Open Design Lecture: Dominic Redfern “Neither Artificial, Nor Intelligent”

Dominic Redfern
Neither Artificial, Nor Intelligent

Bernard Stiegler argued that humans and technology are co-constituted; humans are not separate from and do not precede technology, but instead, human evolution is entangled with the emergence and evolution of technics, a process he calls “technogenesis”. For Stiegler, humans are “always already” technological. This idea seems particularly relevant as we negotiate the present and future with AI.

Since DALL-E 2 launched it 2022, AI has gone viral.

What is AI?

What are the implications for artists and creatives?

What are artists doing with this technology?

How can AI art reflect our historical moment meaningfully?

Dominic Redfern will offer some thoughts on these questions in his lecture and offer a short reflection on his own explorations with this uncanny technology.

Dominic Redfern is a male presenting, settler Australian. He has been exhibiting video since 1997. Dominic has had three key bodies of work: a decade on performed identity; a decade of environmental studies; and his current return to abstraction and process once again addressing questions around identity and subjectivity. Across his career he has been supported by various municipalities, the ARC, the Australia Council for the Arts, and state arts funding bodies. Dominic has undertaken site-responsive projects in Brazil, the USA, Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, Germany, and France. He is an Associate Professor at RMIT’s School of Art.

PARAHARIDUSLIKE UURINGUTE SEMINAR prof. dr. Nora Sternfeld koostöös Grégoire Rousseau, Mira Samonigi ja Julia Stolbaga

Kuidas saavad hariduslikud ja kuraatoripraktikad teadmiste loomisel seada kahtluse alla selle, mida saab öelda, teha ja näha? Rahvusvahelises transdistsiplinaarses uurimisseminaris käsitleme hariduslikku uurimistööd ja näituseuuringuid näituse sees ja väljaspool seda, juhtumiuuringuid kaanoni sees ja väljaspool seda ning uurimistööd lääne metoodikate sees ja väljaspool seda.
Seminar toimub EKA-s esmaspäevast, 2. juunist kuni laupäevani, 7. juunini 2025 ning on avatud kontekst haridusliku uurimistöö ja näituseuuringute teadlastele. See käsitleb teadmiste loomise strateegiaid nagu uurimist, uurimistööd, kujutlusvõimet ja refleksiooni. Kuigi seminarile registreerimine on nüüd lõppenud, astuge julgelt läbi ja kuulake, kui olete huvitatud.

Liituge meiega Station of Commonsi avalik-õigusliku raadio saates “Parahariduslikust uurimistööst”!

Neljapäeval, 5. juunil 2025 alates kella 17.00-st – Tallinnas ETC-s (Niine 8a) või stationofcommons.org kaudu.

PARA-EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH SEMINAR BY PROF. DR. NORA STERNFELD
in collaboration with Grégoire Rousseau, Mira Samonig and Julia Stolba

How can educational and curatorial practices of knowledge production challenge what can be said, done and seen? In an international transdisciplinary research seminar, we think about educational research and exhibition studies within and beyond the exhibition, about case studies within and beyond the canon and about research within and beyond western methodologies.

Running from Monday, 2^nd of June – Saturday, 7^th of June 2025 at EKA, the seminar is an ongoing open context for researchers in educational research and exhibition studies. It follows strategies of knowledge production as exploration, investigation, imagination and reflection. Although registration at the seminar is now closed, feel free to drop by and listen in if you are interested.

Join us for the public radio broadcast about ‘para-educational research’ aired by Station of Commons!

Thursday, 5^th of June 2025 from 5pm – in Tallinn at ETC (Niine 8a) or from anywhere via stationofcommons.com.

On May 30, at 3 p.m in EKA White House 

The work of Bart Hess is of the most tactile and intuitive nature. Crossing boundaries between design, fashion and art, his oeuvre is a series of studies into materiality, (virtual) reality and technology. He is fascinated by the human body, which he tends to cloak in ways that have little to do with styling or fashion but more so with performance art and science fiction. Hess makes material studies, (animation) video’s and photographs with the relationship between man and material, nature and technology at the centre. In his work he’s looking for the tension between attraction and repulsion when exploring the intimate relationship that materials have with our skin.

Textile 110 is a series of events celebrating the 110th anniversary of EKA’s textile design education, as part of which a series of open lectures focusing on textiles will be held, a series of publications will be published, and a selection of works from the EKA Museum’s textile collection can be seen throughout the year.

The lecture series opens up the spectrum of diverse opportunities in the field of textiles, both in design, industry, and creative practices, bringing out different roles and methods of creation in the field through various invited guests.

Supported by the Research Fund of EKA and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

On June 4th, 2025 at 14:00 Azeem Hamid’s first peer-review “Participation as Relation: Designing with People, Materials and Spaces” will take place at EKA in room A202.

The peer-reviewers are Dr. Oscar Tomico Plasencia (Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands) and Dr. Nithikul Nimkulrat (OCADU, Canada). The thesis supervisor is Dr. Kristi Kuusk (EKA, Estonia).

Azeem Hamid invites attendees to engage with the outcomes and reflections of the Sensorial Design Residency: Analog+Digital=Sensorial, a collaborative initiative between EKA and OCAD University, held in August 2024 in Tallinn.

