FIS Newcastle 2022 Topics
-
FUTURE CITY
Everyone’s talking about smart and creative future cities, focusing on technology. But what is a smart city? Isn't it actually about us, the people who live in these cities? Imagine a smart city with smarter citizens… How do we share our ideas as young people with the adults in charge of making change?… Imagine your ideal future city. How do you feel about it and what does smart mean to you?
-
FUTURE WORK
New generations are a catalyst for contemporary views on work attitude and practice of today. So too are new technologies such as AI which are already reshaping the modern work landscape. Many believe the future of work is mostly remote. How do we want our future work to be and with a positive purpose for the community? How can we create an ideal, balanced work and life balance? Do you see yourself collaborating with more machines in your future work?
-
FUTURE EDUCATION
Due to Covid-19, the future of learning is going through a huge shift and it's happening so fast. Information is at our fingertips - whether you're an educator or a student. What works and what doesn’t work with this new realm? How do we take on this change and find better ways to learn? How do we open it up to make it a two-way learning stream? How do we find ways to teach educators in our new age of information?
Program Overview
FRIDAY | September 23
9am - FIS Breakfast / Inspirational Flash Talks / Workshops (Q Building)
1pm - FIS Safari (Newcastle Tour)
4pm Kickoff Opening (Q Building) | Catered | REGISTER HERE
5pm Feature Artist Talks: Andrew Styan & Aaron Parker (Q Building)
SATURDAY | September 24
9am - Mentor Sessions | Workshops (Camp Shortland, Honeysuckle Park, NuSpace)
2pm - Special Feature Presentation: Sarah Jane Pell [aka Artist-Astronaut] (Civic Park Stage)
3pm - Global Future Expert Forum (UoN NuSpace x202)
SUNDAY | September 25
10am - Workshops (UoN NuSpace)
2pm - FIS Final Presentation & Performance (Civic Park Stage)
CQ Parade (leave from Civic Park)
ALL FIS EVENTS ARE FREE
FIS Mentors
Dr. Sarah Jane Pell (AU)
Dr. Sarah Jane Pell (a.k.a Artist Astronaut) is an extreme performance artist testing experiential technologies and human expression from Sea, to Summit, to Space. Pell is an Associate Professor at Monash University in Human-Centred Computing and Creativity and an Artist-in-Residence at the Monash Immersive Visualisation Platform.
She founded the Aquabatics Research Team initiative (ARTi) and uses her experiences in high-risk operational environments to inform her artwork. She was a Simulation Astronaut for the European Undersea Lunar Analogue Human-Robotic trials (MOONWALK) and Artist Aquanaut for the Atlantica Undersea Expeditions. Her expeditionary research and creativity serve to impact the future of culture and discovery in exploration positively and inspire new works of art. Dr Pell is an Australia Council Fellow, TED Fellow, and Gifted Citizen.
Hideaki Ogawa (JP)
Director of Ars Electronica Futurelab, Director of Ars Electronica Japan. “Art is a catalyst for shaping a better future society.”
Hideaki Ogawa is a creative catalyst, artist, educator, curator and researcher in the field of art, technology, and society. He is currently a Co Director of Ars Electronica Futurelab as well as a Director of Ars Electronica Japan.
His special research focus is Art Thinking and he has conducted many innovation projects in Art and Science, Art and Industries and Art and Society. In addition to the artistic innovation research, he has realized international projects for festivals, export programs like Ars Electronica in the Knowledge Capital, School of the Future with Tokyo Midtown and the Ars Electronica Center in Linz.
María José Sanchez-Varela Barajas (MX)
Maria is a dancer, philosopher - social scientist and entrepreneur. She started dancing at the age of 5. Flamenco dance and understanding expressive communication between humans and artificial intelligence is one of her passions. In early 2014 Maria co-founded her first company, Culturista, a digital culture, and tourism startup continuing its mission to research the future of intelligent cities and the interrelationship of how we cohabit spaces. She led the successful bid of Guadalajara as UNESCO city of Media Arts, involving a unique collaboration across academia, industry, governance, and citizens. In 2020 she was the head director of the Ars Electronica Garden TECH-ila. Since mid-2021 Maria José has been part of the New Movers initiative with the City of Newcastle and focused on bringing international and LATAM collaborations in the innovation ecosystem of the city.
