ANAT SPECTRA 2022: art, science and technology online event

ANAT SPECTRA: Multiplicity 2022 is an arts event inspired by the intersection of art, science and technology. It is delivered online from 25 March to 6 May, and live in Melbourne from 21 to 23 April 2022.

Organised by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), the event format considers hundreds of propositions from artists, researchers, scientists, technologists and citizens about the futures we are creating and wish to live in. Themes include future cities, the clash of the natural and the digital worlds, artificial intelligence and stories connected to land, as well as moderated discussions from artists and researchers.  

Assembly for the Future Live from Planet City 2029 (25 March)

Digital gathering: How might diverse societies accommodate ten billion humans in one city so that Earth might begin to heal? How would we behave as a collective in a single hyper-dense city? Are ‘we’ all equal? What would the city look like? What resources and infrastructure would the city require and how could these elements be ethically sourced and maintained?

Machines Like Us, Cells Like Them (1 April)

Online exhibition: If, as some believe, we are moving towards a metaverse in which the natural and digital worlds are more integrated, becoming a new and unified world, then how might our relationships with machines operate to make these worlds better, fairer, and more sustainable?

36 Ideas To While Away The Winter (7 April)

Online Symposium: Are there right or wrong ways to navigate relationships with and between our cellular and artificial intelligence? How do our bodies navigate and mediate our ever-changing realities? How, for example, is our sense of listening modified and externalised in our mediated world? Does it matter?

Future Cultures (14 April)

Online Film Program: In the last couple of years, the uncertainty of our futures has never been more evident, more felt, more confronting. However, what if we could all listen to the ancients and feel a connectedness to Country and culture? What if our futures were guided by those whose knowledges of the pasts, presents, and futures were embodied, understood, and known from deep time?

Postscript (6 May)

Online Symposium: In a series of moderated conversations and discussions, artists and researchers speak to their current projects. Participants will be asked two simple questions: what am I doing now? and how will it affect what I do next? These questions will be posed in the frame of individual practice and projects and within the question: how do we, through the intersection of art, science and technology, build a better, fairer, more sustainable future? 

ANAT is an organisation that facilitates the experimentation across art, science and technology by identifying opportunities and delivering projects that enable artists to contribute meaningfully to Australia’s reputation for creativity, diversity and innovation. One of their flagship programmes is the ANAT Synapse residency, in which Australian science organisations host artists in residence, and the programme has supported creative research collaborations between more than 100 artists and scientists since it was established in 2004. 

ANAT Spectra 2022. Child of Now by Robert Walton, concept image by Xavier Irvine.