About #23.ART

#23.ART - International Meeting of Art and Technology and the EmMeio#16 Exhibition in Portugal are events organised by the Technical and Scientific Unit of Visual Arts and Artistic Technologies of the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, extending events previously held in Brazil by the Postgraduate Programme in Visual Arts of the University of Brasília (UnB), in partnership with the National Museum of the Republic, Brasília, DF.

The #23.ART meeting will be held from 5 to 7 December, featuring in-person and remote lectures and presentations, as well as the EmMeio#16 exhibition, which will take place in person at the Elevator Gallery, School of Education, Polytechnic Institute of Porto. ESMAD and ESMAE will collaborate in organising the event, which will be hosted by InED, the Research Centre in Education (InED, ESE, IPP) in partnership with ID+ (Research Instituto in Design Media and Culture).

The 23rd International Meeting of Art and Technology and the EmMeio#16 Exhibition are significant events in the fields of art, science, technology, and innovation in Brazil and abroad. They are among the oldest academic events in Brazil, involving laboratory research from various Brazilian universities, and this will be the fourth edition in Portugal. #23.ART and EmMeio#16 provide a conducive environment for the intersection of various disciplines, including science, technology, and art, and the exploration of new knowledge frontiers. These events promote interdisciplinary integration, bringing together researchers, artists, scientists, technologists, and innovators from various fields. This interdisciplinarity fosters collaboration and dialogue between knowledge domains that typically operate independently, resulting in new perspectives and approaches to artistic and technological issues.

In the 2024 edition, considering the various terms coined to describe the complexity of contemporary crises, such as the Anthropocene (Crutzen, Stoermer), Cthulhucene (Haraway),Capitalocene (Moore), Pyrocene (Steven Pyne), and Plantationocene (Tsing), it becomes evident that we are facing a scenario of comprehensive crises, including social, political, economic, humanitarian, and, above all, climatic dimensions. Given this multifaceted panorama, the possibility of proposing the term 'EcoTecnoCeno' as an artistic approach arises for the 23rd International Meeting of Art and Technology and the EmMeio#16 Exhibition.

EcoTecnoCene is a term that could be seen as hopeful concerning the aforementioned concepts, which often refer to negative human impacts on Earth and natural communities. This term would suggest an era or period in which humanity is in harmony with nature, adopting practices such as artistic ones, and systems that promote the health of the planet and natural communities rather than harming them.

EcoTecnoCene could be interpreted as an era or period in which humanity seeks ecological technological solutions to address environmental and social challenges through artistic poetics.