CURIOUS
During 2021 and 2022, the Interactive Arts Laboratory participates in the realization of the project called CURIOUS - Culture as a Unique Resource to Inspire, Outreach & Understand Science, in collaboration with partner organizations from Italy (Arditodesìo Theatre Company), Bulgaria (Arte Urbana Collectif) and Belgium (Arenberg Theatre), and with the support of Creative Europe.
The project aims to connect art and science and establish performing arts as a significant platform for the promotion of scientific achievements that can provide us with the answers to the key challenges of today's society.
The CURIOUS project is focused on innovative performing practices - artscience productions and Augmented Lectures that will be presented through the project's main activity - a festival format called Theater of Wonder. During the two years of the project, 8 Theater of Wonder festivals will be realized.
Theatre of Wonder festival 2022
The festival will be held in several locations in Belgrade, and as part of the main program, as many as 10 innovative performances produced by partner organizations on the project will be shown:
Thursday 10.11. // 18h // FDA, Stage “Mata Milošević”
Artscience play: “Life, the Universe and Everything”
Production: Interactive Arts Laboratory FDA
Author: Pavle Dinulović
We often perceive the fields of art and science as something beyond "real" life, something abstract and ephemeral, which passes and ceases to exist after we turn our backs on it and return to everyday life, in which we are not troubled by the uncertain infinity of physical singularities and the emptiness of the cosmos, nor the endless depth of ourselves, our beings and their possibilities. Out of fear of realizing our own weakness and meaninglessness, we skilfully hide everything that is not "life" in a drawer that we open on purpose, and with a reserve. A drawer that is separated from life by a lock that we only occasionally unlock but over which we have a comforting and apparent control that protects us from full exposure to the horrific capacity of the universe in which we exist. But whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, running away from science and art is a futile business. Because they are not constructs separated from reality, abstract worlds that exist outside of life - they are prisms through which we interpret the world, and ourselves in it, and there is no escaping from them. This work is an attempt to open the doors of everyday life to the worlds of science and art and to mix the contents of all those drawers into a chaos that is wonderful in its terrible senselessness. Following the footsteps of the author's previous works, through the work "Life, the Universe and Everything" scientific theories and on-the-spot live measurements will be used as input to a system whose goal is the production of a work of art - a sound performative installation that serves to discover and taste invisible worlds that constantly surround us, through a primordial form that knows neither language, nor age, nor gender. Through which invisible particles gain mass, and solar radiation a voice, and through which we are if only for a moment, connected to the universal ungraspable infinity of space and time, common to all of us.
Thursday 10.11. // 20h // Astronomical Observatory Belgrade
Augmented Lecture “Beryllium”
Production: Interactive Arts Laboratory, FDA
Authors: Biljana Stankov, Milica Stojšić, Tara Manić
Our Augmented Lecture goes high above us into the cosmos, among the stars, using the chemical element called Beryllium. Through it, Dr Biljana Stankov, a research associate at the Institute of Physics in the laboratory for plasma spectroscopy and lasers, and Milica Stojšić, an architect and artist in the field of light design, meet on stage. Inspired by the doctoral research of the scientist Biljana Stankov, we came to the central question posed by this lecture: is it possible to put the glow of the stars, which we see at night, on our palm and look at it up close? And is it possible to create it? Our lecture will try to "catch" the completely elusive, to clearly "see" what is invisible to the naked eye and to infiltrate into the incredibly complex nature of light, thanks to which we see the whole world around us, and which we cannot perceive and understand independently. In the exceptional ambience of the Observatory on Zvezdara, which is intended for closer acquaintance and observation of the cosmos, we will try to create our own little cosmos on stage, in which the audience will get closer to and shed light on this incredible branch of science, at this exciting, joint site-specific lecture.
Friday 11.11. // 18h // FDA, Stage “Mata Milošević”
Augmented Lecture “See the music! Listen to the pictures!”
Production: Interactive Arts Laboratory, FDA
Authors: Jelena Joković, Aleksandar Lazar, Ana Pinter
"SEE THE MUSIC! LISTEN TO THE PICTURES!” is an Augmented Lecture by ethnomusicologist Jelena Joković and visual artist Aleksandar Lazar. They will perform an experiment with a trumpet and a tonoscope, which will enable them to visually show the audience musical elements that are usually recognized and interpreted only through the sense of hearing. In theory, this phenomenon is known as synesthesia, and in this specific case, under the name "coloured hearing", which is the ability to see the plasticity of the melody or the colour of the musical tonality. In addition to making the aesthetic experience unique, synesthesia has great importance for the development of trumpet music in our cultural climate. As our best trumpet players mostly acquired the skill of playing orally and outside of school institutional systems, most do not use or even know the official music system. By understanding the process of synesthesia, we can better understand the ways in which these performers learn, remember and perform music, as well as the other benefits of this informal type of education.
