Personal Information
--------------------






Given name: Anne









Surname: Haaning









Email: A.Haaning@gold.ac.uk









I understand that by submitting this form, I consent to the use of my data for the purposes of the 2026 Forum on Artistic Research'.: Tá









I agree to the terms of service.: Tá













Your contribution
-----------------






Title: We Are Supernova









Format: Other format (7)









Main language: English









Abstract:
Submission to: Making seeable and sayable

What can only be known by a body? And what happens to that knowledge when instruments can only detect what they already expect to find?
We Are Supernova is a practice-led MSCA postdoctoral project by Anne Haaning at Goldsmiths, developing an intermaterial method tracing silica from cosmic origins to the silicon chip. Its findings take the form of a lecture performance in which an essay is read out loud while screen-capture records her navigating research repositories, enacting rather than illustrating the research.
The project organises itself around three material investigations. First, seeing patterns in noise: before any pattern can be detected, the world must be reduced to data, stripped of embodied and situated knowledge as a prerequisite. AI diffusion models, the Vera Rubin Observatory, and NASA's cosmic dust collection share this logic, but what kind of knowledge goes undetected at such scales of information? Second, machine vision: the drone operates within a kill box; it must define its target before it can see. SETI listens only for signals it already knows. As ambitions to colonise space intensify, is the Vera Rubin Observatory's survey of the sky so different, a kill box aimed at the universe? Third, supernova/silica/silicon: tracing silica from stellar nucleosynthesis to semiconductor reveals a single continuous material history. Silica was transforming from supernova to sand to chip long before Silicon Valley turned that transformation into a product. Whatever computation achieves, the universe remains indifferent.
Across all three is a lineage connecting Carl Sagan, the Whole Earth Catalog, and Silicon Valley accelerationism, cosmic curiosity progressively narrowed into extractivist projection. The intermaterial method refuses that narrowing, a form of situated knowledge that keeps body and material in relation against the homogenising pressures of algorithmic and platform-driven knowledge production.










Image: https://test.sar2026.ie/system/files/webform/submit_contribution/402/_MG_6456_edit.jpg









Short biographies of the presenter(s):
- Anne Haaning is a Danish artist and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Art, Goldsmiths University of London. Her practice-led research uses video installation, sculpture and printmaking to investigate the material and ecological implications of digital technology. The results of her PhD project Half Hidden (2020) is in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Denmark. She is currently developing We Are Supernova, an MSCA-funded project tracing the material history of silica from stellar nucleosynthesis to semiconductor. Recent exhibitions include Tracer Object (Heirloom, 2025). In 2025 she was keynote speaker on Extractivism in the North at IKK, Copenhagen University.










Previous presentations or iterations of the research:
Our Work Wasn't Done was performed once at Goldsmiths University of London in June 2025, in an event organised by Prof. Nina Wakeford. The performance brought together We Are Supernova and curator Julia Marchand's research on the Georgian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. A response was provided by sociologist Michael Guggenheim.

The accompanying exposition on the Research Catalogue can be accessed at:
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/shared/a1cbfecd0fac6a34a9a7c0a05c440ef4















Requirements
------------






Additional information:
{Empty}










Spatial and technical requirements :
Low-light space suitable for video projection. A projector or screen and speakers, as well as a lectern or table where I can have my laptop.










Potential risks or ethical concerns:
Archival research was conducted within the terms of access granted by the Library of Congress, NASA, the Computer History Museum, and the Silicon Valley Archives. References to drone deployment in Ukraine and Gaza are handled as critical analysis, not advocacy. A meditation session at SETI's Hat Creek Observatory was conducted with the knowledge and cooperation of the institute's research team.










Create a user account for SAR 2026: Tá









Create new user: Anne Haaning