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An 17ú Comhdháil de chuid Chumann na Taighde Ealaíonta (SAR)

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Submission Number: 390
Submission ID: 462
Submission UUID: b5858f06-a3dd-4731-9d72-5a26a918ec07

Cruthaithe: Mon, 2 Mar 2026 - 21:19
Déanta: Mon, 2 Mar 2026 - 22:03
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:43

Remote IP address: 149.90.220.123
Submitted by: Anonymous
Teanga: English

Is draft: Níl
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Camila
Mangueira
Your contribution
Rethinking technical objects: Hands-on creative practices with historical media
English
Technological changes have intensified cycles of consumption and obsolescence, while dominant narratives of digital innovation continue to obscure the material, ecological, and historical continuities of media technologies. In higher education institutions, this results in the accumulation of obsolete or partially functional technical objects, raising questions about sustainability, heritage, and the role of technical media in knowledge production. Grounded in media archaeology, critical design, and practice-based artistic research, this project presentation introduces the ongoing project Philosophical Media (PhilMe), developed at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. PhilMe explores how historical, obsolete, and broken technical objects can be reactivated as epistemic devices within higher educational contexts. The project has identified and catalogued over 300 objects, and established a pilot collection structured through a non-hierarchical typology that articulates museological, operational, and circular modes of engagement. This framework enables research, preservation, teaching, and hands-on creative experimentation, by putting the objects in the hands of the artistic and general community. The presentation will discuss selected practices and methods emerging from this framework, including research through repair and reuse, reflection on pedagogical media collections, and teaching methodologies that promote speculative engagement with the collection. Rather than illustrating predefined categories, these practices test their limits, foregrounding materiality, maintenance, and obsolescence as productive conditions for research and learning. By articulating theory, pedagogy, and curatorial practice, the project argues that reactivation and material sensitivity can support more situated, critical, and ecologically responsible engagements with technological systems, contributing to debates on electronic art, media heritage, and sustainable futures.
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  • Camila Mangueira is an artist, professor and researcher the Research Institute in Art, Design and Society (i2ADS), Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto. She coordinates the research project Philosophical Media (PhilMe), which critically explores the role of technical objects and mediations in shaping thought and the practice of the image as culture. Her work focuses on the interactions between logic, media, and image devices, examining the convergences between analog and digital from the perspectives of creative processes and media archaeology.
  • Fabrício Fava is a multidisciplinary designer and integrated researcher at the Research Institute in Art, Design and Society (i2ADS), Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, where he promotes research through design. As a moderator of the interest group in Ludic Interfaces and Speculative Design, he has been exploring playful methodologies and expanding the idea of ludic design as a means to develop creative thinking.
“Critical design practices for rethinking media ecologies”. SAR Forum, 2024. SIG 8: Facilitating as Creative Practice.
“Unfolding Technical Objects”, Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, 2024. https://www.up.pt/philme/uto/
“Philosophical Media”. International Creation Processes Conference, Algarve University, 2025.
Requirements
Nothing specific needed, it will be a traditional mode of presentation.
Projector and speakers.
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An 17ú Comhdháil de chuid Chumann na Taighde Ealaíonta (SAR)

Welcome to SAR 2026

Endangered Conceptual Worlds

The 2026 International Forum on Artistic Research takes place from 23 to 26 June 2026. Hosted by the University of Galway on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, the Forum addresses the challenges of Endangered Conceptual Worlds. As the 17th annual conference of the Society for Artistic Research it is the largest conference on practice-based research within and through the arts, bringing together more than 300 international participants: leading practitioners, scholars and policymakers from the entire range of arts-based disciplines.

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Slightly extended deadline for submissions

The 2026 Forum on Artistic Research website has been inaccessible for several hours on Friday night and Saturday morning. Unfortunately, an update to the web server was scheduled to take place, which automatically activated maintenance mode and prevented any work on the submissions during the night and the next morning. We have therefore decided to slightly extend the deadline for submissions to Monday 2 March 2026 at 23:59 GMT. Feel free to work on your proposals until then.