Hugarflug 2025 - Unstable Systems by Sigmundur Pall Freysteinsson

Unstable Systems Instability can be a creative force in art, design, and architecture. Artists, designers, and scholars work both with and against systems that are ever-changing, fragile, or unpredictable. Whether dealing with technological systems, ecosystems, social structures, or sensory experiences, instability is often a prerequisite for creation. Instability opens pathways for new ideas and processes, reshaping how we approach and redesign the systems that shape our lives. It can also refer to the creative act itself—one that does not follow predetermined trajectories or established norms. Art, design, and architecture serve as tools to disrupt stable systems and/or shed new light on systems that appear stable but in reality, they are not. No system is truly stable, and when we resist that instability, it becomes a problem. Instability is perhaps the only certainty we can rely on. Hugarflug 2025, the annual conference on artistic research, will take place on September 11–12. It will serve as a platform for research that engages with instability across various systems—from technological advancements such as AI and interactive systems to issues related to politics, society, and the environment. We will explore how instability functions as a tool for generating new possibilities while also fueling unrest and transformation within society and academia. The Iceland University of the Arts invites proposals of all kinds, including presentations of ongoing or completed research by our faculty, students, and collaborators.

Hugarflug annual conference on artistic research

11. - 12. September 2025

Iceland University of the Arts

Gap systems: mapping caring boundaries

Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, Ariane Camille Fourquier

How can we reshape our approach to mapping systems based on negative spaces? This presentation will reflect on the idea of gap spaces and instability as a transformational matrix. Using woven textiles as the fabric for rethinking system mapping, we will take the perspective of the negative space in-between yarns to redefine the ways in which we understand disciplinary boundaries.

The presentation will highlight the findings of the ‘Gap Systems’ workshop, which through drawing explored the use of gaps — rather than lines — as a method for mapping systems outlining alternative perspectives and entry points for envisioning a caring creative future. Within the regenerative paradigm, participants moved away from linear and binary modes of thinking and doing, using this shift as an opportunity to reflect on disciplinary boundaries and potentiality within creative practices.

Thursday, 11. september, 2025 - 13:40 - 15:10

3x20 min Presentation + 3x10 min Discussion

Moderator: Ragna Bjarnadóttir

Room:

Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, PhD
Senior Researcher at the Royal College of Art

Prof. Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, PhD, is a Senior Researcher at the Royal College of Art, where she co-directs the UKRI-funded Becoming Regenerative Lab. She also serves as a Research Professor and Chair of the Regenerative Art and Design research group at the Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology (CARADT). Delfina holds a BA in Biology and completed her PhD at the RCA. Driven by her interest in ecological thinking, reflective practices and inter-relations as a systemic response to the environmental collapse, her critical practice examines material ethics of care and the necessary paradigm shift in design.

Ariane Camille Fourquier
Researcher-Practitioner

Ariane Camille Fourquier is a Researcher-Practitioner part of the Regenerative Art and Design research group at the Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology (CARADT). Ariane has a Master in Woven textiles and recently completed her PhD at the Royal College of Art. Using the negative space in-between yarns as a design tool, her research explores alternative ways of visualising weave structure. Her practice questions the fundamental knowledge contained within woven cloth construction, enabling the craft to open up to interdisciplinary research and the development of novel assembly systems, which increasingly demand non-linear and organic modes of thinking.

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