Symposium
Thursday & Friday, 14.00-18.00
Exhibition
Thursday, Friday & Saturday 14.00-18.00
Royal Institute of Art
Flaggmansvägen 1, Rutiga Golvet
Open to all – no advance booking required
Language: English
Digital technology is often portrayed as immaterial, virtual and disconnected from the physical world. At the same time, digitality is deeply interwoven with material resources, bodies, infrastructure and environments. From data centres and networks to algorithmic systems, artificial intelligence and augmented reality, our contemporary world is shaped by complex relationships between the technical, the social and the material.
Based on practice-based artistic research, this two-day symposium and accompanying exhibition brings together students, artists, researchers and technical developers to explore how digital technology is transforming the conditions for artistic practice, knowledge production and experience. Together, the symposium and exhibition form a platform for critical reflection, exchange of knowledge and artistic experimentation concerning the role of digitality in contemporary art. Through theoretical perspectives, practical demonstrations and artistic works, the symposium highlights how digital technologies no longer constitute a separate field, but are integrated into the ways in which we create, experience and understand the world.
Day 1
10 September: Materiality, infrastructure and conditions of the digital
14.00–15.00
Opening of the exhibition, featuring the demonstration of a humanoid robot from Robo Solutions.
15.00–15.20
Introduction to the Centre for Art and Digitality (CKD), the symposium and the exhibition.
15.20–16.10
Keynote: Mariam Elnozahy
Mariam Elnozahy is a curator, researcher and artistic director of Konsthall C, whose work explores art’s relationship to society, history, globalisation and institutional structures. Presentation based on her work on the MUNCH Triennale: Almost Unreal (2025–2026), followed by a Q&A session.
16.10–16.15
Break
16.15–16.45
Conversation: Mariam Elnozahy and Anna Ådahl. Moderated by Axel Andersson.
Axel Andersson is Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research at KKH, senior lecturer in art history, a critic and an author. In his work, he explores the relationships between art, historiography, the philosophy of technology, nature and long-term perspectives.
Anna Ådahl is an artist and researcher whose multidisciplinary work explores the interplay between collective behaviours, new technologies and the body from a socio-political perspective.
16.45–17.00
Break
17.00–18.00
Presentations in the exhibition and conversations with the participating artists and projects.
Day 2
11 September: Digitality as an artistic condition
14.00–15.00
Reception and demonstration by Jakob Skote and Mirko Lempert in the exhibition, which will run until 6.00 pm alongside the presentations.
15.00–15.10
Introduction to dag 2 of CKD
15.10–15.20
Presentation of the ongoing demo: Jakob Skote/Meadow: An introduction to Extended Reality (XR) as an artistic medium and creative tool.
During the day, a digital record of the works in the exhibition will be produced and published in augmented reality (AR) via the platform Meadow.
Jakob Skote is an artist, writer and technology developer whose work explores how digital infrastructure, immersive media and network technologies shape human experiences and relationships.
15.25–15.35
Presentation of the ongoing demo:
Mirko Lempert – Mutating Material: Prototype Workshop
An introduction to the ongoing demonstration Mutating Material, a workshop and prototyping environment that explores how generative AI is transforming the conditions for artistic education and practice. Building on the participants’ own ideas, sketches and projects, large language models are used as tools for rapid concept development and experimental creation. The focus is not on finished works, but on exploring which forms of judgement, knowledge and creativity remain distinctly human as parts of the artistic process are increasingly delegated to algorithmic systems.
Mirko Lempert is a filmmaker, researcher and entrepreneur whose work explores the intersection of storytelling, real-time technologies and artificial intelligence.
15.40–16.10
Artist talk: Jacob Broms Engblom
Jacob Broms Engblom is an artist and engineer. His work focuses on algorithmic processes, cybernetics and the digital culture that emerges as a result of these.
16.10–16.30
Break
16.30–17.00
Lecture: Professor in sculpture and installation Asier Mendizabal – From sketch to rendering
Art has always been quick in adopting new technical possibilities with curiosity and enthusiasm. Often with a reckless ingenuousness, too. One advantage of this curiosity was that misuse of those novel techniques helped question their nature and pertinence. What happens when the digital paradigm seems to increasingly diminish the possibility of misuse, of room for misappropriation?
Asier Mendizabal is an artist and Professor at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm whose work explores the relationships between material, technique, and language.
17.00–17.15
Break
17.15–17.45
Artist Talk: Arvida Byström
Arvida Byström is an artist whose work, spanning almost two decades, has explored culture, identity, body ideals and power relations in online environments.
17.45–17.50
Closing and possibility to see the exhibition
Exhibition
10–12 september
An exhibition, featuring works by students from the Royal Institute of Art, will open in connection to the symposium. The exhibition presents artistic explorations of digital tools, network cultures, artificial intelligence, virtual environments and other technologies that influence contemporary artistic practice. The exhibition will be open on both days of the symposium and on the following Saturday.
Exhibiting students
Alice Fröjd, Annie Jonasson, Beatrice Qvisth, Carl-Oscar Sarfati, Eira Fröhling, Ellinor Hagman, Hilda Flygare, Ingeborg Kraft Fermin, Johanna De Verdier, Magnus Andréasson, Nathaniel Jensen, Sol Emil Nørgaard Andersen
Symposium and exhibition are being organised with support from the Jacob Wallenberg Foundation, Särskilda Fonden.
Centre for Art and Digitality
The Centre for Art and Digitality – CKD is a practice-based research environment at the Royal Institute of Art which conducts advanced-level research into the cultural and societal implications of digitality. Through artistic practices, the centre studies contemporary technologies – in particular the rapid development of algorithmic and data-driven systems – and how their use challenges prevailing political, ethical and aesthetic values.
Working group CKD
Martin Christensen, 3D-lab
Andreas Hammar, 3D, mechatronics
Jennifer Rainsford, 4D, moving image
Åsa Andersson Broms, 4D, public domains