IF Lab showcase at Sensorium festival

Inspiration Forum Lab is a year-round programme of the Inspiration Forum connecting art and science. The current editioin explores the question of how water can guide us in the search for solutions to pressing environmental problems. The Bratislava based Sensorium Festival will on Saturday 8 June 2024 at 5:30 pm at the Goethe Institute Slovakia present three upcoming art projects. The Guild of Hydrosemiosis invites you to listen to water across different bodies, times and worlds, Disturbance & Artificial Creatures uses AI to explore the microscopic world of phytoplankton and Amphibious Tremology invites you to explore the amphibious worlds of the Romanian Danube Delta.

The Guild of Hydrosemiosis
Michał Dawid, Mirjami Lantto, Isabel Val Sánchez

The Guild of Hydrosemiosis calls upon the movements and memories of water among bodily, planetary, and speculative landscapes. Founded on the ancient practice of Hydromancy, the Guild practices (dis)located sonic rituals to attune to watery traces carried across different worlds, bodies, and times.

Disturbance & Artificial Creatures
Anthea Oestreicher, Vít Růžička, Weronika Zalewska

The multidisciplinary project serves as both witness and participant, melding the past, present, and speculative futures into a tapestry of inquiry and imagination. At its heart lies the microscopic world of phytoplankton, the tiny but mighty architects of oceanic ecosystems. By combining these present ecologies with archival footage and artificial intelligence (AI) trained models, we speculate about future ecosystems in a world of changing waters.

Amphibious Tremology
Kosmas Dinh, Mae Lubetkin, Michal Mitro

Our project reorients the act of listening from the sonic to the vibrant by gaining contact with trembling matter of amphibious worlds. Situated within the soaked and brackish Romanian Danube Delta, our contact-accelerometer recordings and haptic experiences trace waterways in transition and more-than-human transmission. By translating and amplifying the Delta vibroscape, we attune to its granular memory and ambient force. Our planned sculptural elements echo the Delta’s charged materials while our audio compositions will form spatial links with field recorded remnants.