Symposium on artistic research in a time of change

17-18 Nov, Luleå, Sweden

REC are happy to be taking part in the Swedish Research Council's (Vetenskapsrådet) Symposium on artistic research in a time of change. We will be doing a participatory keynote titled "Wind as regeneration: collective experiments in dreaming energy futures" (full abstract below), where we will present our ongoing work in the project and give participants the opportunity to collectively build our alternative wind-based prototype Electric Field. Really nice to go to the north of Sweden, though the region continues to be a crucial site of conflict surrounding the problematics of wind energy, mining and so-called green transitions.

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Wind as regeneration: collective experiments in dreaming energy futures

From smart city community projects to breezy speculative fictions, the monumentality of wind turbines seem to dominate the imaginaries of renewable, sustainable energy transitions. Despite the focus on sustainable energy transitions the giant wind turbine project keeps energy hungry racial capitalism spinning and obscures the interdepencies of agriculture, communities and energy. In this workshop we ask how might we scavenge, retool, rescale and reassemble renewables into contraptions for community solidarity instead? Join us to invite the micro-scalar, ephemeral, spinning, softening and potently poetic qualities of wind onto the platform of sustainable energy experiments.

Using “regeneration” as a framework for challenging dominant paradigms and imaginaries of renewable energy practices, this workshop hosted by Regenerative Energy Communities will share hands-on practices and fieldnotes on orienting towards wind, as a way to nourish crossings between energy, culture, climate and biodiversity. Working at the micro to meso scale will invite workshop participants to meet with the pluralities of wind energy. To do so, we will introduce a range of what we characterize as regenerative methods and practices, including designing with compost- promoting regenerative materials, hybrid combinations of computational tools and biological processes, slow engineering, speculative poethics and a transdisciplinarity crossing situated within the longstanding and emerging innovations of various agroecological communities indebted to Black and decolonial farming movements.

In the workshop, R.E.C will introduce prototypes made during our research at VXO Farmlab, an experimental regenerative farm in Växjö, Sweden. Through storytelling, kinetic explorations, languaging and material immersion, we will delve into histories and possible futures of energy through wind, culminating in a network of mapping and also a series of functionally speculative, small scale prototypes. Bring your own practice, dreams and micro fantasies, make them collective and perhaps regenerative!