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

Narrative Filmmaking

Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir

Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir
Icelandic screenwriter and director, and an associate professor at the IUA Film Department.

Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir (1984) is an Icelandic screenwriter and director, and an associate professor at the IUA Film Department. She has written and directed the feature films The Swan (2017) and A Letter from Helga, as well as several short films. Alongside her narrative film work Ása has also directed two video performance pieces by Ragnar Kjartansson, Figures in Landscape (2019) and Santa Barbara (2021-2022).

Thursday, 11. september, 2025 - 15:30 - 17:00

3x20 min Presentation + 3x10 min Discussion

Moderator: Guðrún Elsa Bragadóttir

Room:

Narrative filmmaking in our part of the world is certainly dominated by the “hero’s journey”; the narrative template immortalized by Joseph Campell in The Hero has a Thousand Faces (1949). And while many works have been written that challenge Campbell’s text, the Hollywood film is still very much built on this model. Indeed, the hero’s journey looms over every film student, or simply anyone who opens Final Draft in the hopes of writing a screenplay. And like a well brought up child who decides to have candy for dinner; as soon as you stray from the single protagonist structure and – say – decide to tell your story from a shifting, multi-protaginist perspective, you can feel viscerally the rules that you are breaking. But can perspective not be like a flame that is passed between characters? In this talk I want to explore the possibilities of a prismatic perspective in cinematic storytelling.

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