13th Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X

9-11 July, Dundee, Scotland, UK

XCOAX 2025
DUNDEE

Conference Program

Wednesday 9

13:00

Registration open

LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
13:30
School of X
  • Our Collective Noise (OCN): Exploring Aesthetic and Critical Possibilities Through Intentional Production of Noise — Alaz Okudan
  • (Labor) Revealed — Shirley Leung
  • Pigeons, Invisible Computational Processes, and Biomorphic Facade — Sei Jung
  • Fractured Perception: Trilingual AI-mediated Conversation Experiment — Maral Gurbanzadeh
  • Visual Pleasure and Neural Cinema: Navigating Cinematic Myths in AI Video Systems — Adam Cole
  • Towards the Design of Transcendence: Prospective Developments of Transformative VR Experiences — Tiago Alves
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
16:15
Experimental Media Lab — CoSTAR
  • Partial Affinities — Domenica Landin, Mamoru Watanabe
Exhibition open from 14:00
Presentation 16:15 LocationWater's Edge - Big Real Studio
17:30
Exhibition opening LocationDundee University Student Association
20:00
Performances
  • AETHRAKHTHON: Structuring Electroacoustic Improvisation and Performance Using a Game Engine — Christos Michalakos
  • Pulsar Threads — Jules Rawlinson
  • Modulating Time — Alex McLean, Elizabeth Wilson
LocationBeat Generator - No Lift Access

Thursday 10 & Friday 11

Thu10:00 - 18:00 / Fri10:00 - 15:00
Exhibition
  • A Structural Plan for Imitation: Engines of Differentiation — Rosemary Lee
  • An Atlas to Track Blockchain Colonialism — César Escudero Andaluz
  • Do Not Drop (Parcel Series) — Julian Palacz
  • Garden Me Tender — Lucia Bergamaschi, Tomáš Javůrek
  • Lives of Your Smartphones — Shinji Toya
  • The Hyper-visual Times — Francesca Morini, Kim Frederic Albrecht
  • Generative Persuasion — Derek Curry, Jennifer Gradecki
  • Botter: Social Media for Bots — Gaston Welisch
  • A Reverse Turing Test — Tore Knabe, Jonathan Harth
  • Cistem Not Found: A Project on Mutable Gender Possibilities in AI — Pedro Costa
  • MOTHER: Generative AI Photo-film — Beverley Hood
  • Subwords — Jérémie Wenger
  • This Voice; This Life; This Procession — Brass Art: Chara Lewis, Kristin Mojsiewicz, Anneké Pettican, with Annie Mahtani
  • Oneironautica III: Estrangement — Christian Geiger, Ivana Družetić-Vogel, Laurenz Ulrich, Leon Repp, Christian Zimmer
  • Being Within — Sofia Taipa
  • Motionforms: A Kinetic Light and Sound Installation — Daniel Bisig, Philippe Kocher
LocationDundee University Student Association

Thursday 10

09:30

Registration open

Tea & coffee served LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
10:00

Paper Session 1

  • Datamorphism: Data Art of the Other-Than-Human — Moritz Huson, Lena Gieseke
  • Insidious Imaginaries: A Critical Overview of AI Speculations — Dejan Grba
  • Providing Form to Function: Exploring Code Through Visualisation — Matthew Blanco, Todd Linkner
  • Fauxtanical: Co-creation with the More-than-less-than-human — Tyler Grimes
  • Q&A (moderator Mario Verdicchio)
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
11:30

Paper Session 2

  • BackChat: When AI Learns Language in Reverse — Isaac Clarke, Theo Papatheodorou
  • Transmutations: Aesthetic Explorations for the Subjective Signification of Signals and Data — Maria José Ríos Araya, Ricardo Vega Mora
  • Operativity: From Images to Archives — Nina Wenhart
  • Challenging Disability and Interaction Norms in XR: Cooling Down the Empathy Machine in Waiting for Hands — Yesica Duarte, Puneet Jain
  • Q&A (moderator Luísa Ribas)
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
12:45

