Tanya Ravn Ag

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I am Assistant Professor at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. My research is focused on technoaesthetics, digital art, and algorithmic technology and culture. I am particularly interested in how art and technoaesthetic phenomena change with technology and digital culture and in the perceptual, cognitive, cultural, and sociopolitical implications of technoaesthetic experience. My methodologies are grounded in theories on perception, temporality, technodiversity, feminist new materialism, philosophy of technology, and technogenesis.

My current research project Algorithms in Art: Displacements with Algorithmic Culture in Art since 1990 (2024-2025) explores how art changes with algorithmic culture and technology. It maps and unravels variations in how algorithms have been practiced and developed in artistic production since the 1990s in the Danish art context. My recent research project Art of Our Times (2020-2024) develops an intratemporal onto-epistemology for art as existing and evolving through diverse temporalities between intersubjective and interobjective digital infrastructural relations. My research project Expanded Reality: Radical Temporal Change in Immersive Environments (2018-2020) at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, examines technophilosophical perspectives on mediated reality construction (or, reduction) through the lens of art and media aesthetic phenomena.

My work results in publications as well as in applied research. My research has contributed to the curatorial development of a number of art exhibitions, urban digital galleries, and the Screen City Biennial in Norway, as well as in didactical models for technoaesthetic learning. I write for academic as well as art and culture institutional outlets. My book Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art (Intellect 2019, edited) conducts the first survey on how contemporary artists have adopted and evolve their practices with digital technologies and culture in the Nordic context, based on 68 artist interviews and through 17 authored chapters. My book What Urban media Art Can Do: Why When Where & How (av edition 2016, co-edited with Susa Pop, Nerea Calvillo and Mark Wright) develops urban media art as a term describing a momentous evolvement in urban artistic explorations in public art characterized by the making, utilization, and critical exploration of innovations in software and technology in response to urban discourses and urgencies.

I serve on the Board of ISEA International (International Symposium on Electronic Arts) and was elected Chair of the IIAC (ISEA International Advisory Committee, 2020-2023). I am a member of the Digital Culture research cluster at IKK, the Media Architecture Institute, and I have served on a range of jurys and advisory committees on emerging digital art initiatives.

I have organized and oftentimes chaired over 20 international seminars, symposia, workshops, and panels, and been invited to deliver five international keynotes.

I believe that the best scholarly work evolves from experimental thinking untied from disciplines and grounded in practice, and from the well-being and genuine motivation of the colleagues and students I work with and advice.

Primære forskningsområder

• Digital culture, objects and phenomena 
• Algorithmic art and culture
• Aesthetic exprience
• Technoaesthetics
• Philosophy of perception, memory and temporality
• Technogenesis
• Feminist new materialism
• Technodiversity
• Cultural neuroscience
• Digital art, urban media art, public art
• Expanded Reality (virtual, augmented, mixed, extended, imaginary)

Undervisnings- og vejledningsområder

My interdisciplinary teaching profile has evolved through a decade og teaching and lecturing at universities and arts institutions worldwide across art, culture, technology, science, architecture, and urbanity. Between 2017-2019 I developed the curriculum and didactical profile of the globally networked Urban Media Art Academy with Susa Pop.

I practice and evolve a teaching methodology on Technoaesthetic Learning focused on learning through experience with aesthetic material as conditioned by technological culture, functionality, and practice. It builds on learning principles from deep learning, aesthetic learning, and meta reflexive learning as conditioned by cognitive-attentional structures of digital culture and technology.

My recent and upcoming courses include “Cultural Theory: Digital Culture and Technogenesis” (2022) and “Anticipative Aesthetics: Algorithmic Culture, Aesthetics, and Narratives” (2024), both at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH.

I advice M.A. theses with care and genuine interest on topics of e.g. digital culture, digital art, technological culture, perception and temporality, AI, technoaesthetics, algorithmic culture, Large Language Models, feminist new materialism, philosophy of technology, media theory, expanded reality (AR/VR/MR/XR).

 

PUBLICATIONS

Edited Books

Ag, Tanya Toft (ed.). Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art (Bristol: Intellect, 2019), 442 pages.

Pop, Susa; Tanya Toft, Nerea Calvillo, and Mark Wright (eds.), What Urban Media Art Can Do, Why When Where & How (Stuttgart: Avedition, 2016), 524 pages.

Ph.D. Dissertation

Toft, Tanya Søndergaard. Images of Urgency: A Curatorial Inquiry With Contemporary Urban Media Art (Copenhagen: Copenhagen University, 2017).

Book Chapters

Ag, Tanya Ravn. “The Intratemporal Work of Art,” Infrastructure Aesthetics, eds. Solveig Daugaard, Frederik Tygstrup, and Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt. Berlin: De Gruyter (forthcoming 2024).

Ag, Tanya Ravn. “Art Time (of the Audience),” in. Levande Bilder – Levande Stad. Edited by Geska Brečević and Annika Wik. 1st ed. Stockholm: Film Capital Stockholm (November 2020), pp. 176-179.

Ag, Tanya Toft. “Introduction,” in Tanya Toft Ag, Tanya Toft (ed.), Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art. Bristol: Intellect, 2019. pp. 1-16.

Ag, Tanya Toft. “Computational Diffusion and Art’s Radical Rematerialization,” in Tanya Toft Ag (ed.), Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art. Bristol: Intellect, 2019. pp. 259-274.

Toft, Tanya. “On Radical Temporality in (Urban) Media Art,” in Lucas Bambozzi and Demetrio Portugal, eds., Other Possible Cinemas. São Paulo: AVXLab, 2018.

