Exploring New Opportunities for Art, Science, and Technology Collaborations


By focusing on EU initiatives like S+T+ARTS and the KIC EIT Culture and Creativity, we will explore frameworks that merge artistic creativity with scientific and technological advancements. The session will spotlight the growing potential for cultural institutions, artists, and researchers to work together on cutting-edge projects that shape the future of our societies.

Key European programs, each establishing connections between artists and researchers, will be highlighted. Speakers will introduce these initiatives, sharing the stage with artists and researchers who have participated in them to present their firsthand experiences. These case studies will offer practical insights into how collaborative projects can drive innovation, contribute to policy discussions, and stimulate critical reflections on democratic and environmental challenges.

Program Line-Up

1. Welcome & introduction to the session by Francesca Bria

• Speaker: Francesca Bria

Francesca Bria's will set the stage for the session by underscoring the value of creative collaboration in driving societal transformation. Highlighting her expertise in digital policy and innovation, she will emphasize the importance of fostering partnerships across these fields to address critical challenges such as sustainability, digital sovereignty, and democratic participation. This drawing from her experience with the New European Bauhaus and S+T+ARTS programs.

2. The reversal model, stimulating serendipity 

• Speaker: Christophe De Jaeger

Christophe De Jaeger will present the Creative Europe Program “Studiotopia”, a residency programme that was developed for researchers interested in collaborating with scientists. Studiotopia encourages renowned and emerging contemporary visual artists to host a scientist or researcher in the independent & inspiring environment of their studios, reversing the usual approach whereby artists are invited to work at R&D departments of universities or companies.

• Invited Researcher: Raoul Frese

Raoul Frese is a scientist, group leader in photosynthesis based solar cells and sensors at the dept. of physics and astronomy, and director of the artscience laboratory Hybrid Forms Lab at the Faculty of Science of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.Raoul Frese has taken on a three-year residency with filmmaker Manthia Diawara. Their starting point was the impact of artificial intelligence at the village of Yene near Dakar (Senegal), resulting in the essay-film A.I: African Intelligence. 

3. Navigating the digital realm and our democracies

• Speaker:  Veronika Liebl

Veronika Liebl will explore the interplay between the digital world and its effects on democratic systems. The EU Digital Deal represents a comprehensive European investigation into how the rapid and sometimes unexamined adoption of technologies—such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and algorithmic processing—can influence or compromise democratic processes. Artists are engaging in research on critical issues like combating disinformation, fostering digital commons, and leveraging art to create more inclusive and democratic spaces.

• Invited Artist: Martyna Marciniak 

Martyna is a Polish, Berlin-based artist and researcher. Her work explores spatial storytelling, speculative fictions, and 3D reconstruction to investigate cases of systemic violence and human rights abuses and question the role of technology in perpetuating or undoing existing biases and misconceptions. She has worked with media outlets including CNN and BBC, as well as NGO’s including Forensic Architecture, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. The research group Border Emergency Collective, which she co-established, investigated and documented stories of migrating people at the Polish-Belarusian border. Her artworks were exhibited at the Warsaw Biennale, Kinema Icon in Bucharest, Haus Gropius in Dessau, and deTour Festival in Hong Kong, among others.

4. Artistic Research: From Dissonance to Possibility

• Speaker: Florian Schneider

Florian Schneider, President of the Society for Artistic Research and Director of the new Institute for Creativity at the University of Galway, will attempt to address the elephant in the room of art and technology collaborations: Instrumentality and Instrumentalisation. While science has developed sophisticated techniques of instrumental reasoning, many artists seem rather allergic to any form of instrumentalisation of their work for purposes beyond its own sake. Yet in today's hyper-technological, networked world, there is no outside to instrumentality. At the same time, multiple urgencies are forcing artists to rethink and reinvent their role in societies facing massive change and upheaval. How can artists and scientists become aware of fundamentally different ways of dealing with instrumentality as a result of the distribution of tasks and division of labour? How can we reverse or reframe instrumental relationships in ways that produce unexpected outcomes and results? This contribution presents a tool that can help address the challenges of instrumentality and avoid some of the most common misunderstandings in cross-disciplinary arts and technology collaborations.

• Invited Artist: Mari Sanden

Mari Sanden is an artist and researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and project leader of the Horizon Europe-funded research project PACESETTERS, which explores the capacities of art and culture, heritage and creativity to drive the climate transition through artistic research. Sanden will present her latest work, the 'Instrumentality Tolerance Ladder', which - in some ways analogous to NASA's Technology Readiness Levels - can be used to assess nine different levels of understanding, working with and transcending instrumentality in specific contexts of artistic research.

5. New European Bauhaus: Making the Green Transition Irresistible

• Speaker: Vera Withagen

Vera Withagen will explore how the New European Bauhaus can drive the green transition by creating a compelling, attractive narrative that blends sustainability with beauty, inclusivity, and innovation. It will highlight how this initiative promotes a greener future by engaging citizens, industries (creative & non), and policymakers in a shared vision of sustainable living. By combining design, culture, and environmental consciousness, the New European Bauhaus seeks to picture the green transition not only as necessary, but irresistible.

Thank you for your interest in the Art & Science Conference at Berlin Science Week. Advance registration is now closed, as all tickets have been booked. However, if you didn’t manage to secure a ticket, we invite you to stop by shortly before each event begins. Any remaining spaces will be released on a first-come, first-served basis a few minutes prior to the start. We look forward to welcoming you!