Lunch Break

14:00
Artworks Session
  • Rosemary Lee
  • Cesar Escudero
  • Julian Palacz
  • Lucia Bergamaschi
  • Shinji Toya
  • Francesca Morini, Kim Albrecht
  • Derek Curry, Jennifer Gradecki
  • Gaston Welisch
  • Tore Knabe, Jonathan Harth
  • Beverley Hood
  • Jérémie Wenger
  • Chara Lewis, Kristin Mojsiewicz, Anneke Pettican, Annie Mahtani
  • Ivana Družetić-Vogel, Christian Geiger
  • Sofia Taipa
  • Daniel Bisig, Philippe Kocher
  • Q&A (moderator Jason Reizner)
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
17:00
Keynote
  • Thinking Differently About “Data” in Creative and Interactive Machine Learning — Rebecca Fiebrink
  • Q&A (moderator Jung In Jung)
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
18:30

Break

20:00
Performances
  • Sonosphere: A Spatial Music Instrument for Human and Artificial Dancers — Daniel Bisig, Ephraim Wegner, Aaron Bühler, Daniel Fetzner
  • Translating Desire — Rudolf Arnold
  • Currents & Tides: An Exploration of Generative Music in Three Acts — Angela Brennecke, Andreea-Cristina Mircea, Elena Vasilkova, Aydin Thill, Anna Ferro, Joel Schäfer, Lisa Passing
LocationBeat Generator - No Lift Access

Friday 11

09:30

Registration open

Tea & coffee served LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
10:00

Paper Session 3

  • What is Algorithmic Pattern? Reflections on a Salon — Laura Devendorf, Alex McLean, Vernelle Noel, Iván Paz, Anu Reddy, Elizabeth Wilson
  • Algorithms and Environmental Concerns: From Game Design to Creative Resistance — Eke Rebergen
  • Trapped in the Metric Tar Pit of Common Time — Martin Gordon
  • Artificial Worldviews — Kim Albrecht
  • Q&A (moderator Miguel Carvalhais)
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
11:30

Paper Session 4

  • The Dybbuk, The Loab, Latent Space and Multi-Modal Artificial Intelligence — Ellen Pearlman
  • Between the Discrete and the Infinite: Attention and Latent Space Metaphors in Borges and Calvino — Ludovica Schaerf, Ana Zapata, Darío Negueruela del Castillo, Iacopo Neri
  • Material Agency in Systems of Art: Reflections on Theatricality, System Aesthetics, and Nonhuman Turn — Xinyu Ma, Clea von Chamier-Waite
  • Q&A (moderator Mario Verdicchio)
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
12:30

Lunch Break

14:00

Paper Session 5

  • Apollo e Marsia: Time and Memory under Tension — Jonathan Impett
  • Imagining and Inventing Bespoke Devices for Experimental Sound Practices — Magno Caliman
  • Data Perceptualization through Affect in Dark Sonification — Miguel Crozzoli, Thor Magnusson
  • Timbre: Transforming Perception into Sonic Expression — Rafael Maia
  • Q&A (moderator Johanna Linsley)
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
15:30
Performance Session
  • Jules Rawlinson
  • Christos Michalakos
  • Daniel Bisig, Ephraim Wegner, Aaron Bühler, Daniel Fetzner
  • Rudolf Arnold
  • Angela Brennecke, Andreea-Cristina Mircea, Elena Vasilkova, Aydin Thill, Anna Ferro, Joel Schäfer, Lisa Passing
  • Q&A (moderator Deniz Johns)
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
17:00
Keynote
  • 2X<l2Xl> : My dinner date with Tetsuo Kogawa in Akihabara, Tokyo, May 17, 2025 — Shu Lea Cheang
  • Q&A (moderator Martin Zeilinger)
LocationAuditorium, V&A Dundee
18:30

