Eina Obra, in collaboration with HacTe and ICFO, presents DIFRACTA ’26, a new international festival of research and creation that will take place on 20 and 21 November at Eina Bosc (Barcelona). The project was born with the aim of opening a meeting space between art, design, philosophy and science to explore how the conceptual displacements associated with the quantum paradigm are transforming contemporary practices of research, creation and thought.
More than a festival on quantum physics, DIFRACTA explores how certain ideas arising from this field – such as relationality, intertwining, indeterminacy or the participation of the observer – are transforming contemporary research and creation practices, and how these notions are reinterpreted, translated and incorporated in fields as diverse as art, design, humanities or digital culture.
The festival is based on the observation that many of the conceptual frameworks inherited from modernity, based on the separation between subject and object, nature and culture or observer and phenomenon, are insufficient to address the complexity of current social, ecological and technological challenges. In this context, the quantum paradigm appears as a source of inspiration for imagining new ways of understanding the relationships between knowledge, matter, technology and society.
A transdisciplinary program
CHECK THE PROGRAM
Day 1 · Epistemology and Ontology
9.30–10.30
Artistic activation
Dr. masharu — The Museum of Edible Earth
Block 1 · Epistemology
How do we produce knowledge?
This block explores how knowledge is produced and how instruments, observation devices and material conditions participate in shaping what we can observe and know. Based on the notion of diffraction, it examines how methodological decisions condition what becomes visible, what counts as evidence and what remains outside the frameworks of observation.
10.30–11.30
Keynote presentation
Maciej Lewenstein (ICFO)
Diffraction, measurement and phenomenon in quantum physics
11.45–12.45
Simultaneous laboratories (to choose one)
- Observation devices — Pep Vidal
- Producing evidence in art and science — Anja Groten
- Infrastructure and evidence production — Forensic Architecture / Peter Teunissen
- Conditions of perception and observation — Claudia Claremí
Block 2 · Ontology
What understanding of reality does quantum physics involve?
This blog explores how quantum physics transforms our understanding of reality. Instead of a world made up of stable and independent objects, it shows a reality constituted through relationships between observers, devices, environments and phenomena. This displacement invites us to rethink what we mean by existence, observation and reality, as well as the role of scientific, artistic and design practices in shaping what we consider real.
13.00–14.00
Keynote presentation
Vlatko Vedral (University of Oxford)
15.30–16.30
Simultaneous laboratories (to choose one)
- Relational agency — Abelardo Gil-Fournier
- Reality after quantum physics — Sonia Contera
- Distributed authorship — Josep Perelló
- Relational Cartographies — Antonio Gagliano
16.30–17.30
Artistic activation
Reiko Yamada — Interference Field
Day 2 · Methodologies and Ethics
Block 3 · Methodologies
How do we investigate and create from this understanding?
This blog explores diffraction as a methodological practice for research and creation. Inspired by the proposals of Donna Haraway and Karen Barad, diffraction methodologies understand that methods are not neutral tools applied to a given reality, but configurations that participate in the production of what can appear, be observed and acquire meaning. From this perspective, researching and creating involves designing the conditions that make certain phenomena possible and analysing the decisions, inclusions and exclusions that intervene in their configuration.
10.00–11.00
Keynote presentation
Evelien Geerts (University College Cork)
11.15–12.15
Simultaneous laboratories (to choose one)
- Device Design: How to Produce Phenomena — Astrid Schrader
- Practicing diffraction — Ellen G. Richardson
- Diffractive reading of texts and processes — Blanca Pujals
Documentation and writing as part of the phenomenon — José Luis de Vicente
Block 4 · Ethics
What responsibilities emerge from these practices?
This blog explores what responsibilities emerge from understanding research and creative practice as interventions that participate in the configuration of social, material and ecological realities. From this perspective, ethics is conceived as a continuous attention to the consequences of our decisions and the effects they produce. Inspired by the notion of diffraction, this dimension invites us to reflect on what and who remains inside or outside our frameworks of observation, as well as on the responsibilities that arise from the relationships between the multiple actors —human and non-human— that make a phenomenon possible.
12.30–13.30
Keynote presentation
Femke Snelting (The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest)
15.00–16.00
Simultaneous laboratories (to choose one)
- Distributed responsibility in creative processes — Jara Rocha
- Tracing matter — Lucía C. Pino
- Mapping impacts beyond the project — Lara García Díaz and María García Ruiz
- More-than-human systems — Laboratori de Pensament Lúdic
Closing
16.15–17.15
Closing conference
Mónica Bello (Platform Dalí / Arts at CERN)
17.15–18.00
Performative reading
Lúa Coderch
DIFRACTA ’26 will feature five leading international framework presentations from the fields of physics, philosophy, digital culture and artistic and curatorial practices: Maciej Lewenstein (ICFO), Vlatko Vedral (University of Oxford), Evelien Geerts (University College Cork), Femke Snelting (The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest) and Mónica Bello (Platform DALI). Her interventions will address issues related to the epistemological, ontological, methodological and ethical dimensions associated with the quantum paradigm and will serve as a starting point for a broad program of laboratories, conversations and experimental processes.
The festival will also include sixteen research and creation laboratories led by internationally renowned individuals and groups linked to art, design, research, philosophy, digital culture and science. Among the participants will be Pep Vidal, Anja Groten, Peter Teunissen representing Forensic Architecture, Claudia Claremí, Abelardo Gil-Fournier, Sonia Contera, Josep Perelló, Antonio Gagliano, Astrid Schrader, Ellen G. Richardson, Blanca Pujals, José Luis de Vicente, Jara Rocha, Lucía C. Pino, Lara García Díaz and María García Ruiz, as well as the Laboratory of Ludic Thinking, made up of Antonio R. Montesinos and Susana Rodilla. These spaces will allow students to delve into methodologies, tools and practices that explore new ways of researching, creating and producing knowledge from a transdisciplinary perspective.
The program will be completed with several artistic and performative activations by Dr. Masharu (The Museum of Edible Earth), Reiko Yamada and Lúa Coderch, who will expand the contents of the festival beyond the conventional formats of conference or academic congress.
DIFRACTA is a particularly important moment for Barcelona, a city that in recent years has established itself as one of the main European ecosystems for meeting art, science, technology and contemporary thought. In this context, the initiative is also part of the Quantum Valley, a strategy aimed at positioning Catalonia as a benchmark scientific and technological hub in Europe in the field of quantum technologies.
