Doctoral defense of Pepa Ivanova

Doctoral defence

Pepa Ivanova will defend her doctoral research in the Arts, titled

“An echo of the sun. On collecting and narrating stories of evolution and coexistence between the earth and the sun”.

This research looks at the physical processes of the sun captured by solar and earth observations which become creative mediums in the conception of the artworks dedicated to the interaction of the two cosmic bodies. It examines the holistic sun-earth dynamics from the perspective of more-than-human theories. According to them, all biotic and abiotic factors on the earth share equal importance and expand in an ecosystem with the cosmos. Bridging Alexander Chizhevsky’s holistic interaction of cosmic bodies with Luciana Parisi's autopoietic in algorithmic architecture in a dialog between scientist(s) and artist(s) Pepa look at the sun-earth intra-connection found in frequencies and pulsating in planetary processes. The artworks resulting from the research encompass various methods and media; from fictional solar data drawings translated by scientists, and mixed media installation touching on the solar surface; to interface composing the incoming solar events into soundscapes and an installation summarizing the entirety of the visual light on the earth.

Those artworks converge crafts, philosophy, science, and technology to explore the multisensorial experiences and narratives art-science collaboration provides.

The members of the examination committee are:

• Prof. dr. Peter De Graeve (LUCA School of Arts/KU Leuven, chairman of the examination committee)
• Prof. dr. Esther Venrooij (supervisor, LUCA School of Arts/KU Leuven)
• Prof. dr. Annelies Monseré (co-supervisor, LUCA School of Arts/KU Leuven)
• Miha Turšič (Waag, Netherlands)
• Prof. dr. Rachel Armstrong (KU Leuven)
• Prof. dr. Veerle Van der Sluys (LUCA School of Arts/KU Leuven)
• Alexandra Dementieva (visual artist, Brussels)
• Dr. Rolf Hughes (EIT Culture & Creativity)