+++ Swamp School 2.0 opens at VDU in Kaunas! Thursday March 7, 5:30 PM, 2019 +++

Swamp Pavilion

The Swamp Pavilion is a networked effort in creating new imaginary hybrid space for exercises in architectural and artistic practices, theory and pedagogy through various forms and formats of public interventions, field trips, workshops, lectures, discussions, chat channels and printed publications.

Construction exercise

The grounding workshop of the Swamp Pavilion interrogates the relevance of a single country’s representation in the times of transnational crisis - existential threats of war and mutually assured destruction, of climate change and its enforcement of new global patterns of disaster and migration. Imaginigs of ephemeral architecture suspended between air and water allows one to look for new models for national borders which, rather than create divisions and mark territorial claims, instead propose novel forms of coexistence and interaction.

Paulius Vaitiekūnas, Andrius Ropolas, Jautra Bernotaitė. The Swamp Pavilion. 2018

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Swamp School

Throughout the Biennale Architettura 2018, the Swamp School will function as a changing, flexible, open-ended infrastructure that supports experiments in design, pedagogy and artistic intelligence. Invited designers and scholars will conduct performative lectures and lead workshops for participants and visitors to the Biennale.

In exploring the imaginary of a swamp—a living organism in which borders defined by social, political and cultural factors are porous and permeable— the Swamp School will investigate an open artistic/architectural form, effective workshop and publication methodologies. The Swamp School will act as a pilot for future learning environments, informed by and informing the architecture and installations of its own space. Research questions will focus on creating public interfaces and manuals that support adaptation and learning to meet the demands of a changing environment.

Participating institutions: MIT School of Architecture and Planning, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, University of Antwerp, Università Iuav di Venezia, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti - NABA Milan, The Art Institute at the Academy of Art and Design FHNW Basel, Institute of Aesthetic Practice and Theory IAeP, Academy of Art and Design FHNW Basel, University of Iceland, Vytautas Magnus University Kaunas, a.pass - advanced performance and scenography studies Brussels, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Contour Biennale 9 Mechelen, Design for the Living World Class at HFBK The University of Fine Arts Hamburg, Städelschule Architecture Class – Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Frankfurt

Context

The Biennale’s traditional format of “national pavilions” contradicts the global trend toward mutating geo-politics and uncertain nation-state hegemony. These pavilions contain artists who, themselves, often possess an idiosyncratic national identity, formed from an exciting puzzle of multiple countries. Furthermore, as the number of participant nations increases the fixed number of pavilions turns the desperate rental search by “non-owning pavilion countries” into an astonishing temporary real estate market for Venetians.

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Content

In a time marked by existential threats of war and climate change, the Swamp School is a learning environment that sets up a cross-disciplinary dialogue to challenge conventional concepts of territory with aims to reorganize identities and realities and to envision the role of the immaterial in architecture, art, and nature.

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Manual

Manual functions as pedagogical tool and as a score to support new frameworks for sensorial approaches to environmental crises. Developed with students at MIT, the Swamp School Manual includes texts, photos, instructions, and notes on theory, design, architectural and artistic practices and experimental pedagogy in environmental sound, spatial choreography, and forms of commonism.

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Swamp Radio

On transmitting
Date: May 23-27, 2018

This chapter will engage participants in acoustic space explorations, radio experiments, environmental sound recordings, immersiveness of sound, and data sonification.

Sound is a powerful force in organizing space; it is sound not visuals that mark dramatic shifts from one world to another in non-linear ways. Sound is capable of simultaneity and non-linearity. It surrounds and immerses us, but above all, it resonates, allowing things to respond to each other. Acoustic vibrations resonate inside the body, creating different emotions, pleasures or fears. Sound helps to expand our external world – the urban environment, nature and outer space. Scientists and artists listen to the universe, and radio signals radiate far beyond our planet after transmission.

Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits. Pond radio. 2014

Swamp Radio contributors

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Futurity Island

On symbio-poetics
Date: June 26-30, 2018

Inspired by discussions on systemic aesthetics, collective intelligence, and plural ecology (symbio-poesis), this chapter is envisioned as a set of modules, chambers, and portals for design and artistic experiments to test prototype technologies and materials for future sensorial adaptation. The Futurity Island will provide participants a space to speculate on urban and material futures and will probe the usefulness of the concept “sympoiesis” itself as a habit of thought for the current period of environmental crisis, and as an aid toward imagining and working together in radical inter-disciplinarity toward desirable futures.

