Art & Technology Symposium

Convene with a selection of artists from UBC’s latest SCI_ART cohort for a series of demonstrations and discussions exploring contemporary art and research situated within the context of climate change. SCI_ART is a science-based art initiative that positions artistic practice as a form of research capable of engaging with environmental transformation through critical inquiry, experimentation, and public activation.

Moderator:

Dr. Megan Smith is a new media artist, designer, and UBC 2022 Killam Laureate. Her practice-based research probes systems for delivering syndicated data through narrative structure. She works with scientific data, AI, and virtual and augmented reality, geo-location, live-feed installation, and performance as storytelling methods.

Panel:

Ernst Logar is an interdisciplinary artist based in Vienna Austria who has been working with photography, film, video, sound, and installations since 1995. In his work, he addresses existing power structures and historical, sociocultural, and ecological phenomena. Logar joins SCI_ART after returning to the Athabasca River to continue his work Reflecting Oil.

Sylvia Grace Borda is a media arts practitioner working at the intersection of regenerative contemporary art and public engagement for over a decade. Her artwork explores climate, place, space, and community narrative. She has been recognized by the Mozilla Foundation, Lumen Prize, and exhibited at the 2026 Venice Biennale.

Manuela Pauk is a Croatian sculptor whose practice explores living organisms, ecological systems, and relationships between material forms and overlooked forms of life. She graduated in Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2018 and has presented work through solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, and artist residencies in Croatia and internationally. Her projects include Plastic Sea Turtle, Tardigrade, and Life Goes On, a collaboration with Matija Vigato staged simultaneously in the botanical gardens of Zagreb and Warsaw.

Dr. Matija Vigato is a Croatian philosopher, game designer, and researcher at the University of Zagreb. Her research spans metaphysics, philosophy of mind, postphenomenology, bioethics, interactive media, and the ontology of virtual worlds, with particular attention to how technologies shape perception and mediate encounters with more than human worlds. A former Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, she has also conducted research in Malta, Graz, and Warsaw. She edited Bioethics, Art and Media and received the Google Generation Scholarship for Women in Gaming.

Welcome Art & Technology Artist in Residence, Ben Bogart, as they present the culmination of their work for the past 6 months.

Ben Bogart (they/them) is a neurodivergent, non-binary, agender, adisciplinary artist with 25 years of experience working with generative computational processes. Their practice draws on physical modelling, chaotic equations, feedback systems, evolutionary algorithms, computer vision, and machine learning, and is informed by fields such as quantum physics and cognitive neuroscience.

Ben’s work has been presented at galleries and institutions around the world, with notable involvement at the Quantum Information Center Sorbonne, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Montalvo Arts Centre.

Join artist Pawel Janicki for a workshop on how to create interactive art on the web. The Miniatures are simultaneously records of cultural concepts and their implementation in the form of interactive media artworks. The core premise of working with Miniatures is that they enable anyone to seamlessly enter the world of interactive art, ranging from simply launching and experimenting with selected miniatures on a mobile device or computer by modifying and hacking them to create one’s own works.

Pawel Janicki draws mainly on the achievements of music, contemporary and media art and posthumanist practice. Drawing from historical and current contexts, he engages a wide spectrum of techniques, approaches and protocols. He creates works using synthetic senses, programming techniques and elements of space and material engineering. 

MOVE37XR (M37) is an evolving Indigenous and Indo-Canadian led non-profit creative studio and emerging media research lab. Gather for a conversation exploring Indigenous media, immersive storytelling, and futurism through the perspectives of artists and curators working across generations and disciplines. Stó:lō artist and art director Joshua Conrad will be joined by Indigenous artists and curators at different stages of their careers to discuss their practices, the role of mentorship and collaboration in their work, and the shifting definition of “new media” and technology within Indigenous art practices.

Moderator:

Natalia Lebedinskaia is an independent curator, writer, and cultural consultant based in Vancouver, BC. Her practice emphasizes deep relationship-building, reciprocity, and collaboration, often positioning her as a bridge between cultures and contexts. She is part of the core team at the MOVE37XR collective, curating immersive media projects, including the Indigenomics IMPACT conference.

Panel:

Joshua Conrad is a Stó:lō multi-disciplinary Digital artist, Art Director, and founder of Slow Studies Creative. His work spans from 3D augmented reality illustrations to public art installations. Using vibrant colours, shapes and movement, he creates inviting spaces of meaning and stories. He is a contributing artist and mentor at the MOVE37XR collective.

Austin Aan’yas Harry is a Coast Salish Artist based in Vancouver BC, Canada. He is of the Wolf Clan from the Squamish Nation and Thunderbird Clan from the Namgis Nation. From a young age Austin worked with his father Xwalacktun Rick Harry teaching youth about the history and culture of the Squamish people. Austin found a love for digital art and media through movies, comic books, and video games but saw a lack of representation of the culture he was so proud of. He worked in the video game industry for a number of years before deciding it was time to work towards his dream of bringing indigenous culture to the mainstream through art and design. Indigital was founded with this goal in mind.

Kayah George ‘Halth-Leah’ proudly carries the teachings of her Tulalip and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She is a young Indigenous leader, scholar, and activist. Kayah worked with Sacred Trust and Greenpeace, and traveled globally speaking on Indigenous and environmental issues, most notably COP21-Paris and Garma-Australia and more recently writing an op-ed for Teen Vogue, making it her second time being featured in the magazine. Kayah recently moved to Vancouver from Tulalip to study the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) language at Simon Fraser University full time while traveling and continuing to be an advocate for environmental, social justice, and Indigenous women’s rights.

Jaime Leigh Gianopoulos is a director and editor based on the west coast. Jaime Leigh’s projects primarily concern the empowerment of women, social and environmental justice. Jaime Leigh is a recent winner of the ‘Hot Doc’s Cross Currents Doc Fund’ (2021) with co-director Kayah George for their documentary film ‘Our Grandmother the Inlet.’ The film is currently in post production, and the team will be launching an impact campaign and legal case to demand the rights of nature for the Burrard Inlet in partnership with ‘Sacred Trust’ led by the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. Jaime Leigh was one of 5 prominent emerging filmmakers selected for DOC BC’S Breakthrough Program (2022) with her short to feature documentary film ‘Ask The Plantain.’ The short version of the project received funding from ‘The Canada Council for the Arts’ February (2022).