Dr. Nathaniel Bavinton (AU)
Associate Director, URBIS
Dr Nathaniel Bavinton is an urban sociologist and city strategist with 15 years’ experience researching, planning and implementing urban and social innovation. Nathaniel provides deep insights from over a decade in the local Government sector managing smart places, economic development, sustainability, innovation, night-time economy and place activation portfolios
Brad Smith (AU)
Lead Engineer, Smart Energy, GRIDSIGHT
Brad is an expert in the field of future energy networks and distribution. He has a double degree in physics (photonics) and electrical engineering from the University of Wollongong as well as a master of Data Science from UNSW. Brad has 15 years applied knowledge in the fields of Grid Technologies, Operational Systems (GIS, DMS), Data Acquisition (SCADA, IoT), Analytics and System / Business Optimisation. He is passionate about the use of data and advanced processing techniques to optimise urban infrastructure and build better/smarter future energy grids.
Christina Gerakiteys (AU)
Christina Gerakiteys is a catalyst for change, alchemising impossible to possible through the unleashing of human potential. She is on a mission to enable the enablers and to empower and inspire leaders to converge minds, technology and fields, to have maximum impact, through the opening of hearts and minds. As CEO of UtopiaX, Co-CEO of SingularityU Australia and Founder of IdeaSparx, Christina is an international speaker, facilitator, and program designer, creating interactive educational experiences driven by design thinking, purpose, engagement, and play. The programs disrupt current mindsets to Moonshot thinking. Christina runs an accelerator program for startups, is an ambassador for Tech Central Sydney, a judge for Smart 50, a chief judge for Pause Awards and designs bootcamps for Nandin Innovation.
David McDonald (AU)
David is a sound designer, creative technologist, musician, composer and audio and podcast producer. Employed at the ABC’s internal creative agency ABC Made he oversees the sonic personality of the ABC’s many brands and products with audio elements. Currently involved with using machine learning and artificial intelligence technology to generate brand specific voice synthesis. Also known for being a founder of parachute based toasted sandwich delivery service Jafflechutes and snack dispensing arcade game Snackade. He’s excited to join the Future Innovators Summit in Newcastle with his five year old daughter Dorothy by his side.
Jacob Ridgeway (AU)
Jacob Ridgeway award-winning singer/songwriter/performing artist and proud First Nations Worimi Guri / Gamilaroi Mari. Jacob has also been working in the music industry as a freelance musician and an advocacy voice to many spaces including Australia Council of the Arts, BigSound, QMF and the University of Newcastle. Jacob currently works at APRA AMCOS at the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Music Office.
FIS Mentor Facilitators
Mark Bolotin (AU)
Mark Bolotin (AUS) is an award-winning multimedia director, inventor and futurist, as well as the artistic director of Synarcade Audio-Visuals and co-founder of the renowned New York art technology company Hyphen Hub. Bolotin has created and presented large-scale interactive multimedia work across the world including at the Sydney Opera House, New York Hall of Science, Museum of Modern Art (Zagreb), 3LD New York, TEDxSydney, Burning Man and SXSW.
Lizzie Crouch (UK/AU)
Lizzie Crouch is a creative producer specialising in interdisciplinary projects that promote engagement with science and technology. Among other roles, she was the Senior Coordinator of Engagement for SensiLab, Monash University, produced art-science seasons for the Science Gallery network (MOUTHY, London and BLOOD, Melbourne), and worked has a freelance creative producer for organisations including Superflux, the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, and the Francis Crick Institute. She is currently a PhD candidate within UNSW’s School of Art and Design, where she is investigating what practices that bring arts and sciences together can create more inclusive experiences.
Dr. Alonso Casanueva Baptista (MX)
Alonso is a Mexican philosopher and educator. His research explores radical definitions of learning through a critical engagement with alternative pedagogies and American philosophies of education. He works as a Sessional Academic teaching Sociology and Human Geography subjects at La Trobe University and the Australian Catholic University, in Melbourne. He is also the production editor of Thesis Eleven, journal of critical theory and cultural sociology.