Juan Downey. Mi Casa en La Playa. Series of 4. 1975

Futurity Island contributors

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Commonism

On cohabitation
Date: September 24-29, 2018

Through contributions by theorists, designers and artists this chapter will interrogate the commons as an ideology - an aesthetic of the real - as a way of giving a form to society and our contemporary human condition. With an understanding of aesthetics as ‘the art of thinking beautifully,’ as way of seeing a better, more beautiful world, this chapter will learn from the reciprocating movements for the commons asking questions: how is the commons constituted in society, how does it shape our reality of living together, and what strategies and what aesthetics do artistic commoners follow?

Seed bombs

Commonism contributors

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Swamp School 2.0

Swamp School 2.0 / Pelkių mokykla opens on Thursday March 7, 5:30 PM at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.

Pelkių mokykla kuriama kaip atvira ir nuolat kintanti žinių infrastruktūra ir lavinimosi aplinka, skatinanti bendradarbiavimo eksperimentus tarp meno ir mokslo, humanitarikos ir pedagogikos, bei siekianti pakeisti mūsų minčių įpročius ir adaptuotis prie neišvengiamai nežinomos ateities ir neužtikrintumo, kuriuos atneša radikalūs pokyčiai.

Pelkė kaip hibridinė vaizduotės ir tyrimų laboratorija, yra ir gamtinė ekosistema ir metafora, nužyminti ir kelianti esminius mūsų laikmečio, paženklinto klimato kaitos ir dėl jos visame pasaulyje kylančių naujų katastrofų, karų ir migracijos maršrutų, klausimus.

Pelkių mokyklos elementai, pasklidę VDU mokslo ir studijų centro erdvės vertikalėje, siekia aktyvuoti žiūrovų/dalyvių sensorinį aparatą, lavinti jų gebėjimus orientuotis skirtinguose kontekstuose, ir veikti toliau už žmogiškosios kontrolės ribų.

The Swamp School 2.0. VMU, Kaunas. 2019

Kuratoriai: Nomeda ir Gediminas Urbonai (MIT, VDU)
Ekspozicijos architektė: Indrė Umbrasaitė (Taikomųjų menų universitetas, Viena)
Pelkių mokyklos ekspozicijos elementų autoriai: Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson (Islandija), Jautra Bernotaitė (LT), Rasa Chmieliauskaitė (LT), Aidas Čergelis (LT), Aušra Černiauskienė (LT), Remigijus Daubaras (LT), Gytis Dovydaitis (LT), Adelė Dovydavičiūtė (LT), Justinas Dūdėnas (LT), Tinna Grétarsdôttir (Islandija), Jurga Katakinaitė-Jakubauskienė (LT), Jonas Kubilius (LT), Milda Kulvičiūtė (LT), Hannes Lárusson, artist (Islandija), Francisco López (Ispanija), Thuy Le, architect (JAV), Nicole L’Huillier, architect (Čilė/JAV), Donatas Linkus (LT), Matteo Messina su Giovanni Sambo, Tommaso Pagani (Italija), Antonio Moya-Latorre (Ispanija/JAV), Thomas Pausz (Islandija), Tobias Putrih (Kroatija/JAV), Shane Reiner-Roth (JAV), Andrius Ropolas (LT), Indrani Saha (JAV), Sandra Straukaitė (LT), Hildigunnur Sverrisdóttir (Islandija), Antanas Šarkauskas ir Gabrielė Šarkauskienė (LT), Pelin Tan (Turkija), Indrė Umbrasaitė (Austrija/LT), Kęstutis Vaikšnoras (LT), Paulius Vaitiekūnas (LT), Reda Valentinavičienė (LT)

2018 metais Pelkių mokykla atstovavo Lietuvai 16-ojoje tarptautinėje architektūros bienalėje Venecijoje. Projektą Italijoje pristatė Lietuvos kultūros taryba, organizavo Architektūros fondas.

