The author’s artistic practice evolves around the notions of a human, technology, and human relation to her environment and the world when both human and the environment are artificially modified. In this paper the author investigates specifically the relationship between a human and her environment through presenting three recent art works: A Unit, Evidence and Appendix. These three works share similar notions on human as an organism compiled of complex network of connections, and reference Gregory Bateson’s argument that organism + environment is the unit of survival (Bateson 1978 [1969]). However, in the described example cases the situation is intervened by artificially constructed and modified components.

The author proposes that these kinds of speculative approaches that are allowed in art & design, and which offer us new potential scenarios about the future, also help us collectively share, evaluate and construct the desired futures.

The participants looked at what art can contribute to society in a time when the forms, values and relations of creative and technological media are being reinterpreted. In order to create a cohesive view on these developments, the subjects were approached from various scientific, social, historical and artistic perspectives, on both a practical as well as a theoretical level. With the symposium we touched upon a series of topics that gave us space for discussion and information exchange.

The Symposium was organized by TodaysArt in cooperation with the International Cities of Advanced Sound and related arts (ICAS) network, the Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends (STT) and the Royal Academy of Art The Hague. The realization of the Symposium has been made possible by the support of the EU Culture Programme, the DOEN Foundation, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Zuid-Holland, Witteveen+Bos and Fonds1818.