Artistic Intelligence - First General Meeting of the COST Action 23158

 

First General Meeting of the COST Action CA23158 - Artistic Intelligence

14th and 15th of April 2025

Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, Portugal / Hybrid Meeting 
Address: Avenida Rodrigues de Freitas, 265, 4049-021 Porto, Portugal

 

INVITATION

It is with great pleasure that we invite all members of the ARTISTIC INTELLIGENCE COST Action (CA23158), as well as all interested parties, to the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, Portugal, for the First General Meeting.

The meeting will be dedicated to a better understanding and recognition of relevant topics to address Artistic Intelligence as a response to urgent societal challenges of our time, from those relevant to the creative and cultural sectors to those that imply cross-disciplinary approaches with other forms of research.

It is an opportunity for active networking between Action members with highly diverse and complementary expertise in artistic research, creative practices, community-based approaches, data management and computational modelling, with the goal of connecting ongoing research projects, planning future research and advancing the application of new computational techniques to connect practice-based research across the arts.

The First Artistic Intelligence General Meeting will host a dedicated session for the Core Group and Management Committee, Working Group internal meetings and plenary sessions open to the wider public. In addition to the invited keynotes of 20 minutes by ARTISTIC INTELLIGENCE members, participants will also present short statements addressing the goals of the working groups that will be shared in the Forum on the second day.

All the sessions are hybrid and the public events will be available remotely in the links provided.

Activities will take place at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, Portugal.

Located on the northwest coast of Portugal, Porto is the second largest city in Portugal. Built on the hillside of the Douro River overlooking its mouth, Porto has a two thousand years history, going back to the Roman times. Since 1996, the Historic Center of Porto has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Local Organiser will provide coffee breaks and lunch during the meeting. 

The lunch will be served at the Faculty of Fine Arts and will have a cost of 15 euros, which can be paid directly on-site.

 

-- Full programme and list of speakers can be found here --

 

ABOUT ARTISTIC INTELLIGENCE (CA23158)

Artistic Intelligence - Responsiveness, accessibility, responsibility, equity (ARTinRARE) is an open and inclusive research network originating from universities, artistic research organisations, technology-oriented societies, cultural institutions and museums, and a wide range of art academies. 

Artistic intelligence refers to the collective capacity of artistic and practice-based research to generate impact and value beyond the project-specific, singular outcomes of an individual project. This COST Action explores value propositions based on the data, information and knowledge that emerge from the relationships between artistic research projects, research practices, and research cultures that are usually excluded from or ignored by conventional evaluation schemes.

Artistic and practice-based research is increasingly called upon to enable cross-disciplinary research to address complex societal challenges in collaborative ways. However, most of this research is currently conducted in isolation from the work of related or relevant researchers who have already addressed similar questions or come to different conclusions – let alone the potential for linkages with other forms of scientific research.

As a result, even new projects tend to de-prioritise referencing, contextualising their sources and referring to a state-of-the-art that might even include results from other disciplines. On the other hand, the methods and results of research are difficult to trace and access for anyone who has not been involved in the process.

The Action responds to the lack of common standards, challenging isolated, non-referenced research processes across the arts and culture. It aims to link emerging initiatives in practice-based research by exploring current technological possibilities for accessing, linking and validating them within a common framework of artistic intelligence.

ABOUT COST

In today’s world it is essential for research to be interconnected, interdisciplinary, collaborative and data-intensive. By focusing on networking activities, COST Actions help to advance knowledge and strengthen the research and development sector, by creating networking opportunities for researchers to meet and discuss ideas, complex problems can be addressed in a targeted way, across a large geographical area.

A COST Action is an interdisciplinary research network that brings researchers and innovators from academia, SMEs, public institutions and other relevant organisations or interested parties.

Open to all science and technology fields, including new and emerging fields; COST Actions offer an inclusive, pan-European environment for individuals of all levels of seniority to grow their professional research networks and boost their careers.

https://www.cost.eu/

ABOUT THE FACULTY OF FINE ARTS

The Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto (FBAUP) is a renowned art and design Faculty located at the historic centre of the largest city in the north of Portugal. Throughout its 244 years of existence, under various guises, it has pioneered art and design education, practice and research, while leading ongoing developments in these fields up to this day.

FBAUP is one of the 14 Faculties of the University of Porto (U.Porto). U.Porto stands as a prominent institution for Higher Education and Scientific Research in Portugal, hosting 48 R&D research centres in a broad range of fields of knowledge. It is recognised among the top 100 universities in Europe and the top 350 globally, according to leading international ranking systems such as the Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Ranking) and QS World University Rankings 2023. 

FBAUP leads three PhD programs in Fine Arts, Design and Arts Education, and participates in the Design in Digital Media PhD hosted by the Faculty of Engineering U.Porto). The Faculty offers three undergraduate programmes in Fine Arts, Design and Drawing; 10 Masters programmes in Fine Arts, Art and Design for the Public Space, Image Design, Graphic Design and Editorial Projects, Illustration, Visual Arts Education, Industrial and Product Design (with Engineering U.Porto), Art Studies, Communication Sciences (with Arts and Humanities U.Porto) and Multimedia (with Engineering U.Porto). It collaborates in joint programs and research projects with other Faculties and R&D units, offering a range of specialisations and lifelong learning courses.

ABOUT I2ADS – INSTITUTE OF RESEARCH IN ART, DESIGN AND SOCIETY

i2ADS is a Research Unit in Art and Design hosted at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto (FBAUP). It is an institutional member of SAR – Society of Artistic Research, a co-convenor of NW29 at EERA – European Educational Research Association and a promotor of enREDE - International Network on Art and Arts Education Research in Southern Geographies.

Aware of the importance of artistic research and arts education in transdisciplinary settings, I2ADS's mission is to promote research across art and design to tackle educational, cultural and societal challenges. Its work is grounded on a shared research culture between fine arts, design and performing art disciplines, intersecting views around the following integrated programs:

1) Art Education, Critique and Society – foster critical readings and challenge hegemonic narratives on public practices and policies in arts education;

2) Artistic Practice, Politics and Social Engagement – empower artistic research involving people and communities to generate narratives of change, remove barriers and promote free access to art resources;

3) Artistic Production, Processes and Technological Studies – promote the study of art and design material cultures and advance creative and technological applications in art production and performance;

4) Computation, Hybrid Practices and Culture – address the challenges of emerging computational techniques in artistic research and connect the digital shift with tangible and intangible heritage;

5) Drawing Between Disciplines – empower drawing as a democratic medium to challenge disciplinary strictures across divergent areas of knowledge in education and research;

6) Interculturality and Society – foster intercultural cooperation through transnational and decolonial artistic and educational practices;

 

 

^{This general meeting is based upon work from COST Action CA23158, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. Our Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation.}

Contacts:

Action chair (palmeida@fba.up.pt)
Grant Holder representative (mddias@fba.up.pt)
Local organiser (i2ads@fba.up.pt)

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