Pelkių mokyklos ekspozicijos elementai: Garso baublys, Kvapų drevės, Durpių kolona, Hibridinis radijas, Pelkių pončai, Pelkių intelektas, Pelkių muilas, Salikornijos žemė, Pelkių manualai, C.A. Weberio pelkių studija, Pelkių televizija, Amfibijos namas, Pelkių arbata, Pelkių video dokumentai: Aukštumala (Nestabilumas) ir Distiliacija

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Audioguide

  1. Pelkių mokykla 2.0
  2. Garso baublys
  3. Aukštumala. Nestabilumas
  4. Durpių kolona
  5. Kvapų drevės
  6. Hibridinis radijas
  7. Salikornijos modeliai
  8. Pelkės intelektas
  9. Kombuča
  10. Muilas suvenyras
  11. Pelkių pončai
  12. Weberio studija
  13. Manualai
  14. Pelkių TV
  15. Amfibijos namas
  16. Pelkių arbata

Archive

Here you will find photo and video documentation of the lectures, presentations, performances, interviews, as well as media coverage of the Swamp School. Subscribe to:
Swamp School YouTube channel

Program

November 23, 2018
17:00 - Incantation Karaoke performance by Eglė Budvytytė
18:00 - Incantation Karaoke performance by Eglė Budvytytė
19:00 - LACUNA - Land of hidden spaces (12’15”), film screening by Elena Mazzi
19:30 - Black Pond (42’), film screening by Jessica Sarah Rinland

November 24, 2018
15.00 - The Antisinking Workshop by Carlo Gambirasio
16:30 - The Antisinking Workshop by Carlo Gambirasio
18:00 - Empathetic body performance by Inga Galinytė and Anna Papathasiou
19:00 - LACUNA - Land of hidden spaces (12’15”), film screening by Elena Mazzi
19:30 - Black Pond (42’), film screening by Jessica Sarah Rinland

November 25, 2018
15.00 - The Antisinking Workshop by Carlo Gambirasio
16:30 - The Antisinking Workshop by Carlo Gambirasio
18:00 - Acoustic Tipi performance by Erin Genia

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Incantation Karaoke
performance by Eglė Budvytytė

It is a 35 min performance channelling multiple entities and ideas bruised by modernity and extractivism through a form of a song.
"I am exploring the potential of rhyme, repetition, sonic alteration of the voice and the proximity of physical presence of myself to induce the audience into the altered mind states and singing."

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LACUNA – Land of hidden spaces
film by Elena Mazzi

LACUNA – Land of hidden spaces is part of a bigger project, called Reflecting Venice; this intends to investigate the possibility of responding to last years’ increase of environmental issues affecting Venice, in Italy. Through the application of an interdisciplinary methodology, Reflecting Venice explores technological innovation and its implications. Considering local context in conjunction with new environmental goals is beneficial in redefining their broader effectiveness and functionality. The video has the will to combine and intertwine the different ‘actors’ of the project: a prototype of solar wall made with mirrors, referring to Archimedes’ inventions, the ancient tradition of engraved glass in Murano (Venice), and the fragile environment of the Lagoon, now in peril.

Elena Mazzi was born in 1984 in Reggio Emilia (Italy). She received her BFA in 2007 in History of Art from Siena University, and her MFA in 2011 in Visual Art from IUAV, Venice University. She was selected for an exchange program at Royal Academy of Art (Konsthogskolan) of Stockholm. Her works have been displayed in many solo and collective exhibitions, among others: Whitechapel gallery in London, GAMeC in Bergamo, MAMbo in Bologna, AlbumArte in Rome, Sonje Art Center in Seoul, Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, 16° Rome Quadriennal, GAM Turin, 14° Istanbul Biennale, 17° BJCEM Mediterranean Biennale, EGE-European Glass Experience, Fittja Pavilion at the 14° Architecture Venice Biennale, COP17 in Durban, Italian Institute of Culture in New York, Brussels and Stockholm, Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation. She attended different residency programs and workshops such as HIAP (FI), GuilmiArtProject (IT), Via Farini (IT), Foundation Botin (SP), Bevilacqua La Masa (IT), Future Farmers A.I.R. (USA), Fondazione Spinola Banna (IT), Dolomiti contemporanee (IT), Botkyrka Konsthall AIR (SE).
She is the winner, among others, of XVII Ermanno Casoli Prize, STEP Beyond, OnBoard grant, Thalie Art Foundation grant, VISIO Young Talent Acquisition prize, Eneganart prize, Illy grant for Unidee, Pistoletto Foundation, ntcm e l’arte, m-cult media and technology program, Special mention for Arte Patrimonio e diritti umani, Antworks award, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo prize, Lerici Foundation grant and Movin’up Italian prize for young Italian artists abroad.

