{"id":5547,"date":"2021-11-15T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T09:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.zhdk.ch\/immersivearts\/?p=5547"},"modified":"2025-09-25T13:29:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T13:29:57","slug":"refresh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.zhdk.ch\/immersivearts\/refresh\/","title":{"rendered":"REFRESH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

REFRESH is a yearly, international conference on Design, Arts and Technology. It is initiated by the Department of Design (Maike Thies) and the Immersive Arts Space (Christopher Salter) and taking place in different locations within Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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REFRESH#6<\/h2><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u00abFutures of Uncertainties: Design \u2013 Arts \u2013 Technology\u00bb is the theme of the sixth edition of the festival \u2013 featuring keynotes, exhibitions, masterclasses, and performances. REFRESH will bring together international designers, artists, and researchers from Switzerland and abroad to explore possible futures for the arts and design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interdisciplinary festival REFRESH is primarily devoted to the topics \u00abAlgorithmic Entanglements\u00bb, \u00abLiminal Bodies\u00bb, \u00abNew Ecologies\u00bb, \u00abImmersive Journalism\u00bb, and \u00abWorldbuilding\u00bb. These themes reflect the spirit of the times, investigating the role and responsibilities of creative practitioners in a hyper-connected, data-flooded world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With artists such as AATB, Anan Fries, Janne Kummer, Lucy McRae, Martyna Marciniak, Yasaman Sheri, Superflux, Maria Otero Verzier, Wang & S\u00f6derstr\u00f6m and many more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reserve your tickets under \u00a0refresh.zhdk.ch<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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REFRESH#5<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The interdisciplinary festival REFRESH (initiative of the Department of Design and the Immersive Arts Space of ZHdK) took place for the 5th time from November 9th to 12th, 2023<\/strong>. It addressed pressing issues at the intersection of the arts, design and technology in keynotes, masterclasses and a multi-layered exhibition. International designers, artists and researchers provided insights into their work and discussed it with the interested public. The critical topics of this year’s edition were \u00abImmersive Journalism\u00bb, \u00abDesign Realities\u00bb, \u00abFuture Technologies\u00bb, \u00abWorldbuilding\u00bb, and \u00abNew Ecologies\u00bb.

With guests such as Nikolaj Schultz (sociologist, author of \u00abOn the Emergence of an Ecological Class\u00bb (2022) with Bruno Latour and author of \u00abLand Sickness\u00bb (2023), Sarah Kenderdine<\/a> (Head Curator EPFL Pavilions and Professor of Digital Museology at the \u00c9cole polytechnique f\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne EPFL), Ian Cheng<\/a> (Digital Artist), AATB<\/a> (artist couple focused on experimental robotics) and Sam Wolson<\/a> (Visual Features Editoris for the New Yorker and an Emmy award-winning director, photographer and journalist).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Immersive Arts Space had two Spotlight events on November 9th and 10th.
Spotlight I<\/strong> featured an exhibition of three currents projects, that are developed in the lab: Possible Worlds… <\/a>(Oliver Sahli, Chris Salter), Changing Matters<\/a> (Lorenz Kleiser, Floris Demandt) and Friendly Fire (Manu Hendry, Florian Bruggisser, Paulina Zybinska uvm.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spotlight II on November 10th was be a work exhibition of Zangezi, a Russian Cubo-Futurist poem\/play written by the poet Velimir Khlebnikov in 1922. Fragments of Zangezi will be performed as a work in progress that takes the form of a theatrically staged reading within the technical machine of the Immersive Arts Space itself. The work exhibition includes a Q&A with the team members, discussing the usage of AI generated meta humans, environments and characters as well as the usage of a Large Language Model in a artistic project like Zangezi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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REFRESH#4<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The fourth edition of REFRESH, from 10th to 14th November 2021, focussed on the topics \u00abImmersive Journalism\u00bb, \u00abImmersive Play\u00bb, \u00abDigital Identities\u00bb, \u00abDigital Doubles\u00bb and \u00abTechno-Biological Futures\u00bb. The conference featured keynote speeches including panel discussions with national and international guests as well as a large exhibition have been part of the conference. Photographs of the conference have been published and can me viewed in this gallery<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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