Break

21:00
Closing Party LocationArctic Bar

Keynote Speakers

Shu Lea Cheang

Shu Lea Cheang

Shu Lea Cheang is an artist and filmmaker who engages in genre bending gender hacking art practices. She drafts sci-fi narratives in her film scenario and artwork imagination. She builds social interface with transgressive plots and open network that permits public participation. Celebrated as a net art pioneer with BRANDON (1998-99), the first web art commissioned and collected by Guggenheim Museum, New York, Cheang represented Taiwan with mixed media installation, 3×3×6, at Venice Biennale 2019. Crafting her own genre of Scifi New Queer Cinema, she has made four feature films, FRESH KILL (1994), I.K.U. (2000), FLUIDø (2017) and UKI (2023). In 2024, she receives the LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Award. In early 2025, she presents a theatre performance Hagay Dreaming at Tate Modern and an exhibition KI$ KI$ at Haus der Kunst in Munich. (photo@SMITH)

mauvaiscontact.info
Rebecca Fiebrink

Rebecca Fiebrink

Rebecca Fiebrink is a Professor of Creative Computing at the UAL Creative Computing Institute. Together with her students and research assistants, she works on a variety of projects developing new technologies to enable new forms of human expression, creativity, and embodied interaction. Much of her current research combines techniques from human-computer interaction, machine learning, and signal processing to allow people to apply machine learning more effectively to new problems, such as the design of new digital musical instruments and gestural interfaces for gaming and accessibility. She is also involved in projects developing rich interactive technologies for digital humanities scholarship, exploring ways that machine learning can be used and appropriated to reveal and challenge patterns of bias and inequality, and advancing machine learning education.

Proceedings

xCoAx 2025 Proceedings

xCoAx 2025

Proceedings of the Thirteenth Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X

Edited by Miguel Carvalhais, Mario Verdicchio, Luísa Ribas & André Rangel
427 pages
ISBN: 978-989-9279-05-6↓ PDF

Papers

Moritz Huson, Lena Gieseke

Datamorphism: Data Art of the Other-Than-Human

↓ PDF

Dejan Grba

Insidious Imaginaries: A Critical Overview of AI Speculations

↓ PDF

Matthew Blanco, Todd Linkner

Providing Form to Function: Exploring Code Through Visualisation

↓ PDF

Tyler Grimes

Fauxtanical: Co-creation with the More-than-less-than-human

↓ PDF

Isaac Clarke, Theo Papatheodorou

BackChat: When AI Learns Language in Reverse

↓ PDF

Maria José Ríos Araya, Ricardo Vega Mora

Transmutations: Aesthetic Explorations for the Subjective Signification of Signals and Data

↓ PDF

Nina Wenhart

Operativity: From Images to Archives

↓ PDF

Yesica Duarte, Puneet Jain

Challenging Disability and Interaction Norms in XR: Cooling Down the Empathy Machine in Waiting for Hands

↓ PDF

Laura Devendorf, Alex McLean, Vernelle Noel, Iván Paz, Anu Reddy, Elizabeth Wilson

What is Algorithmic Pattern? Reflections on a Salon

↓ PDF

Eke Rebergen

Algorithms and Environmental Concerns: From Game Design to Creative Resistance

↓ PDF

Martin Gordon

Trapped in the Metric Tar Pit of Common Time

↓ PDF

Kim Albrecht

Artificial Worldviews

↓ PDF

Ellen Pearlman

The Dybbuk, The Loab, Latent Space and Multi-Modal Artificial Intelligence

↓ PDF

Ludovica Schaerf, Ana Zapata, Darío Negueruela del Castillo, Iacopo Neri

Between the Discrete and the Infinite: Attention and Latent Space Metaphors in Borges and Calvino

↓ PDF

Xinyu Ma, Clea von Chamier-Waite

Material Agency in Systems of Art: Reflections on Theatricality, System Aesthetics, and Nonhuman Turn

↓ PDF

Jonathan Impett

Apollo e Marsia: Time and Memory under Tension

↓ PDF

Magno Caliman

Imagining and Inventing Bespoke Devices for Experimental Sound Practices

↓ PDF

Miguel Crozzoli, Thor Magnusson

Data Perceptualization through Affect in Dark Sonification

↓ PDF

Rafael Maia

Timbre: Transforming Perception into Sonic Expression

↓ PDF

Artworks

A Structural Plan for Imitation: Engines of Differentiation

A Structural Plan for Imitation: Engines of Differentiation

Rosemary Lee

↓ PDF
An Atlas to Track Blockchain Colonialism

An Atlas to Track Blockchain Colonialism

Cesar Escudero

↓ PDF
Do Not Drop (Parcel Series)

Do Not Drop (Parcel Series)