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Black Pond
film by Jessica Sarah Rinland
16mm film digital transfer, 35mm film stills, Archive, 42 minutes, 2018

Black Pond is an odyssey across a common land in the south of England told through the hands of the members of the Natural History Society who currently occupy it.

Argentine-British artist filmmaker, Jessica Sarah Rinland has exhibited work in galleries, cinemas, film festivals and universities internationally including New York Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Edinburgh International Film Festival and Bloomberg New Contemporaries. She has received grants from Arts Council England, Wellcome Trust, Elephant Trust and elsewhere. Residencies include MacDowell Colony, Kingston University, Locarno Academy and Berlinale Talents. Her most recent multi-screen, randomized installation We Account The Whale Immortal was exhibited at Somerset House, London in 2016. She is currently an Associate Artist at Somerset House Studios, a Schnitzer prize awardee at M.I.T., and a Film Studies Center Fellow at Harvard University.

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The Antisinking Workshop
conceived by Carlo Gambirasio, curated by Irene Angenica and Marco Bianchessi

The Purpose of the Antisinking workshop is to find utopian solutions for the Venetian sinking problem with a different approach: people’s Intelligence. The project wants to Collect the ideas of all the individuals used to hear about this problem and currently live in the city. Both and visitors can take part to this “thinking machine” sharing solutions filled with the humbleness of the ordinary citizen who doesn't have technical skills which could undermine the out-of-the-box thinking. The workshop would last for 30m. It will starts with a 10 minutes introduction, with the contribution of two experts: Alice Staro (geologist) and Andrea Biffi (Biologist). After this introduction will be asked to the participants to draw an utopian idea to solve the sinking problem. At the end of the workshops days all the projects will be given to the Venice municipality.

Carlo Gambirasio (b. 1994, Verona) holds a BFA from NABA and currently pursues his MFA at the same institution. The thought of Carlo originates from a careful analysis of the contemporary visual culture. His works often consist of imagined devices utilizing new technologies; capable of conveying a particular concept, reflecting on the logic and rules of the ‘artificial’ worlds with the aim of understanding and modifying them. Some of the exhibitions he participated in are: Sensations without Conditions (Istanbul, 2018), Share Project (Turin,2018), Roasted Spin, FuturDome (Milan, 2017); Exi Shapes, Spazio Morel (Lugano, 2017); The Great Learning, La Triennale (Milan, 2017).

Marco Bianchessi (b. 1994, Monza). He began his studies at the classical high school of Monza, he decides to devote himself to art from the university, attending first the Naba in Milan where he graduated in "Painting and Visual Arts"; and then complete the course at the Ca Foscari in Venice in "Economics and Management of Arts and Cultural Activities".The presence of economic-managerial knowledge combined with a real artistic approach, allows him to have an overview of the art world. A lover of everything related to art, he divides his interests between music and visual arts.

Irene Angenica (b. 1991, Catania). She deals with curating and didactic. Since 2016 she founded and directs Porto dell'Arte - appointments for the promotion of artists in apartments, a non-profit project aimed at encouraging and supporting young artists through the creation of site-specific exhibitions. Her research is based on contemporary art experimentation, preferring the artistic medium of the installation.

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Empathetic body
Inga Galinyte ir Anna Papathanasiou

Inga & Anna are hoping to have their meeting in The Swamp Pavilion and perform their first physical depiction of Long Term Relationship project with a performance under the title ‘The empathetic body’ structured on so far collected data within the context of the swamp as a natural valuable state of creation, both in nature and art and as a manifestation of the strong connection to nature’s wisdom to have more than one ways of being and generating vitality.

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Acoustic Tipi
performance by Erin Genia

The Acoustic Tipi sound amplifier is a drum interface that invites people to create audible vibrations, which will reverberate through space.
The Acoustic Tipi references Unktehi — a supernatural water serpent of Dakota legend who is responsible for flooding and peril in the water — and Wakinyan — thunder beings who bring atmospheric catastrophe, warning of impending flooding, sea-level rise, and the increased intensity of planetary storms due to climate and environmental change.
Through the sound of the drum, Acoustic Tipi provides an encounter, a moment of reflection, upon the interrelatedness of life on earth and throughout the universe. The piece allows up to four people to play at once, creating a collaboration that reduces the distance between the art and viewer, and each other. The piece is a call for unity to address the issues causing ecological decline, which, according to Dakota perspectives, is the responsibility of all people.

