The artists-in-labs program (AIL) has a long history of bringing together artists from various disciplines with scientists from diverse research institutions. These cross-border and transdisciplinary collaborations are intended to engage opportunities that expand contemporary knowledges and artistic production. The residencies often have a significant influence on the practices of the artists by contributing to PhD research, expanding networks that trigger new constellations, and encouraging collaborative ways of working. Our interview series Spaces of Difference: Discussing Art, Science and the In-Between, wanted to take a closer look at just that; Specifically, by approaching the topics of artistic practice as research, perspectives on cross-fertilization, dealing with language differences across disciplines, what it means to be in a collaboration and concluding with ideal elements for successful transdisciplinary collaborations.
Olsen Wolf is an artist and visiting lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Furtwangen in the Department of Digital Media. He studied Computer Art & Film/Video at the School of Visual Arts in New York and received his MA in New Media from the Zurich University of the Arts. With a focus on reactive and moving objects during his artists-in-labs residency in 2010 at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Zurich, Olsen went on to complete a PhD on 'Affinity to Artefacts: Humans’ perception of movement in technological objects' in Media Arts and Technology at Queen Mary, University of London, UK.
His current practice deals with the technologies of everyday life that we constantly confront and which increasingly determine our human existence, our preferences and behavior patterns. In this way, his works are investigations at the interface of man and machine.
hasa-labs.org/orbit_en/home.php
Olsen’s elements for successful collaborations: (43:33)
1. Finding connectors: being able to develop a basic understanding of your collaborators practice or research will help to carry to the collaboration forward.
During my interview with Olsen Wolf, he discusses his practice post-PhD and describes the current state of his artistic practice. Going from the collaborative setting of the AI Lab to his PhD research, his involvement today with collaboration has taken on a few different directions. Although he doesn’t describe his artistic practice currently as being directly collaborative, suggesting that: "The PhD is a kind of project that puts you in a solitude. You are with yourself and maybe now that its two years ago, I think I left most of the baggage behind.” (12:34|13:22)
Olsen is however running an artist residency program called Global Forest Residency, undoubtedly creating a collaborative working environment and exchange. In response to the collaborative potentials of his own works, in the sense that they may ‘come to life’, he describes that “you are always entangled with these materials and so you kind of work with what is there […] but I guess it’s for many artists a way of feeling the media you are working in and being able to get a glimpse of it.” (15:16|15:24)
Navigating the diversity of languages that form within various disciplines, Olsen describes the formation of his own vernacular through a constant curiosity and exposure to diverse people: “For me it’s about having the antennas out and feeling which topics I can take in that could also inspire me. Now the topic of artificial intelligence is all over the place, so of course I am looking at various writings, theories and ways of thinking on artificial intelligence.” (16:32|17:25)
Using process and collaboration as an introduction for cross-fertilized artistic practices, Olsen refers to the importance of exchange between one another as a source of inspiration. Using various approaches, he engages with technology, robotics, aliens and space technology, describing his process as being interested in finding the unknown or the unlikely outcomes. Through the pursuit of unknown from an artistic perspective, he suggests that: “this is similar to what scientists do. They try to find the unknown or to find the solution to explain the unknown but the difference for me is that I like to create more problems. […] I like to try to increase the unknown, instead of making it smaller.”
(20:40|22:08)
Links to artworks and research:
hasa-labs.org/orbit_en/uruca_caliandrum.php
hasa-labs.org/orbit_en/newtonsbuddha.php
hasa-labs.org/data/Thesis-oowolf-corrected.pdf
