WEAVING WORLDS – INTER:ACTIVE SYMPOSIUM MONDAY MARCH 20, 2023

15:00-15:05 – Welcome to INTER:ACTIVE SYMPOSIUM by Mark Atkin

15:05-15:30 – The Metaverse: Whose Is It? by Sofie Hvitved

We are on the verge of a new convergence of our physical and virtual lives. Although the precise meaning of the term “metaverse” has yet to be established, it is generally accepted that it refers to the transition from the flat or two-dimensional world of the internet to the three-dimensional world being inside the internet instead of on the internet, where users can create new virtual identities and bring previously unimaginable virtual worlds and digital twins to life.

15:30-15:45 – CPH:LAB Projects Presentations I

15:45-15:55 – Weaving Worlds by Lauren Moffatt

Lauren Moffatt will share some of the motivations behind her own world building practice and how it has accelerated and streamlined with the steady introduction of new tools and formats over recent years. How likely is it that soon regular people will be producing and publishing their own personal game worlds, and what does this mean for our shared virtual landscapes?

15:55-16:35 –THE POETICS AND PROBLEMATICS OF GAME ENGINES, Jakob Kudsk Steensen in conversation with Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley

Game engines have been seen as tools for entertainment the past few decades. But behind the surface lies the emergence of a new spatial language, where sound, movement and space can interconnect and spread ideas and perceptions in profound new ways. Taking their artworks as examples, Kudsk Steensen and Brathwaite-Shirley will dive into the use of video game engines for collaborative, poetic, and sensory ways of understanding the emerging metaverse and consider what type of work gets funded, what type of work is allowed on existing platforms, and what gets erased as a consequence?

16:35-16:50 – CPH:LAB Projects Presentations II

16:50-17:05 – Signal to Society by Eva Jäger

New tech and interest in ‘The Metaverse’ and ‘Web3’ are an opportunity to rethink ecosystem design for art and advanced technologies (AxAT). Serpentine’s Arts Technologies Curator, Eva Jäger, shares the work of Future Art Ecosystems (FAE) an evolving resource for crystallising the dynamics and opportunities within emerging technology spaces for building 21st century public cultural infrastructure (systems required to produce, distribute and financially support AxAT practices that are responsive to the most urgent techno-social issues of our time).

17:05-17:25 – Solidarity Tech by Calum Bowden

Calum Bowden discusses the role Web 3 might play in creative ecosystems, delving into federated networks, community archives, and the importance of interoperability and common-ground in enabling a multitude of niche and situated practices to flourish.

17:25-17:40 – CPH:LAB Projects Presentations III

17:40-18:00 – Deepfake Drag: Queering AI in Art by Jake Elwes

Searching for poetry and narrative in the success and failures of AI systems, Jake Elwes investigates the aesthetics and ethics inherent to AI. In his practice he seeks to queer datasets, demystifying and subverting predominantly cisgender and straight AI systems. While it may seem like the AI is a creative collaborator, Elwes is careful to point out that the AI has neither intentionality or agency; it is a neutral agent existing within a human framework.

End Remarks & Wrap Up by Mark Atkin

The Symposium is followed by the CPH:LAB Prototype Pop-Up event at 19:00-22:00 at Odd Fellow Palace.