Erin Genia (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice follows various strands, merging cultural imperatives, pure expression, and exploration of materiality, with a response to past, present, and future matters. Erin is concerned with creating a powerful presence of Indigeneity in the arts and sciences to invoke an evolution of thought and practice in societal instruments that are aligned with the cycles of the natural world and the potential of humanity. Her work has received attention from diverse audiences, and been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and the Museum of Northwest Art. Erin was awarded the AAF/ Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts in 2018 and received her first public art commission for “Resilience: Anpa O Wicahnpi” from the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture. She is a 2017 First Peoples Fund fellow and graduate researcher at ACT/MIT.

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Swamp Radio program

Date: May 23-27, 2018
Chapter: Swamp Radio (on transmitting)

The opening week of the Swamp School with the Swamp Radio engaged the audience in acoustic space explorations from radio experiments, to environmental sound recordings, immersiveness of sound, and data sonification.

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Futurity Island program

Date: June 25-30, 2018
Chapter: Futurity Island (on sympoietics)

Inspired by discussions on radical imagination, indigenous thought, collective intelligence, and plural ecology, this chapter of the Swamp School invites participants to speculate and develop new habits of thought for the era of environmental crisis. The Futurity Island will provide participants a space to speculate on urban and material futures and will probe the usefulness of the concept “sympoiesis” toward imagining and working together in radical inter-disciplinarity toward desirable futures.

Monday, June 25

1:00 – 2:00 PM Welcome and Coffee
2:00 – 5:00 PM Afternoon program:
Futures, Islands and Symbiotic Imaginations – opening symposium
Evocation of the Swamp by Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, KIT NTNU and ACT MIT (Lithuania / USA)
Swamps and Islands by Kristupas Sabolius, philosopher, associate professor at Vilnius University / MIT research affiliate (Lithuania)
Auto Sym Allo: Poiesis of the Mud Muse by Lars Bang Larsen, curator and art historian, professor at RIA Stockholm (Denmark / Sweden)
5:00 – 6:00 PM Discussion: Building up New Vocabularies
6:00 – 7:00 PM Swamp Tea
7:00 – 8:30 PM Evening program:
Land, Water, Ice, Subsoil and the Submarine, a film program by Ilona Jurkonytė, film critic and curator, PhD candidate at Concordia University in Montreal (Lithuania / Canada) in conversation with Edward Lawrenson, a London-based filmmaker.
Screening of the film Uppland – directed by Edward Lawrenson, research Killian Doherty, 30 min., 2018

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Commonism program

Date: September 24-29, 2018
Chapter: Commonism (On Cohabitation)
Interlocutors: Nico Dockx, artist (Belgium) and Pascal Gielen, sociologist (Belgium)

Through contributions by theorists, designers, and artists, this chapter will interrogate the commons as an ideology—an aesthetic of the real—as a way of giving a form to society and our contemporary human condition. With an understanding of aesthetics as ”the art of thinking beautifully,“ as a way of seeing a better, more beautiful world, this chapter will learn from the reciprocating movements for the commons, asking questions: how is the commons constituted in society, how does it shape our reality of living together, and what strategies and what aesthetics do artistic commoners follow?

Monday, September 24
5:00 – 6:00 PM Welcome and Coffee
6:00 – 7:00 PM Evening program:
Noi e L’Albero book launch with Valentina Ivancich, neuropsychiatrist (Italy)
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Systems Seduction lecture by Gary Zhexi Zhang, artist (UK)
Parasite (物流) film by Gary Zhexi Zhang, 12 min., 2017

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Manual

Manual functions as pedagogical tool and as a score to support new frameworks for sensorial approaches to environmental crises. Developed with students at MIT, the Swamp School Manual includes texts, photos, instructions and notes on theory, design, architectural and artistic practices and experimental pedagogy in environmental sound, spatial choreography, and forms of commonism.
Printed copies of the Manual are distributed during the Swamp School in Venice and by project partners. To download digital copies of .pdfs click links bellow:
Manual 1: Swamp Radio [on Transmitting]
Manual 2: Futurity Island [on Sympoietics]
Manual 3: Commonism [on Cohabitation]

Manual researchers and editors: Kyle Branchesi, Chelsea S. Bruck, Erin Genia, Monica Hutton, Nicolás Kisic Aguirre, Antonio Moya-Latorre, Shane Reiner-Roth, Indrani Saha, Thuy Thanh Le, Gary Zhexi Zhang.

