EPFL CDH Artist in residence

Initiated by EPFL College of Humanities (CDH) Direction, and amplified by EPFL Pavilions, the EPFL CDH Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Program reflects the CDH mission of fostering transdisciplinary encounters and collaborations between artists and EPFL’s scientific community. The program invites emerging and established international artists and creative practitioners for three- to four-month residencies to realize innovative and visionary projects at the intersection of art, science, and advanced technologies.

For its first comprehensive edition, the Artist in Residence (AiR) Program of EPFL College of Humanities (CDH) intends to further various interpretative and aesthetic avenues around the manifold scientific landscape of the EPFL through specific artistic productions. Forging encounters between artists and scientists in different disciplines, the program aims to establish a dynamic, critical, and inspiring platform for propelling new approaches and aesthetic investigations within the exponentially developing scene at the intersection of art, technology, science, and the humanities. Thus, beside specific areas identified by the program in order to guarantee certain already established collaborations with specific labs, the “Open Transdisciplinary” path will remain a constant. The program functions as a facilitator and promoter of investigations in multiple directions, many of which will be discovered through the submitted projects themselves.

For its first comprehensive edition, the program offers four paths:

Open Transdisciplinary welcomes international artists and practitioners from all disciplines and media to propose projects which reflect the main intention of the program, namely to investigate the fluid intersection between art, humanities, science, and technology.

Wearable Technologies in collaboration with EPFL Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory (NANO) and Laboratory of Integrated Performance in Design (LIPID), prioritizes artists and designers, including those working in the fields of fashion and jewelry.

Interface Design and Digital Animation in collaboration with EPFL Reconfigurable Robotics Lab (RRL), prioritizes artists and designers working in the field of emerging technologies.

Scientific Imaging in collaboration with the EPFL Center for Imaging, prioritizes artists familiar with imaging technologies, CGI, digital practices, and visual arts more broadly.

Boursiers

Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson

2020-2021

Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson have been chosen as the next artists-in-residence at EPFL Pavilions. Dubbin and Davidson are interdisciplinary artists based in Brooklyn, New York and Northern California. Their work has been described as addressing processes of transmission and reception, interference and transference, often seeking to materialise immaterial or ephemeral states of matter (sound, light, air, time).
Developed in the framework of a remote version of the artist-in-residence programme, the installation Delay Lines, (feedback) is a new variation of the work begun in the context of IF THE SNAKE, the Okayama Art Summit 2019, produced for the exhibition: Nature of Robotics. Dubbin & Davidson’s knowledge in the field of soft robotics is enriched by data developed in collaboration with EPFL’s Biorobotics Laboratory, led by Auke Ijspeert. The visualisation explores the relationships between a soft robotic manta ray and a simulated virtual environment. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the artists and scientists had to devise and complete the collaboration remotely.

Artists' website The beauty of movement explored through art and science The Spell of a Soft Manta - Nature of Robotics: In Conversation Series Nature of Robotics: An Expanded Field

Nora Al-Badri

2019–2020

Nora Al-Badri was chosen to be the first artist to join this new residency program. She officially began in July 2019 and was hosted by the Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+). Her work will culminate in November 2020 with an exhibition, Babylonian Vision — الرؤية البابلية, a public lecture and a two-day workshop at EPFL Pavilions.

Nora Al-Badri is a multidisciplinary media artist with a German-Iraqi background. She lives and works in Berlin. She graduated in Political Sciences at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main. Since 2009, she collaborates with Jan Nikolai Nelles in some of her works.

Nora Al-Badri’s work has featured in The New York Times, BBC, The Times, Artnet, Wired, Le Monde Afrique, Financial Times and Arte TV, amongst others.

Artist’s Website Works A conversation with EPFL's artist-in-residence, Nora Al-Badri

Évènements

Artist-in-Residence

Babylonian Vision – الرؤية البابلية

Pavillon A