported by University of Technology Delft (Participatory Systems Lab), HanzeHogeSchool and University Groningen, Creative Industries Fund, Mondriaanfonds. Residencies include EMAP/EMARE European Media Art Platform and RIXC Riga; MediaArt Center Banff Canada; TASML (Tsinghua University Art, Science and Media Lab) Beijing; Iaspis Stockholm. . Lancel/Maat’s works were honoured international art, media and science awards and grants, including TASIE Award for Art & Science and Innovation Beijing 2019; NFF Netherlands Film Festival Interactive Golden Calve Interactive nomination 2019; Mondriaan Fund Grants for Established Artists 2000-2020; Dutch Canon of Digital Art 1960-2000 / LIMA; Netherlands Society for Scientific Research (NWO). Lancel and Maat teach MFA Media Art and lecture internationally (Tsinghua University; Royal Art Academy The Hague; TEDX Istanbul; Vitra Design Basel; CHI Montreal; KTH Royal Institute of technology Stockholm Sweden; MA Film & television Amsterdam). They have (co-)published in Springer Verlag, Frontiers, Leonardo/MIT, Intellect Books UK) and their art works have been included in private and museum collections.