Julian Palacz

↓ PDF
Garden Me Tender

Garden Me Tender

Lucia Bergamaschi, Tomáš Javůrek

↓ PDF
Lives of Your Smartphones

Lives of Your Smartphones

Shinji Toya

↓ PDF
The Hyper-Visual Times

The Hyper-Visual Times

Francesca Morini, Kim Albrecht

↓ PDF
Generative Persuasion

Generative Persuasion

Derek Curry, Jennifer Gradecki

↓ PDF
Botter: Social Media for Bots

Botter: Social Media for Bots

Gaston Welisch

↓ PDF
A Reverse Turing Test

A Reverse Turing Test

Tore Knabe, Jonathan Harth

↓ PDF
Cistem Not Found: A Project on Mutable Gender Possibilities in AI

Cistem Not Found: A Project on Mutable Gender Possibilities in AI

Pedro Costa

↓ PDF
MOTHER: Generative AI Photo-Film

MOTHER: Generative AI Photo-Film

Beverley Hood

↓ PDF
Subwords

Subwords

Jérémie Wenger

↓ PDF
This Voice; This Life; This Procession

This Voice; This Life; This Procession

Brass Art: Chara Lewis, Kristin Mojsiewicz, Anneka Pettican, Annie Mahtani

↓ PDF
Oneironautica III: Estrangement

Oneironautica III: Estrangement

Christian Geiger, Ivana Družetić-Vogel, Laurenz Ulrich, Leon Repp, Christian Zimmer

↓ PDF
Motionforms: A Kinetic Light and Sound Installation

Motionforms: A Kinetic Light and Sound Installation

Daniel Bisig, Philippe Kocher

↓ PDF

Performances

AETHRAKHTHON: Structuring Electroacoustic Improvisation and Performance Using a Game Engine

AETHRAKHTHON: Structuring Electroacoustic Improvisation and Performance Using a Game Engine

Christos Michalakos

↓ PDF
Pulsar Threads

Pulsar Threads

Jules Rawlinson

↓ PDF
Modulating Time

Modulating Time

Alex McLean, Elizabeth Wilson

↓ PDF
Sonosphere: A Spatial Music Instrument for Human and Artificial Dancers

Sonosphere: A Spatial Music Instrument for Human and Artificial Dancers

Daniel Bisig, Ephraim Wegner, Aaron Bühler, Daniel Fetzner

↓ PDF
Translating Desire: A Lecture Performance about Space Sexology, Gender Identity, and Music

Translating Desire: A Lecture Performance about Space Sexology, Gender Identity, and Music

Rudolf Arnold

↓ PDF
Currents & Tides: An Exploration of Generative Music in Three Acts

Currents & Tides: An Exploration of Generative Music in Three Acts

Angela Brennecke, Andreea-Cristina Mircea, Elena Vasilkova, Aydin Thill, Anna Ferro, Joel Schäfer, Lisa Passing

↓ PDF

School of X

Following the success of the 2023 and 2024 editions, the School of X is back as part of xCoAx 2025.

The School of X is a virtual and physical space where PhD candidates are invited to submit a text on their current research project and/or artistic endeavour for the chance to exchange ideas, discussing theory and practice, give and receive feedback, both with fellow participants and with the School of X mentors:

  • Angela Ferraiolo (Sarah Lawrence College)
  • André Rangel (Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto)
  • Caterina Moruzzi (University of Edinburgh)
  • Luísa Ribas (Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon)
  • Mario Verdicchio (Università degli Studi di Bergamo)
  • Martin Zeilinger (Abertay University)
  • Miguel Carvalhais (Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto)

Experimental Media Lab

For 2025, we are excited to have a unique opportunity developed in a collaboration between xCoAx and the CoSTAR RealTime lab, which invited a small number of media artists and technologists to undertake creative experiments using the CoSTAR infrastructure over the course of one week in early July and to explore new, innovative, and alternative creative uses of virtual production (VP) and motion capture technologies. The CoSTAR mentors and tech supports are:

  • Calum Main (University of Edinburgh)
  • Haocheng Yang (Abertay University)
  • Matthew Bett (Abertay University)
  • Phillip Vaughan (Abertay University)
  • Theodore Koterwas (University of Edinburgh)

LocationWater's Edge - Big Real Studio

Committees

Scientific Committee

Organising Committee

Past Organisers

Get in touch