Friday 11.11. // 20h // FDA, Small cinema hall
Augmented Lecture “Evergreen”
Production: Interactive Arts Laboratory, FDA
Authors: Tijana Jakovljevič, Jana Baljak, Anja Čuković
"Would we understand the trees better if we could hear them? " is the question that in a certain way represents the backbone of this work. Our idea is to use a couple of different examples to depict the inner life of plants with sound, that is, their conditions, and thus "revive" them. With the appearance of "talking plants", a greater degree of understanding is achieved, a more intimate relationship and, as the end product, the creation of empathy and compassion.
Saturday 12.11. // 18h // Bitef Theatre
Augmented Lecture “The exciting world of maps”
Production: Arte Urbana Collectif, Bulgaria
Authors: Evgenia Sarafova, Nikola Nalbantov, Dimitar Uzunov
Maps have accompanied and helped the development of human civilizations. In "The Exciting World of Maps" the geographer Evgenia Sarafova and the video-artist Nikola Nalbantov will tell us about the history of maps, their use, as well as some unexpected and curious applications.
Saturday 12.11. // 20h // National Theatre
Augmented Lecture “What is Life?”
Production: Arditodesio, Italy
Authors: Gianluca Lattanzi, Maura Pettorruso
What is life? This is the title of a series of lectures given by the famous physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who took refuge in Ireland during the Second World War. Surrounded by reports of death, Schrödinger questioned the processes that allow life to proliferate on our planet. The principles of physics and chemistry must account for this. But how? Why is it so? Does it have to be so? How can information about who we are and how we function pass from one organism to another? The laws of statistical and quantum mechanics provided him with the sketch of a molecule that had to be big enough to hold all the information, but small enough to be contained in a cell: 9 years later, DNA was discovered, kick-starting a revolution in the life sciences that has led us to manipulate the genetic code, reprogram cells and design vaccines. However, while we can hold out reasonable hopes of being able to explain what life is, we are a long way from answering another question: why?
Sunday 13.11. // 18h // Cultural center Magacin
Augmented Lecture “Extended Synthesis”
Production: Arenberg, Belgium
Authors: Rosie Broadhead, Kaivalya Brewerton
Where does nature start and end in our body? Humans and their creations are considered somehow separate from other aspects of earthly existence. In ‘Extended Synthesis’, a polyphonic lecture emphasizes the value of balance between our bodies within different environments. These are the environments we live in, who and what we surround ourselves with and who is living on us. Balance of our psychological, physical and environmental ecologies, microbial balance on our bodies and the balance of these human and nonhuman inter and intra actions. Transcending this idea that we can revert back to mother nature. ‘Extended Synthesis’ is a tool to understand the body and its orientation and the way we think about physiological individuality.
Sunday 13.11. // 20h // Theatre Atelje 212
Artscience play “The principle of uncertainty”
Production: Arditodesio, Italy
Authors: Andrea Brunello, Enrico Merlin, Michela Marelli
A professor walks through some of the most mysterious concepts of quantum mechanics (the double slit experiment, Schrödinger’s cat, the many worlds of Hugh Everett III) to present a wonderful world made of mysteries and paradoxes. But in the midst of all that awe-inspiring joy lies a disquieting truth. The lecture turns into a confession that mixes some of the most advanced ideas of quantum mechanics with the professor’s secret, pushing him into an extreme, final decision.
Monday 14.11. // 18h // Theatre Vuk
Augmented Lecture “Biodesign”
Production: Interactive Arts Laboratory, FDA
Authors: Biljana Jović, Ivan Lušičić Liik, Iva Olujić
Sound design: Aleksa Nikolić
How do we see the world around us? We notice buildings, elevators, tiles, and windows. When we go out into nature, we encounter bushes, trees, flowers, and grass. And do we notice any similarity between nature and objects? Geometry, more precisely biomimetic, is the answer that explains what makes that connection. Seen from the point of view of geometry, all around us are points, lines, and planes that become more and more complex shapes and thus form the entire world in which we live.
Monday 14.11. // 20h // Zvezdara Theatre
Artscience play “The Long Way to the Stars”
Production: Arte Urbana Collectif, Bulgaria
Authors: Dimitar Uzunov, Andrea Brunello, Vladimir Bozhilov
„The Long Way to the Stars” introduces us to the latest scientific theories about the origin of the Solar System and life in general. This original performance will travel deep into the scientific background and philosophical questions that arise in the world of astrobiology – a modern discipline that connects astrophysics, biology, chemistry, geology and philosophy. Current astrobiological research is aimed at the search for habitable exoplanets in deep space. Could we find a second Earth out there, or maybe the meaning of life itself?
