International Visitors Programme
Art collective Lundahl & Seitl (SE) and Untold Garden (UK) visited Eindhoven in April 2022 as part of STRP Festival, where they presented their co-created work Garden of Ghost Flowers. They also spoke during STRP Scenario #18, part of STRP's dialogue programme, and presented their work Infinite Conversations. STRP also organised a visit by professionals from the Dutch field to their work, followed by a Q&A with the artists. Lundahl & Seitl was represented by Christer Lundahl and Martina Seitl. Untold Garden was represented by Jakob Skote and Max Celar.
Garden of Ghost Flowers
Garden of Ghost Flowers, a trans-disciplinary and perennial artwork striving to find new perspectives on how technology can frame human relations, how physical bodies can inhabit virtual worlds, and on new forms of artificial life.
The artwork takes place in a biosphere, in which grows an artificial life form that gains its nutrients from the resonance of its human visitors. The sociologist Hartmut Rosa defines resonance as a mode of interacting with the world that is not based on control, but on mutual giving and taking, as in a conversation, or a dance. Each visit lasts twenty minutes and can accommodate up to twenty people. Through their way of relating, listening, and vocalising, each group of visitors collectively provides a unique biotope for the Ghost Flower to grow in.
Human relations are mediated by technology. By positing an artificial life form as an explicit mediator of these relations, who learns and reacts to its visitors, the encounter between the humans in the biosphere also involves meeting 'the more than human' in technology itself. During the visit, your voice will become an instrument that the Ghost Flower lives off. As a preparation, we invite you to not use your voice for one hour before entering the biosphere.
STRP Scenario #18 – Infinite Conversations
What could be a more decentralised form of thinking, speaking, and listening together? STRP Scenario #18: Infinite Conversations reflected on the – often difficult to frame – topics of non-human computer use and wilderness in the digital garden. The Scenario started with a keynote lecture by media philosopher Yuk Hui on the infinite imaginative power of artificial intelligence. Then Lundahl & Seitl and Untold Garden invited the audience to the Infinite Conversations experience, which is performed in complete darkness. In this space, various conversations took place under the guidance of invisible guides. Human microphones captured conversations for the online visitors who could also take part in the dialogue. The audience was invited to listen in the dark, be inspired by the effects of resonance and discover how individuals can become part of infinite conversations.
Visit NFF Extended
On the Thursday STRP Festival, a programme was organised by NFF Extended, the connecting platform of the Netherlands Film Festival, aimed at everyone in the sector to inform and inspire year-round. This programme was attended by participants on behalf of EYE, IMPAKT and IDFA Doclab, among others. STRP reserved a time slot for a delegation of these visitors for a special visit to Garden of Ghost Flowers, followed by a Q&A with the artists.