Toft, Tanya. “Disobedience – What Urban Media Art Brings to Digital Placemaking,” in Luke Hespanhol, Hank M. Häusler, Martin Tomitsch, Gernot Tscherteu, eds., Media Architecture Compendium: Digital Placemaking. Stuttgart: av edition, 2017. pp. 95-99.

Toft, Tanya. “What Urban Media Art Can Do,” in Susa Pop, Tanya Toft, Nerea Calvillo and Mark Wright, eds., What Urban Media Art Can Do: Why When Where & How? Stuttgart: av edition, 2016. pp. 50-53.

Peer-reviewed articles

Ag, Tanya Ravn. “Feminist Memories of Art and AI,” article for exhibition catalog, Against All Odds: Historical Women and New Algorithms, The Danish National Gallery (forthcoming 2024).

Ag, Tanya Ravn and Morten Søndergaard. “Expanded Algorithms: On a new algorithmic consciousness in art.” Leonardo Electronic Alamanac, The MIT Press (forthcoming 2024).

Ag, Tanya Ravn. “Screen Practice in Curating: The Medium Paradox,” Screen City Journal 4 (2014).

Articles in conference proceedings

Ag, Tanya Ravn. “Art’s Intratemporal Relations to the Future,” Conference Proceeding for ISEA2023 Paris, International Symposium on Electronic Art, May 2023.

Ag, Tanya Ravn. “Art and the Broken Mirror: A technogenetic perspective on digitally expanded realities,” Conference Proceeding, ISEA2020 Montreal, International Symposium on Electronic Art, May 2020.

Benayoun, Maurice and Tanya Ravn Ag. “After The Tunnel: on changing ontology and ethology of the emerging art-subject,” with Professor Maurice Benayoun, Conference Proceeding, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Montreal, May 2020.

Ag, Tanya Ravn. “Art of Our Times: A Temporal Position to Art and Change,” Art Machines: International Symposium on Computational Media Art, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, 2019.

Toft, Tanya. “Media-Aesthetic Expressions of Sympathy: The Projections of Le Tricolore.” ISEA2016 Proceedings, Hong Kong, 2016.

Toft, Tanya. “Shadow Affect in Urban Digital Post Screen Art.” POST-SCREEN: Device, Medium and Concept, Lisbon: Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa (2014): 156-166.

Toft, Tanya. “Humanizing Architecture: The Urban Digital Gallery.” In Proceedings of the 2nd Media Architecture Biennale Conference: World Cities, eds. Martin Brynskov, Peter Dalsgaard, Ava Fatah, S. B. Pold, Marcus Foth. ACM New York (2014): 79-84.

Toft, Tanya. “Towards geospatial cultural planning: Strategies for local cultural innovation with locative new media art.” ISEA2011 Istanbul Conference Proceedings 18.4. Eds. Lanfranco Aceti and Ozden Sahin. Leonardo Electronic Almanac (2011).

Toft, Tanya. “Ephemeral City: The cultural logics of temporary urban environments.” Cities Without Limits proceedings: EURA Conference 2011 (2011).

Toft, Tanya. “Revitalization from the bottom-up: Cultural Micro Planning With New Media.” Interdisciplinary Themes Journal 3.1 (2011).

Toft, Tanya. “Social Media as Strategic Media Tools for Local Community Development.” MediaCity: Interaction of Architecture, Media and Social Phenomena. Eds Jens Geelhaar, Frank Eckardt, Bernd Rudulf, Sabine Zierold, Michael Markert. Bauhaus University Weimar (2010): 431-446.

Essays on art and digital culture

Ag, Tanya Ravn. “Art and Future DiverCities – during and post the global pandemic,” Future DiverCities Booklet, edited by Laëtitia Manachand (October 2020).

Toft, Tanya. “Digital Dynamics: Art’s New Making,” SCB Journal (October 2019).

Toft, Tanya. “Art in the Intelligent City,” SCB Journal (October 2017).

Toft, Tanya. “Expanded Art in Public Space,” SCB Journal (October 2017).

Toft, Tanya. “The Dogma of New Media Art in Stockholm,” CoCAin 04 - Review of Contemporary Art Centers & Museum (2013): 50-55.

Curatorial Texts

Toft, Tanya. “Ecologies: Lost, Found, and Continued,” curatorial text, Screen City Biennial, 2019.

Toft, Tanya. “Migrating Stories,” curatorial text, Screen City Biennial, 2017.

Toft, Tanya. “Digital DiverCitizen” (pp. 22-24), “Digital DiverSociety” (pp. 47-50), “Digital DiverSystems” (pp. 75-76), Digital DiverCities” (pp. 99-100), in Laëtitia Manach and Susa Pop, eds., curatorial texts introducing four book chapters in Creativity in Urban Context: An Action Research Project by Future Divercities, Printera, Croatia, 2017.

Toft, Tanya. “Voyage to the Virtual,” curatorial essay for exhibition Voyage to the Virtual, Scandinavia House, New York City, January 23-April 4, 2015.

Toft, Tanya. “Digital Afterimage,” curatorial essay, SP Urban Digital Festival, November 7-December 7, 2014, online (no longer retrievable online).

Toft, Tanya. “Digital Citizen,” curatorial essay, SP Urban Digital Festival, November, 2013, online (no longer retrievable online).

Toft, Tanya. “Renewing Destruction as Critical Engagement,” in Letters from the Field, exhibition catalog, Node Center for Curatorial Studies (2012), Berlin, August 22-26.