AHA! Festival

TEMA 2023: RESONANS

I sin mest fysiska betydelse uppstår resonans när två eller flera objekt påverkar varandra så att de kommer i samklang. Resonans är också en förklaringsmodell till stabilitet, struktur och egenskaper i kemiska föreningar. Enligt den tyska sociologen Hartmut Rosa är resonans inget känslotillstånd, utan ett sätt att relatera till världen. Resonans är enligt honom det gemensamma i alla de upplevelser som gör livet värt att leva. Resonans handlar om att den absorberade energin från en impuls, ger upphov till svängningar med samma frekvens, hos absorbenten. För att koalitioner och konfrontationer ska producera politisk förändring, krävs en lyhördhet för resonanser. Bra och effektiva ledare, skapar resonans och energi, och kan därigenom förflytta andra i en positiv, emotionell riktning. Och självklart är resonans en viktig del inom musik och akustik, liksom inom arkitektur, samt i mötet mellan konst och vetenskap. Tillsammans önskar vi utforska olika perspektiv av resonans under årets AHA!festival. Välkommen!

THEME 2023: RESONANCE

In its most physical sense, resonance occurs when two or more objects affect each other in a way that they come into harmony. Resonance is also an explanatory model for stability, structure, and properties in chemical compounds. According to the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa, resonance is not merely an emotional state but a way of relating to the world. He suggests that resonance is a common thread in all the experiences that make life worth living. Resonance involves the absorption of energy from an impulse, resulting in oscillations with the same frequency in the absorber. To bring about political change through coalitions and confrontations, one must be sensitive to resonances. Effective leaders can generate resonance and energy, thus motivating others in a positive and emotional direction. Furthermore, resonance plays a crucial role in music, acoustics, architecture, and the intersection of art and science. We invite you to explore various perspectives on resonance during this year's AHA! Festival. Welcome!

ABOUT THE AHA! FESTIVAL

The AHA!festival explores encounters between art and science during a two-day event at the Chalmers University of Technology. It is an international festival intended to provide a stage for enlightening and surprising experiences, staging surprises, new thoughts and displaced perspectives that lead to alternative modes of thinking about exploring the world through art and science. We invite scientists and artists who reside in these borderlands and wish to share their vision and work. The AHA!festival is free of charge and open to the public.

The AHA!festival is funded by Chalmers University of Technology, Ragnar Wahlstedts fond, ADB-fonden, Viggo Carlsens fond and Adlerbertska Chalmersfonden.

HISTORY

The relation between science and art has become more complex, but is just as important to attend to. Their meeting is still that of theory and practice, but also something more: a meeting of causal connections and meaningful coherences, of given conditions and unsuspected possibilities, of the order of things and our own place within it.

Today, ”science” no longer refers to systematic knowledge, but rather to a highly professionalised, specialised and often technically advanced activity intended for the production of empirically secure facts. Similarly, ”art” is no longer a methodical ability, but rather a complex and autonomous activity comparable to science: the creation of images, sounds, and other forms of sensuous experience with a most immediate effect. Forms that grab hold, shake up, leave us at a loss. Experiences that make us question ourselves and the world around us.

By bringing together science and art, architecture has provided an ideal playing field for such a confrontation for the first two festival in 2014 and 2015. In 2014, October 21–23, the first festival investigated the theme ‘embodiment.’ In 2015, November 2-4 the festival explored numbers, an underlying element in our lives. In year 2016 the festival was a joint voyage between the Departments of Architecture and Department of Physics to explore the theme ‘uni-verse,’ the fabric of life. All festivals offer three days of seminars, workshops, conversations, exhibitions, concerts, performances, and mingles, through thought-provoking experiences, hands-on surprises, itinerant perspectives, and savoury ideas. The festival welcomes students and researchers from all universities, and the general public, to turn the searchlight onto the relation between two different– but equally important – human activities; ’Science and art.’