Promoted by HacTe, the UOC and the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, the ACTS Network is launching pilot programmes to build this national network of agents working at the intersection of art, science, technology and society (ACTS). The first of these programmes is GRAPA, a proposal conceptualised by the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) and Hangar, Centre for Artistic Production and Research, in collaboration with the UOC.
The program aims to accompany and narrate processes of artistic creation that are located at the intersection of art, science, technology and society. It proposes that artists open up to shared support between complementary institutions that facilitates research, production and mediation during some phase of development of their project. At the same time, GRAPA is a device for the observation and reporting of artistic processes that aims to generate knowledge about the creation of projects that are fully located in interstitial spaces, straddling disciplines and institutions. Finally, it is a space for institutional and inter-institutional learning to imagine specific forms of support according to each project, imagining different frameworks, objectives and methodologies.
In 2023, GRAPA will have the coordination, reporting and accompaniment of Clara Piazuelo to the following artists and projects:
- Ad Tech Constellations – GRAPA Residency with Joana Moll
Ad Tech Constellations is a long-term research and action process that aims to provide in-depth knowledge about how the Ad Tech ecosystem (advertising technology) works. Ad Tech refers to the network of tools and software used by advertisers to reach audiences, as well as to display and measure digital advertising campaigns. The GRAPA accompaniment to the artist Joana Moll is focused on exploring the elementary architectures of these online advertising technology systems, generating a space in which these dark and seemingly immaterial structures enter into relationship with bodies and emotions. The research aims to make visible the conflicts with digital rights and the environmental costs of this type of practice and promote ethical and sustainable ways of doing things within the advertising industry.
With a team of artists, researchers and advisors, Joana Moll proposes a surprising combination: methods of systemic therapy (therapeutic discipline based on interpersonal relationships) with documentary theatre, in order to create a series of stage rehearsals.
Beyond portraying the technical elements and processes that make up the backbone of Ad Tech, the project focuses on the “intangible layers” that are intrinsically linked to the online advertising ecosystem, such as decision-making processes, energy consumption, environmental impact and all the emotional burden that exhausted and exploited users have to bear by free work.
Ad Tech Constellations is a project by Joana Moll in collaboration with the HGK FHNW Basel that begins in 2023 and is planned as a research-action process with a three-year course.
- ruido ê – GRAPA Residency with Sílvia Zayas
Ruido ê is a long-term research and artistic production project that explores the tensions between different modes of underwater perception and addresses in a speculative and experimental way the impact of anthropogenic noise on marine animals. Sílvia Zayas has based noise recreation on a species of electric stripes called Torpedo Torpedo that inhabit the coast, in urban areas such as the coast of Barcelona. They are popularly called “tremors” because they make them “tremble” if they give a discharge. Ruido ê is an artistic project that focuses on the perception and notion of noise, not only as an acoustic impact, but also as what we cannot read because we do not yet know.
The GRAPA accompaniment to Silvia Zayas, who is in the final phase of her project, consists of activating a study group that functions as a space for knowledge transfer and experimentation. The group will contribute to the creation of the final piece of the project: a film, and will participate in several sessions including the construction of a low-tech underwater recording device, a somatic care workshop, participation in a meeting with marine biologists, the creation of a collective breathing tube and the recording of a video clip.
These sessions will focus on methodological experimentation and will have a network of collaborators, including artists, scientists and researchers: Mar Medina, Susana Jiménez Carmona, Carmen Pardo, the Sasba Badalona diving club team, Cris Blanco, Xosé Quiroga, Miguel de les Heras, Anabel Colmenero, the Catsharks Association, Claudio Barría and Michel André.
Ruido ê has the support of the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation.
