We Are Supernova

A presentation in the conversation series Artistic Practice as Applied Ecological Thinking

This presentation traces silica across its material continuum, from stellar nucleosynthesis to semiconductor. Through fieldwork at major observatories and an "intermaterial method", it surfaces material interconnections and operating assumptions embedded in technological infrastructures.

Silica is the residue of exploding stars, the sand beneath our feet, and the core material of the silicon chip driving Al. Its continuum from the cosmic to the computational is both metaphorical and material. What is revealed about the logic of technological acceleration when its core material is traced from supernova to silicon chip?

The research project We Are Supernova pursues this question through an "intermaterial method": using fieldwork and material investigation, from within art practice, to surface the compositional histories concealed within technology. This method develops, in part, through creative collaboration with scientists.

At Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile, surveying the southern sky in search of dark matter and cosmic transients, a drone was deployed to film its own reflection alongside the Rubin Observatory, in mirrors referencing the telescope mirror collecting light from the edge of the visible universe: technology reflecting technology in eternal self-referentiality.

At SETI's Hat Creek Observatory, listening for extraterrestrial communication, anything that doesn't resemble human-made technology is discarded as noise – the search for other intelligences is limited to our own reflection. Here, a filmed meditation session – a human antenna, was staged in a field of radio telescopes, while scientists animated them – a collaboration where the boundary between observation and performance was obscured.

Anne Haaning presents her postdoctoral project We Are Supernova, which explores the relationships between cosmological imaginaries, material processes, and human modes of life through artistic research. The research is conducted through an MSCA postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Art at Goldsmiths University of London and will take the form of a live performed text alongside a video work enacting rather than reporting the intermaterial method.

Kayta Sander responds to the presentation from the perspective of her own practice and ongoing investigation of the relationships between digital technology, everyday life, and cultural imagination. The conversation is moderated by Eva la Cour.

Bios

Katya Sander

Katya Sander is a visual artist with a special interest in conceptual and contextually based methods and processes. Her work is about production and circulation of social imaginaries: Structures, models and images through which we imagine ourselves and what we can do. She has was professor at the Royal Danish Art Academy, Head of Dept. for Language, Space and Scale, and is currently professor at Film Art School in Kabelvåg, UiT.

Anne Haaning

Anne Haaning is a visual artist currently based between London and Copenhagen. Haaning's practice is situated in the field of video and installation art with a strong focus on technology. She is a recipient of a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship, hosted at the Department of Art at Goldsmiths University of London, prior to which she defended her practice-based PhD at Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2022.

Eva la Cour

Eva la Cour is a visual artist and postdoc at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Art and Cultural Studies and the Center for Applied Ecological Thinking (CApE). Her practice combines academic research and process-oriented filmmaking to explore Arctic terrains with colonial histories, and their entanglement with ecological and social crises.

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