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

Artist as a trouble maker. Glitch as a method for performance making.

Karolin Poska

Karolin Poska
Artist

Karolin Poska is a Tallinn-based artist, choreographer, performance artist, and dancer. Her creative work is driven by an insatiable curiosity, a thirst for discovery, and a desire to explore what it means to be alive in a given moment. She enjoys playing with objects, transforming reality, and subverting the audience’s expectations. Poska is currently immersed in PhD research at the Estonian Academy of Arts, where she is investigating the creative potential of glitch—not as a flaw, but as a deliberate strategy to open up unexpected pathways in artistic processes.

Her performances For Your Nirvana (2020) and Untitled (2021) were both nominated for the Estonian Theatre Awards, and she was honored with the Best Young Artist Award for her MA in contemporary art.

Friday 12. september, 2025 - 14:45 - 16:15

3x20 min Presentation + 3x10 min Discussion

Moderator:

Room:

This research explores the concept of the glitch not as a technical malfunction, but as a creative strategy in performance-making—one that disrupts normative structures and rhythms. I approach glitch both as an artistic method and an artist position: a way of engaging with the world that questions form, function, and experience. As an artist, I sometimes perceive myself as a glitch in society—an unexpected shift within the system, like a gold tooth, a fracture, or a hiccup. In the context of my doctoral work, the glitch is not a flaw to be fixed, but a deliberately induced disruption of spatial, social, cultural, or performative structures. It becomes a tool for resistance, imagination, and playful exploration in performance-making. Like a parkour artist who turns obstacles into launch points, I use glitch to reimagine how we move through and make sense of the world.

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