We present the ACTS Network at Sónar+D 2023 as a space to establish connections between disciplines

At the Foundation we believe that contemporary challenges require dialogue, collaboration and the exchange of knowledge between different areas of research, creation and citizenship. With the aim of promoting synergies between agents and disciplines to face these challenges and build and imagine new narratives for the future, together with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and Hac Te (Art, Science and Technology Hub) we promoted the Art, Science, Technology and Society Network (ACTS Network), which we presented on 15 June at Sónar+D 2023.

Sónar+D, the international meeting of digital culture and creative technologies, becomes the setting for the public presentation of the ACTS Network, an initiative with which we seek to create a fluid environment of collaboration between artists, researchers and institutions that work at the intersection where Art, Science, Technology and Society converge.

In the SonarÀgora debate space, we will talk about the origin of this idea of an interdisciplinary network, we will share the main milestones of the project during its first year and the conclusions accumulated in this period and we will present the pilot projects deployed and the cartographies of the agents working at this intersection of knowledge in the three geographical nodes that currently make up the network: Catalonia, the Basque Country and Valencia, from where we promote cross-residencies, dialogues, grants and artistic interventions.

A presentation that is accompanied by the first work resulting from these relationships, Chemical Ecosystem, by the artist Yolanda Uriz, which will be exhibited by the ACTS Network and Hac Te in the Project Area space. Winner of the NASEVO 2022 scholarship from the Ernesto Ventós Foundation within the framework of ISEA2022 Barcelona. The piece is an example of the potential of interdisciplinary and inter-institutional relationships. It consists of a self-regulating mechanism that measures the state of the air and, depending on the results obtained, emits certain smells and translates the data into sound in search of a balance. It is a work that interacts with the environment that surrounds it at all times, from CO₂ to the spectators.

The public presentation of the network and the piece are part of the programme co-designed by Sónar+D and Hac Te to promote links between subjects.

The ACTS Network, a cross-cutting knowledge community

At the Foundation we are committed to the generation of alliances and convergence between the artistic and scientific community and citizens to face the uncertainties of the future. For this reason, together with the UOC and Hac Te, we are promoting the ACTS Network, which is based on the need to bring together the diversity of agents located in this synergy of knowledge throughout the country, allowing the structuring of a state ACTS ecosystem and seeks to promote the exchange of knowledge between university, cultural and artistic, scientific and technological research environments.

Its objective is to promote research, production, promotion and dissemination of projects, devices or initiatives that involve the intersection of these different fields of knowledge. This involves the creation of new forms of artistic expression in relation to scientific and technological advances, as well as the exploration of how art can influence scientific and technological development, and how from this hybridization it is possible to address current problems and challenges.

A network of statewide reach through its geographical nodes

The ACTS Network is organized through the engine of interconnected geographic nodes, which enables us to strengthen the community and the alliances generated. Their function is to act as research centres and spaces for the production and dissemination of initiatives, as well as to facilitate the creation of synergies between local, regional, state and international contexts.

Currently, the geographical nodes of the network are Barcelona/Catalonia, coordinated by the UOC, Hac Te, Hangar (centre for artistic production and research) and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB); Donostia/Euskadi, where Tabakalera and the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) are the institutions in charge; and Valencia, promoted by the Universitat Politècnica de València and other cultural centres. Madrid will become the fourth node in the network, now in the process of being set up with the help of the Carlos III University, and, as the phases evolve, new nodes will emerge, allowing the project to be transferred to a multitude of regions of the Spanish geography.

During the month of May, in the current nodes we held the first three meetings where, with around 90 researchers and artists working in this interdisciplinary field, we had the opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences, discuss the objectives, priorities and next steps of the project and draw up a shared action plan. thus strengthening cooperation. After the meetings, each node has established cartographies of the agents working in these areas and a report has been prepared with the main conclusions.

First pilot programs of the network

Through the ACTS Network we try to promote, develop and disseminate action research projects, pilot programs that integrate both theoretical and practical research and allow the generation of specific knowledge and results that contribute to the consolidation of the network.

The first of these pilot programmes, launched in March 2023, is GRAPA, an artistic residency programme promoted by the CCCB and Hangar in collaboration with the UOC, which aims to accompany and recount creative processes that are located at the intersection of art, science, technology and society. During the development of their projects, artists begin to be accompanied by complementary institutions that promote research, production and mediation.

Throughout this year, she will be accompanied by the artist Silvia Zayas, with her project Ruido ê , which addresses the question of how anthropogenic noise affects marine species and explores the tensions between different modes of underwater perception, and Joana Moll, with her work Ad Tech Constellations, which seeks to deepen the knowledge of the Ad Tech ecosystem. The Digital Art Exhibition Digital Impact, open to the public until 28 August, hosted a conversation on 11 May about this programme, which served as the closing of the day of the Barcelona node, where Moll was able to explain his project and the synergies generated in it.

RACOR, a programme of cross-residencies for artistic research, is the second pilot project of the ACTS Network, which connects the Donostia and Barcelona node. Promoted by Tabakalera, Hangar and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, it received more than 76 applications submitted in this first call that closed with the election of the artist Constanza Piña with her project Sedna, a scientific-poetic narrative about the lament of the Earth that connects different voices of organic, mineral and celestial bodies.

From the Foundation we consider it necessary to promote this type of initiative that is a meeting point between citizens, the artistic and scientific worlds. We hope that the network will continue to land, little by little, in various areas of the country and that through each project, each idea, each research, the new state ecosystem of the ACTS will be strengthened.

Image credits: Tom Mesic