Design: Anna Haas

Book

Swamps and the New Imagination. On the Future of Cohabitation in Art, Architecture, and Philosophy
The book, edited by Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas and Kristupas Sabolius, published and distributed by Sternberg Press and MIT Press in 2020, sets up a cross-disciplinary dialogue to challenge conventional concepts of territory with aims to reorganize identities and realities and to envision the role of the immaterial in architecture, art, and nature. Contributors consider the vital urgency of human cohabitation with other forms of life, beginning a dialogue with possible futures.

It is not easy to define a swamp, even in biology. The term is frequently used to characterize marshes, bogs, mires, wetlands, meadows, and other grey zones between land and water. In that sense, “swamp” is a metonym for a variety of transitional ecosystems and functions. This book invokes that concept as a tool to address the vital urgency of human cohabitation with other forms of life, placing the swamp at the crossroad of disciplines and practices. It is more than a biological ecosystem; it is a milieu of manifold sympoietic relationships, a locus of imagination, fostering the dialogue for possible futures. It is also a very particular modality—“an interface of Gaia”—offering a “face,” a certain physiognomy to faceless networks of relations, inviting us to engage in regimes of entanglement. The contributors to this volume expand on swampy notions, probing global and speculative art and architecture, intercalating philosophy and queer theory, and filtering these notions through the lens of posthumanist ecology, informed by the histories and theories of cybernetics, sociology, and the commons.

Contributors
Lorena Bello and Brent D. Ryan, Nikola Bojić, Chiara Bottici, Jonathan Jae-an Crisman and Newton Harrison, Glorianna Davenport and Gershon Dublon, T.J. Demos, Vittoria Di Palma, Jennifer Gabrys, Tinna Grétarsdóttir and Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson, Stefan Helmreich, Stefanie Hessler, Yuk Hui, Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, Caroline A. Jones, Lars Bang Larsen, Bruno Latour, Gintautas Mažeikis, Astrida Neimanis, Kate Orff and Mariel Villeré, Andrew Pickering, Kristina Lee Podesva, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, María Puig de la Bellacasa and Dimitris Papadopoulos, Cristina Ricupero, Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Kristupas Sabolius, Saskia Sassen, Caterina Scaramelli, Marco Scotini, Pelin Tan, Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Angela Vettese

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Global Expeditions

The Global Expeditions focus on a study of the swamp ecosystem –both material and immaterial– to acquire unique practical and theoretical knowledge to be used in scripting the workshops organized as a part of the Swamp School during summer/fall 2018 in Venice.

Each expedition brings together artists, engineers, philosophers, historians, biologists, and a supporting research group. During the expeditions, collected material and acquired knowledge will be published in manuals and will be used in workshops as inspirational and technical guides. Expeditionary research of terminology, ecosystem, processes, hybridity, modality, social and political aspects found in the swamp, plasticity, slime, and mucus phenomenologies reveals the relationships between humankind, nature, and architecture and creates circumstances to synthesise new architectural materiality.

Lecture Series

The lecture series Hello World? takes its name from the basic script that is written as the first foray into programming language. Taking inspiration from Stafford Beer’s cybernetic dream, the program of the lecture series scripts the construction process of the Swamp Pavilion to expand existing and create new perspectives on forms of representation and pedagogy.

Hello World? is the twenty-first event in the series organized by the Architecture Fund that stands for building a new vocabulary across emergent discourses, calling for criticality and ethics in the time of crisis and post-truth. Starting in fall 2017, seven invited speakers engaged the audience at the National Gallery of Art in Lithuania by presenting their research to push boundaries of discipline, interrogate discursive forms of architectural practice, and produce new spaces for alternative imaginaries. The lectures, free and open to public, are organized by a group of volunteers from the field of architecture and art. Each lecture and its corresponding discussion with the public is available online. 

Invited speakers: Beatriz Colomina, Kristupas Sabolius, Peter Swinnen, Ann Lui and Mimi Zeiger, Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas.

