Sight + Sound: pushing digital art further

Digital events follow one another, but they do not look alike. Sight + Sound understands this with its new edition, running until May 25. Science Faction explores the world of science fiction and itsimpact on technology and our lives. Is the mutation of our society merging humans and machines?

Organized by Eastern Bloc, an artist-run centre, this digital-art festival is innovative. In addition to performances, workshops and interventions by international artists, the program includes highly engaging talks.After six yearsof

existence, Sight

+ Sound makes no secret of its aim: to shake up

ideas and bring a critical and political viewpoint to digital art. For committed art and ideas that make you think, the conferences at UQAM’s École des médias are the place

to be.

On May 21, Bethe Coleman discusses the

omnipresence of computing, wearable technology and smart objects in daily life. What if this were science fiction created regularly by individuals?The artist addresses the impacts of military-industrial speculative futurismand thecomplexity of experience as subject, agent and citizen.

On May 22, a debate titled Whose fictions

are these?

examines reversals of male dystopian

narratives and the dichotomies at the heart of dystopian literature: good and evil, protagonist and antagonist, masculine and feminine. Adrienne Maree Brown, Paula Pin, MariaMitsopoulou and Skawennati analyze how fictioncan apply feminist, queer and intersectionalapproaches to question, deconstruct and reimagine thisliterary landscape.

On May

23, Biological

systems as generative models

for the future considers how all living organisms, including our bodies, will be affected. Technological structures and digital networks increasingly resemble biological systems. Erin Gee, Eric Lewis, Leslie Garcia and Sofian Audry take part in the discussion.

On May

24, Stephen Rennicks revisits the history of

science fiction and the origins of techno, guiding the audience through Juan Atkins, Sun Ra, Parliament, funk, Kraftwerk, Metropolis, Detroit, robotics, Robocop, the slave trade, the American automotive industry in the1980s, Underground Resistance, Drexciya, Afrofuturism and Detroitsoul. Later that day, Alejo Duque,Valérie Lamontagne and Dominic Gagnon address

the hidden

ethics of

the military-industrial-academic complex and the links between military, industry and academia in technological advances. On May 25, Dany Beaupré traces the origins of interactive media from sensory and cognitive perspectives, observing how media evolves from

content toward experience and