Miracles and Crisis in Nature and Science, Toril Johannessen, 2010

“One of the central images of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the ‘flatten the curve’ graph, (...) Versions of this graph have been widely circulated, showing the relation between healthcare resources and two curves: one the likely rate at which the virus would spread without social distancing or other control measures; the other, the flattened curve. (…) it really did make vividly clear why the rapid move to lockdown was seen as so urgent, why slowing the rate of infection was a matter of life and death, and why, from one week to the next, we went from self-regulated social distancing at the supermarket to compulsory masks, one-way aisles, plastic barriers at the tills and floor markers for correctly spaced queueing.” - Helen Dewitt & Andrew Galman, Frieze issue 213, July 2020 

Uncertainty Scenarios: Session #11 - Statistics will focus on the use and presence of statistics and how these are increasingly present as a tool for research and study in different sectors of our contemporary society. Besides talks focusing on scientific uses of statistics the session will highlight how artists have used and / or responded to them within their practice.

After a year in which our presence in the global pandemic statistics was permanent, the session will look at how statistics allow us to study the past, understand the present and try to predict the future. During the session we will explore where fact and fiction meet within the statistical world. 

Some contributions will consider how statistics allow us to dig into the hidden aspects of particularly complex phenomena, while others will question how they can manipulate and guide thoughts and opinions. Measurement processes that generate statistical data are often subject to error, and the presence of missing data or censoring may result in biased estimates. 

For this session we invited scientists, thinkers and artists who will explore topics together such as: data feminism; statistics in speculative-fiction; life expectancy; ways to unravel historical environmental data sets; indigenous data knowledge systems; amongst others.

The session will include artworks, textual contributions, presentations and a participatory discussion open to the public. Florence Cheval will write a reflection after the session that will be published in a publication on the session in October 2021.

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Bio's:

Florence Cheval (FR) is a Brussels-based writer, which includes practices of writing-with, curating-with, researching-with… Together with curator and researcher Greg Nijs, she is currently setting up a curatorial vessel called drama. Since 2019, she develops Intersections of Care (intersectionsofcare.net) with transdisciplinary art worker Loraine Furter, a research project on feminist modes of display and curating. Between 2017 and 2019 she has been working with artist-run platform Jubilee on Caveat (caveat.be), an artistic research on the ecology of artistic practices.

Antye Guenther (DE) is a visual artist and researcher. She studied photography but her inspirations have multiple sources: where she grew up (Rostock, in the former East Germany, and Moscow, in the former Soviet Union), her experiences in medicine, photography and the military. She addresses themes such as (non)biological intelligence and supercomputers, enhancement and posthumanism, technological developments in neoliberal societies and science fiction.

Koen Hufkens (BE) is an earth system scientist and ecologist. He holds a doctorate in biology and is a plant ecologist at Harvard University's Richardson Lab. Throughout his career, he worked interdisciplinary borrowing heavily from fields outside of ecology. He has a passion for open data, hardware and software.

Toril Johannessen (NO) is an artist working and living in Tromsø, (NO). She is interested in the coexistence of science with other knowledge and belief systems, combining historical records with fiction and her own investigations. Perception and representation as historical and technological constructs are recurring themes in her work.

Jean Katambayi Mukendi (DRC) is a self-taught artist and scientist. He is impassioned by technology, mechanics, geometry, and electricity. In his work he combines influences from daily life with experience gained from his training as an electrician. He creates fragile and complex installations driven by sophisticated electrical mechanisms. His technological discoveries are part of a search for solutions to social problems in current Congolese society.

Daniela de Paulis (IT) is an interdisciplinary media artist, former contemporary dancer and licensed radio operator. Since 2010, she has been collaborating with a number of international organisations and developed innovative projects combining radio technologies with live performance art and neuroscience amongst others.

Simon Ripoll-Hurier (FR) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is at the crossroads of music and visual arts. He has developed "Diana", a research that includes film, video, performance and radio creation, during which he meets different "listening practices" that he puts in relation (amateur radio, birdwatching, ghost seeking...).

Oscar Santillán (EC) is an artist, who began his practice as a self-taught artist before obtaining his MFA in Sculpture from VCU, (US). Marked by the experiences of working in collective environments during these years, the artist continues to exchange and collaborate with scientists and many other people and organizations. He initiated the "órbitat" project, a platform for the encounter between art, science and technology in Latin America.

Michiel Schwarz (NL) is an independent thinker, curator and writer interested in how the future is shaped by culture. Developing cultural projects from his Amsterdam-based Sustainism Lab. He is the co-creator of the 2010 Sustainism manifesto (with Joost Elffers) which launched the word ‘sustainism’ in the public arena.

Roy Smits (NL) received his PhD in astronomy from Radboud University. He has done the groundwork for pulsar research with the Square Kilometre Array and has worked on several international astronomy projects. In addition to communicating his scientific research to colleagues, Roy Smits has always been concerned with communicating to the general public.

Maya Van Leemput (BE) is a full-time futurist combining research with a co-creative multi-media practice. She is Lector and Senior Researcher in Futures Research at the Erasmus University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Brussels where she holds Open Time's UNESCO Chair on 'Images of the futures and co-creation'. (to be confirmed)