About us
Mission
As Emergence, art and tech students collaborate on the research and development of new artistic media using the expertise of both the TUDelft and nearby art schools. Our artworks aim to facilitate an understanding of complex technology that has been "blackboxed", where its intricate inner workings and large scale are difficult to comprehend and cause us to lose touch with it.
We dream of a space at the TUDelft for playful tinkering, experimentation and collaboration between all kinds of different disciplines.
Where we facilitate curiosity-driven research and invent new media and new artistic languages. Through which art can create new worlds of experience.
A team that develops artworks that offer a different perspective upon the impact of technology on society, creating opportunities to discuss and reflect.
Vision
Why?
Artists dare to dream big and limitless resulting in science fiction often coming before science fact. However, to make it science fact, we need scientists and engineers to research and develop these technologies.
As technology advances, its inner workings and scale become increasingly difficult to comprehend, even for its experts. This is especially true for technological advancements such as AI, which increasingly impact society. With our interdisciplinary team, we aim to shed light on this so-called black-boxing of technology.
Through the projects of Emergence, we will reflect on the potential opportunities and issues arising from this process of becoming an ever-more digital society.
We will bring artists and engineers together in Emergence, a curiosity-driven interdisciplinary research and development team of students from the TUDelft and nearby art schools like the Royal Academy of Art and the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague.
We want to act as a platform for interdisciplinary creatives to connect with each other and the research done in all the different faculties and departments. Through this, we seek to explore the untapped potential in their intersections.
We take inspiration from the MIT Media Lab and the ArtScience Interfaculty, whose interdisciplinary work has pushed the boundaries, from the first touch-screen displays to multi-sensorial experiences merging music, visual arts, media art, humanities and the natural sciences.
What?
How?
As Emergence, art and tech students collaborate on the research and development of new artistic media using the expertise of both the TUDelft and nearby art schools.
This is pursued via two different kinds of projects, the Platform- and the New Media project.
The Platform Projects are based on curiosity-driven research and develop artworks that respond to open calls or are commissioned projects. They all span a single semester.
On the other hand, the annual New Media Project follows a more classic dream team approach with a mission-driven focus. It consists of both a research and development phase. The research phase aims to create a new artistic medium that builds upon TUDelft research. In the following development phase, this medium is used in an artwork that facilitates an understanding of complex technology that has been "blackboxed." We aim to exhibit our artworks at art festivals like Highlight Delft and present our new artistic media at technology conferences like SIGGRAPH. Ultimately, we seek to compete in the annual Prix Ars Electronica, the world's most well-known media arts competition.