Lecture #1

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas - SWAMP: our brain, planetary kidney and architecture of cohabitation

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Lecture #2

Peter Swinnen - The architect as policy whisperer

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Lecture #3

Kristupas Sabolius - Matter and form of the imagination

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Lecture #4

Beatriz Colomina - The City of Social Media

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Lecture #5

Ann Lui and Mimi Zeiger - Approaching Citizenship

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Contributors

Camilla Alberti and Simona Cioce, artists (Italy), Marco Antelmi, artist (Italy), Sam Auinger, sound artist (Austria), Valentina Avanzini, Laura Colantonio, Benedetta Dosa and Clarissa Falco, artists (Italy), Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson, anthropologist (Iceland), Marco Baravalle, researcher, activist (Italy), Lorena Bello, architect (USA), Merve Bedir, architect (Turkey/HK), Nikola Bojić, curator (Croatia), Kyle Branchesi, architect (USA), Chelsea Bruck, planner (USA), Eglė Budvytytė, artist (Lithuania), Matteo Canetta and Letizia Mari, artists (Italy), Rasa Chmieliauskaitė, architect (Lithuania), Santiago Cirugeda (Recetas Urbanas), architect (Spain), Beatriz Colomina, architecture theorist (USA), Aidas Čergelis, architect (Lithuania), Aušra Černiauskienė, architect (Lithuania), Remigijus Daubaras, biologist (Lithuania), Nico Dockx, artist (Belgium), Justinas Dūdėnas, architect (Lithuania), Jennifer Gabrys, sociologist (UK), Carlo Gambirasio, artist (Italy), Lara Garcia Diaz, researcher (Belgium), Yona Friedman, architect and Jean-Baptiste Decavèle, filmmaker (France), Inga Galinytė and Anna Papathasiou, performers (Lithuania/Greece), Erin Genia, artist (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate/USA) Pascal Gielen, sociologist (Belgium), Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy (Design Earth), architects (USA), Tinna Grétarsdôttir, anthropologist (Iceland), Tomas Grunskis, architect (Lithuania), Monica Hutton, architect (USA), Valentina Ivancich, neuro-psychologist (Italy), Ilona Jurkonytė, film critic, curator (Lithuania/Canada), Nicolás Kisic Aguirre, architect (Peru/USA), Jonas Kubilius, scientist (Lithuania), Milda Kulvičiūtė, architect (Lithuania), Brandon LaBelle, sound artist (Germany), Hannes Lárusson, artist (Iceland), Thuy Le, architect (USA), Nicole L’Huillier, architect (Chile/USA), Lars Bang Larsen, curator, art historian (Denmark), Donatas Linkus, architect (Lithuania), Francisco López, sound artist (Spain), Chiara Lupi, artist (Italy), Elena Mazzi, artist (Italy), Matteo Messina with Giovanni Sambo, Tommaso Pagani, artists (Italy), Asta Malakauskienė, biologist (Lithuania), Gintautas Mažeikis, philosopher (Lithuania), Pat McCarthy, artist (USA), Lilia Mestre, performer (Belgium), Antonio Moya-Latorre, architect (Spain/USA), Toni Negri, philosopher (Italy), Petteri Nisunen & Tommi Grönlund, sound artists (Finland), Kate Orff, architect (USA), Dimitris Papadopoulos, sociologist (UK), Thomas Pausz, designer (Iceland), Doina Petrescu and Constantin Petcou (atelier d'architecture autogérée), architects (France), Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, curator (France/Slovenia), Armina Pilav, architect (Bosnia-Herzegovina/The Netherlands), Marjetica Potrč, artist (Germany / Slovenia), Mark Požlep (Slovenia), Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, STS scientist (UK), Tobias Putrih, artist (Slovenia/USA), Aroon Puritat (The Land Foundation), architect (Thailand), Shane Reiner-Roth, architect (USA), Jessica Sarah Rinland, filmmaker (UK), Brent Ryan, urbanist (USA), Kristupas Sabolius, philosopher (Lithuania), Indrani Saha, theorist (USA), Marco Scotini and Andris Brinkmanis, curators (Italy), Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, artists (Latvia), Sandra Straukaitė, designer (Lithuania), Hildigunnur Sverrisdóttir, architect (Iceland), Antanas Šarkauskas & Gabrielė Šarkauskienė (ŠA Atelier), architects (Lithuania), Pelin Tan, sociologist (Turkey), Rirkrit Tiravanija, artist (Thailand), Indrė Umbrasaitė, architect (Austria/Lithuania), Kęstutis Vaikšnoras, architect (Lithuania), Jurga Katakinaitė-Jakubauskienė and Reda Valentinavičienė, artists (Lithuania), Aline Veillat, researcher (Switzerland), Angela Vettese, art historian (Italy), Yvonne Volkart, critic, curator (Switzerland), Judith Wielander & Matteo Lucchetti (Visible), curators (Italy), Mark Wigley, architecture theorist (USA), Jana Winderen, sound artist (Norway), Adva Zakai and a.pass, artists (Belgium), Gary Zhexi Zhang, artist (UK/USA)