FIS Local Facilitators
Elizabeth Blaxland (AU)
Elizabeth brings to the FIS a life-time of creative arts experience. Born and bred in the Hunter, she understands the region’s unique attributes and potential. Elizabeth has been employed as a theatre practitioner specialising in stage and organisational management, acting and project realisation. Elizabeth believes that creativity begins at birth as we explore the new world about us and learn and grow. The FIS is an opportunity to harness the imagination and aspirations of young people, unfettered by society’s constraints and learnt knowledge, relying instead on each participant’s unique talents and contribution. Elizabeth has a bachelor of creative industries with distinction from the University of Newcastle.
Estelle Leishman (AU)
Recently graduated creative professional from the University of Newcastle. My speciality involves community work and children's art education. I enjoy collaborating with other disciplines and using my abilities as a visual artist to help problem solve. I believe that art is for everyone, and I aim to reflect this through my work. My passions include universal design, accessible teaching and art therapy, all of which I try to let continuously inform my personal practice.
Andrew Styan (AU)
Andrew Styan is a visual artist developing approaches for making space in an increasingly polarised world for the conversations, ideas and vision needed to address our common social and ecological crises. Building on a former career as an industrial metallurgist and lifelong interests in science and photography, his practice uses coding, data visualisation, interactivity and mechatronics to create objects and installations that often reference natural processes and scientific principles. Andrew is a Harold Schenberg Fellow, a Newcastle University Medallist and a recipient of a European Commission STARTS prize. He has exhibited widely locally and nationally, most recently with works touring in the popular Experimenta Media Art national triennial.
You Are Here
It is often said that “everything is connected” but this is sometimes difficult to imagine. You Are Here is an interactive exploratory mapping platform for making visible the invisible connections between the planetary and social systems that we are all part of and uses our lived experience to show how we are part of those systems. In the prototype version of the project being shown for the first time at FIS Newcastle 2022 the visualised journey of a single breath or the current location of 16,000 breaths links the personal act of breathing with the atmospheric processes of wind and rain. Future versions will draw on the work of other artists, scientists or cultural researchers to explore diverse ways of linking us to other systems such as energy, water, food, money, history, or migration and shift the focus from the planetary scale to the local scale where we live and act.
Website: https://andrewstyan.com/
Featured Artists
Dr. Sarah Jane Pell (AU)
Presentation
Join Sarah Jane Pell (aka Artist Astronaut) at the Civic Park Stage at 2:00pm! The artist/researcher/occupational diver will deliver a presentation (of a different kind) about her work and perspective on art and the future.
Pell is Associate Professor at Monash University in Human-Centred Computing and Creativity and an Artist-in-Residence at the Monash Immersive Visualisation Platform. She founded the Aquabatics Research Team initiative (ARTi), was a Simulation Astronaut for the European Undersea Lunar Analogue Human-Robotic trials (MOONWALK), and Artist Aquanaut for the Atlantica Undersea Expeditions. Her expeditionary research and creativity serve to impact the future of culture and discovery in exploration positively and inspire new works of art. Dr Pell is an Australia Council Fellow, TED Fellow, and Gifted Citizen. This is an event not to be missed!
Saturday September 24 | Civic Park Stage | 2:00pm
Courtesy of New Annual, Art Thinking Australia, and Colourworks.
Aaron Parker (AU)
Aaron is an upcoming artist, Having graduated from the University of Newcastle in 2021 with a Bachalor of Visual Communication Design (Interaction & Animation), In 2022 he has been furthering his study by undertaking his honours year for the above degree, in which he has been researching the topic of Creative Public Space and how artefacts are designed to elicit engagment with users in these curated spaces.
Media Balloon v2
Alongside Dr. Ralph Kenke & Dr. Elmar Trefz, they are responsible for the Media Balloon project that has been exhibited multiple times throughout 2021-2022, what started out as a project designed to visually activate a space has tuned into a tool for understanding how people observe & interact with their environment.
We aim to create:
we’re not just a think-tank, but also a “do-tank” for social innovation.
The Future Innovators Summit (FIS) is a special hands-on discussion program, which has been jointly developed by Ars Electronica (AT) and Hakuhodo (JP). FIS is a collaborative do tank with the purpose of finding Creative Questions about the future, shaped by innovators from all over the world. Future Innovators from different cultures and professions – such as artists, designers, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, social activists and philosophers – will explore new ways of collective brainstorming! We must find the important questions for humankind and create our future!
FIS NEWCASTLE 2022 MAJOR PARTNERS
FIS NEWCASTLE 2022 SUPPORTED BY
