28th November at 2 p.m. Julijonas Urbonas will defend his art project „Gravitational Aesthetics“ (Fine Arts V 002) at the Reading Room for Art Books, Vilnius Academy of Arts Library (Maironio St. 6, Vilnius, Room 208).
The art project defence meeting will be held in English.
Studied at the Vilnius Academy of Arts doctoral program during the period of 2005-2007.
Supervision: Dr. Arūnas Gelūnas, consulting: Dr. Giedrė Mickūnaitė
The Artistic Research Project was carried out at the Royal College of Art during the period of 2007-2011
Supervision: Dr. Anthony Dunne, Dr. Marquard Smith, Brendan Walker
The Artistic Research Project will be defended externally at a public meeting of the Academic Board of Fine Arts at Vilnius Academy of Arts composed of the following members:
Chairperson:
Prof. Dr. Vytautas Michelkevičius (Vilnius Academy of Arts, Visual Arts, Fine Arts V 002; Humanities, Art History and Theory H 003; Social Sciences, Communication and Information S 008)
Members:
Dr. Barbara Brownie (The Royal College of Art (UK), Humanities, Art History and Theory H 003)
Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stepanian (University of the Underground, London (UK), Visual Arts, Fine Arts V 002, Design V003)
Dr. Mindaugas Gapševičius (Bauhaus-Universitat Weimar (Germany), Visual Arts, Media Art, Fine Arts V 002)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lolita Jablonskienė (Vilnius Academy of Arts, Humanities, Art History and Theory H 003)
Abstract
What happens to the field of art under diverse gravities such as weightlessness, hypergravity, or fluctuating gravity? And—vice versa—what gravities might art itself generate?
“Gravitational Aesthetics” treats gravity as an artistic medium, designing and testing devices and situations that modulate gravitational conditions to choreograph new aesthetic experiences and critical social spaces. As altered gravities migrate from labs to galleries and daily life—via amusement engineering, sports technologies, and off-world habitats—there is an urgent need for an aesthetic and ethical toolkit to guide how gravity will choreograph bodies, attention, and society. Grounded in critical design, dance, amusement-ride psychology, vehicle engineering, aerospace medicine and postphenomenology, it establishes a set of new creative approaches such as vehicular poetics, design choreography, and critical vertigo—and outlines an exodisciplinary approach for future art. In sum, gravitational aesthetics is both a cartography and provocation: a map of how weight, fall, and flight already infiltrate art practices, and a call to cultivate new gravities, on Earth and far beyond.
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Illustration: Studio Pointer*, 2022.