Press

Swamp School on Art in America [by Stephen Zacks]

Swamp School on the Artribune, the most read Italian magazine [by Lorenza Pignatti]

Swamp Pavilion, Part II: Futurity Island on Archinect [by Shane Reiner-Roth]

Swamp Pavilion, Part I: Swamp Radio on Archinect [by Shane Reiner-Roth]

Swamp School Manual on Archinect [by Shane Reiner-Roth]

The Swamp School 2nd E-flux announcement

The Swamp School 1st E-flux announcement

PRESS KIT

Team

Commissioner Pippo Ciorra

Curators Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas

Assistant Curators Jautra Bernotaitė, Andrius Ropolas, Kristupas Sabolius, Indrė Umbrasaitė, Paulius Vaitiekūnas

Architects of the Swamp School infrastructure Indrė Umbrasaitė, Adelė Dovydavičiūtė, Rasa Chmieliauskaitė, Aidas Čergelis, Aušra Černiauskienė, Justinas Dūdėnas, Milda Kulvičiūtė, Donatas Linkus, Antanas Šarkauskas & Gabrielė Šarkauskienė, Kęstutis Vaikšnoras

Curatorial advisors Nikola Bojić, Nico Dockx, Tobias Putrih

Project Ambassador Julija Reklaitė

Project Manager Mindaugas Reklaitis

Production Coordinators Adelė Dovydavičiūtė, Indrė Ruseckaitė, Marco Scurati, Alessandro Zorzetto

Volunteers Aleksandr Čebotariov, Greta Čerškutė, Gytis Dovydaitis, Dovilė Gudavičiūtė, Santa Korsakaitė, Viktorija Mankevičiūtė, Gabrielė Mikalauskaitė, Morta Pilkaitė, Diana Poškienė, Gabija Strockytė, Tomas Valentinaitis

Editors Jonathan Crisman, Mariel Villere

Proofreading Carolyn Shea

Design NODE Berlin Oslo

Manual design Anna Haas

Web development Marco Land

Communication managers Autoriai / Giedrė Šileikytė, Marta Atzeni

Producer Architektūros Fondas / Sandra Šlepikaitė

Presented by Lithuanian Council for Culture

Contact

Location
Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, 1814,
30122 Venezia VE, Italy

Opening time
Tuesday–Sunday
10:00 AM–6:00 PM

Email
info@swamp.lt

phone
+39 320 2820 794

Media
media@swamp.lt

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Partners

MIT School of Architecture and Planning, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, University of Antwerp, Università Iuav di Venezia, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti - NABA Milan, The Art Institute at the Academy of Art and Design FHNW Basel, Institute of Aesthetic Practice and Theory IAeP, Academy of Art and Design FHNW Basel, University of Iceland, Vytautas Magnus University Kaunas, a.pass - advanced performance and scenography studies Brussels, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Contour Biennale 9 Mechelen, Design for the Living World Class at HFBK The University of Fine Arts Hamburg, Städelschule Architecture Class – Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Frankfurt

Supporters

Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, MIT School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT), MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST), The Nordic Culture Fund, OCA Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Urbonas Studio, UAB Durpeta

Special thanks to Vaiva Andriušytė, Guoda Bardauskaitė, Judith Barry, Karolina Čiplytė, Embassy Of The Republic Of Lithuania To The Italian Republic, Milda Grabauskaitė, Jeremy Grubman, Stefan Helmreich, Stefanie Hessler, Rūta Kazėnaitė, Julija Kiršienė, Vytas Matrosovas, Lina Mozūraitė, National Gallery Of Art (Lithuania), Liutauras Nekrošius, Nida Art Colony, Romas Pakalnis and Nerijus Zableckis (Lithuanian Fund for Nature), Johan Pas, Kristina Lee Podesva, Gailė Pranckūnaitė, Asta Radzevičienė, Hashim Sarkis, Caroline Schneider, Jūratė Sendžikaitė, Marialuisa Tadei, Daina Urbanavičienė, Melissa Vaughn, Leila Wheatley Kinney, Anne Whiston Spirn, Laimonas Zakas, Ina Žurkuvienė

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