Institute of Visual Communication

The Institute of Visual Communication is delighted to unveil Phase 2 of the "Artists at the Digital Border" project, which will manifest as an engaging Manifesto Writing Workshop set to take place in Berlin on October 20th, 2023.

Artists willing to Join can read more about the project and apply on the following link.

Artists at the Digital Border - The Institute of Visual Communication Interviews, round tables, and workshops with Lebanese artists working in conjunction with international reciprocates.

Lifelikeness & beyond

The 4th POM Conference taking place at the KäteHamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) | RWTH Aachen University

April 22-26, 2024

Life is in crisis. In society, this crisis has generated an uncertainty entangled with environmental injustices, health emergencies and the many faces of right-wing movements around the world – to mention some examples. Uncertainty might blurry the future and our capacity to make decisions, but it also opens up a space of possibilities. In this fragmented framework a new field for contingencies emerges. If we are unsure about what might be, alternative but unstable scenarios become possible. How does society react to those alternative scenarios? How are scientific and artistic communities responding to the various contingencies of the present?

In the wake of this era, we have been witnessing, in biomolecular research, the developments of programmable biosensors, synthetic biology and diverse biological entities that are aimed to be made programmable. These advancements amount to the crisis of life. These new phenomena in life-research have, for example, transformed the way in which we think about organisms and how life has evolved and transformed on earth. At the same time, the fields of life-like robotics and computational evolution, which produce artificial entities modeled after living organisms – like self-reproductive algorithms and artificial neural networks – have brought to light questions regarding the qualities defining what is life at all. Life is being redefined by the parameters of its artificial models, so we are forced to rethink the question: what is the logic of living? The borders between machines and biological systems are being negotiated across the sciences and the arts at large, and novel questions and modes of thinking are emerging from these ontological reorganizations. Faced with these situations, one cannot help pondering on the limits of the possible and the limits of life.

Read more (Visit the our website).

The Institute of Visual Communication - IVC is happy to announce its collaboration on the upcoming Politics of the Machines conference series taking place at KäteHamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) - RWTH Aachen University | April 22-26, 2024 under the theme "Lifelikeness & beyond".

POM Aachen 2024 - Politics of the Machines POM - Politics of Machines - April 2024 Aachen, Germany. Organized by the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultrues of Research (c:o/re).

IVC joins research fellowship In collaboration with the artist collective Anti-Customs Enforcement ACE funded by the Cross Culture Program CCP of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen IFA from Germany.

Under the title “Artists at the Digital Border”, IVC as host organization in Lebanon is curating several interviews, round tables, and workshops with various Lebanese artists working in conjunction with international reciprocates in order to collect testimonies and research data to accumulate into writing a manifesto concerning artists’ mobility and digital borders.

Artists at the Digital Border - The Institute of Visual Communication IVC joins research fellowship In collaboration with the artist collective ACE funded by the CCP of the IFA from Germany.

We are happy to announce the Call for Abstracts of the 3rd edition of Politics of the Machines | POM Berlin 2021 - Rogue Research.
Check the overview page for tracks' details.

POM Berlin 2021 - Overview - Politics of the Machines POM Berlin 2021 Overview Politics of the Machines Rogue Research The 3rd POM Conference September 13-18, 2021 In a state of ontological crisis, all boundaries between human and machine, nature and culture, and the organic and inorganic have been severely blurred. These are times of curious contrivan...

- Day 4

- Day 3

5 Panels / 11 Presentations / 1 Keynote more info: http://www.pombeirut.com

- Day 2

9 Panels / 29 Presentations / 1 Keynote

more info: http://www.pombeirut.com

- Opening Ceremony

In an area afflicted with multifaceted conflicts, art can become an agent for dialogue, an agent for resolution, or it can get itself involved in the clash.

The 2nd edition of the POM Conference on Art/Conflict, POM Beirut 2019 was hosted by the Institute of Visual Communication (IVC) at the International University (IU) – Beirut campus, Lebanon, June 11-14, 2019.

The POM – Politics of The Machines is a conference series founded by Laura Beloff, ITU Copenhagen, and Morten Søndergaard, AAU Aalborg, Denmark. POM Beirut 2019 is organized by the IVC under the Fine Arts & Design Department in collaboration with the Communication Arts and the Computer Science departments.

The goal of this edition of POM will be to tackle art practices and the relation of art to the machine. In parallel, it will also focus on understanding the influence and relation between art and conflict. POM will tend to explore the connection between the violence of conflict and violence as a process in art production; the role of conflict in the sociopolitical environment and how it relates to the field of art, science, and technology.

POM Beirut will also try for a better understanding of the engagement and responsiveness of people and organizations to conflict, exploring how art may serve as a tool for resolution and for social inclusion; or as a counter-argument, a tool for conflict and/or violence. Conflict can also be understood as a contradicting force within an artwork, artistic methods or in a subject matter, it may also push for ethical questions or reveal conflict of interests.

The conference will also encompass few more technical approaches: some tracks may focus on technology employment and conflict, be it armed conflict or conflict provoked by art, the effects of the constant monitoring, surveillance and how we dwell in the panopticon. How today’s simulations reflect what is actual and how technology, at this level creates or allows for error, failure and risk. POM will also cover the need to problematize certain aspects of teleworking, telemarketing and tele-surveillance and seek to understand the affinity of technology, violence and power relations.