His doctoral research explores how participatory design unfolds as a relational, situated, and more-than-human practice, and how participants co-create the experience of place and space through relation, sensory exploration and engagement with material. Grounded in relational design theory, sensory ethnography, and posthumanist pedagogy, the study challenges traditional models of participation as procedural inclusion.

Drawing on participant reflections, material practices, and field documentation, Hamid illustrates how participation emerges through play, friction and improvisation and how space is not a passive backdrop, but a co-actor in learning. The residency’s concluding exhibition at Põhjala Tehas is framed not as an endpoint, but as a spatial proposition that exemplifies relational pedagogy in practice.

His research contributes to broader conversations on pluriversal and situated design education, advocating for a shift from participation as management to participation as mutual becoming and co-dwelling within shared environments.

Azeem Hamid, originally from Lahore, Pakistan and now based in Tallinn, is a design researcher, educator, and facilitator focusing on transition design, placemaking, and design pedagogy. He is a doctoral student at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and holds a MSc. in Design and Technology Futures alongwith MPhil. in Art & Design Education (Research).

On May 27 from 15:00 to 19:00, an abstract-form-melodic* expedition will take place in the garden of Ööbiku 19, where life forms, perspectives, and fields converge.

*abstract, formal and melodic

In the garden, things clink and clatter, everyone has their own dance and whistle.

Each with their own character and their own sense of humor.

Some seek shelter from the outside, some seek vastness within the wrap.

Where does the neighbor fly, where does the cable run?

Who owns the field of view

and what crackles in the background?

Root Tooters Ensemble: Ats-Anton-Varustin, Eva Maria Põldmäe, Mia-Stella Aaslaid, Nikola Šmeralová

((It can also be added that:)This is an exhibition by students of the sculpture department, supervised by Laura Põld. If you have any questions, please read the event’s Facebook page, which can be found in the bio of @eka.installation.sculpture or contact us on Instagram.)

Oona Libens
29.05 17.00 B-305

NAUSEA – performance and lecture

Oona Libens is a swedish-belgian visual and performance artist. Her work revolves around the history of the (moving) image and media-archeology. Using simple components such as light, shadows, and analog projections, she illustrates scientific subjects, providing a tactile screen experience with shadows and refractions that animate the entire space.  Her performances become a mixture of object theatre and film. The audience gets to see how the images are being created and manipulated live.

Zwaantje Kurpershoek & Indrė Liškauskaitė
“Pastel Paws and Resting Rafts”
EKA Gallery 24.05.–17.06.2025

Guided tour: 23.05.2025 at 5 pm
Opening: 23.05.2025 at 6 pm
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm, free entry
NB! EKA Gallery is closed during Pentecost on June 8!

The exhibition “Pastel Paws and Resting Rafts” is the first joint exhibition by Dutch artist Zwaantje Kurpershoek and Lithuanian artist Indrė Liškauskaitė. Both artists have spatial practice: the work of Zwaantje Kurpershoek comes from an interaction between physical materials and fictional stories resulting in mainly paintings and installations, Indrė Liškauskaitė creates drawings that she weaves with everyday found objects and that occupy the exhibition space in unconventional ways.

The selected works offer a glimpse into the personal relationships the artists have with their four-legged companions. Zwaantje Kurpershoek observes and depicts in her painting series the differences and points of contact between two living beings sharing a living space. How, in passing moments, she becomes close with her cat Nami, then distant once again. Her second work is an installation of pastel colored sculptures — part toy, part survival tool — that guides the viewer through a landscape evoking a mythical, ambiguous feeling of childhood. Indrė Liškauskaitė, who researches dog-human play and train dog agility sport with her non-human companions Delta and Delfina, suspends her four-legged collaborators’ toys and leashes within the exhibition space, also making her drawings go through obstacle course-like physical objects.

Artists: Zwaantje Kurpershoek & Indrė Liškauskaitė
Curator: Kaisa Maasik
Graphic design: Fatima-Ezzahra Khammas
Technical support: Karmo Migur

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Erasmus+ Mobility Programme and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

Visit Peru, Sicily, Słubice and more on May 26: Urban studies thesis presentations and defence

Urban Studies students will present and defend their thesis projects on May 26, 10–18 (A501).

This year’s projects explore a real kaleidoscope of places and themes: urban creativity and cooptation in Ljubljana; post-disaster reconstruction in Hatay, Turkey; urban river regulation in Vienna; anti-gentrification movements in Lisbon; an informal market at the Polish-German border; fishermen and urban NGOs vying to shape a Peruvian coastal community; and a housing speculation scheme in Sicily.

Come join us on this journey and support the students—the final review is open to the public.

Follow our channels for further details.

The 2025 graduation ceremonies will be held on Thursday, June 19th in the EKA Assembly Hall (room A101, Põhja puiestee 7).

• At 11:00 AM, the ceremony will begin for graduates of the Faculty of Design and the Faculty of Art Culture, as well as for doctoral school graduates
• At 3:00 PM, the ceremony will begin for graduates of the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Fine Arts, as well as for doctoral school graduates

Dear graduates, please arrive 15 minutes early to the EKA Gallery, where you will be seated in designated seats. Guests can sit in the Assembly Hall, watch the ceremony on screens in the foyer, or follow it online via EKA TV.

More info:
Elisabeth Kuusik
elisabeth.kuusik@artun.ee