Arts and culture
In the Making #12: Prediction, Simulation, and the Incalculable Model
- Femke Herregraven
- Date
- Thursday 22 May 2025
- Time
- Address
- West in the former American Embassy
Lange Voorhout 102
The Hague
The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) of Leiden University and Art Institute West Den Haag are pleased to announce their close collaboration in the second season of the public series In the Making. This series, dedicated to the practice of research in the arts, will consist of seven public sessions taking place on a monthly basis.
The articulation of art and research has a long and rich tradition that has grown in scope and relevance in the past few decades. ACPA has played a significant role in this process, as it is an internationally pioneering institution that enables artists to conduct research through their own practice in a University context. In the Making is meant to both present to the public the research carried out within ACPA as well as to foster a dialogue with a number of international actors from a variety of disciplines.
Artistic research makes the relationship between art and society permeable. Rather than bracketed in the private realm of the lone artist or the sometimes-isolated circuits of the art market, artistic research opens up its practice to the public domain. Its methods become part of collective process of exploration and re-imagining. In the Making aims to deepen a perspective which conceives of artistic practice not as the sole product of individual visionaries but as a collective endeavor embedded in society. It addresses the role of art in the construction of the present and the creation of possible futures.
In the Making #12: Prediction, Simulation, and the Incalculable Model
Through a series of recent works, this talk explores the modelling and financialization of the future. It reflects on how, rather than rejecting technology, technological tools can be repurposed to experiment with image making when perception collapses, to escape the categorisation of the model, and how to speak when language no longer suffices. How can the entanglement of language, code, matter, and predictive structures become a new protocol for image and art making? Underpinning this talk is the question of artistic research method and what a method means within a state of vertigo and disorientation.
After the presentation, Femke Herregraven will be joined by Dr. Marleen Stikker, founder and executive director of Waag Futurelab in Amsterdam and Dr. Francesco Ragazzi, associate professor in International Relations at Leiden University and co-director of ReCNTR.
Presenter: Femke Herregraven
Femke Herregraven’s work explores the effects of abstract value systems on landscapes, ecosystems, historiography, and daily life. Her research into the interaction between financial markets, risks, and the physical world forms the foundation for her iterative sculptures, drawings, films, and hybrid installations. Herregraven is an alumnus of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam (2017-2018), and obtained the Creator Doctus title at the Sandberg Institute in 2024. She was shortlisted for the 2019 Prix de Rome, awarded the Evens Arts Prize 2023 and the Theodora Niemeijer Prize in 2025.
Guests: Marleen Stikker and Francesco Ragazzi
Dr. Marleen Stikker is founder and executive director of Waag Futurelab in Amsterdam. Waag Futurelab reinforces critical reflection on technology, develops technological and social design skills, and encourages social innovation. Marleen leads the trans-disciplinary team of designers, artists and scientists, utilising Public Research and Key Enabling Methodologies to empower people to participate in the collective design of open, fair and inclusive futures. Marleen founded 'De Digitale Stad' (The Digital City) in 1993, the first virtual community introducing free public access to the Internet in Amsterdam. In 2021 she was appointed professor of practice by HvA, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Dr. Francesco Ragazzi is associate professor in International Relations at Leiden University (Netherlands) and co-director of ReCNTR, Leiden University’s Center on Multimodal and Audiovisual Methods. Francesco has directed and produced several documentary films. In his current collective research project SECURITY VISION Francesco explores, through quantitative, qualitative, film and coding methods, the security uses of computer vision in areas such as biometric surveillance, social media content moderation and border control.
