Adam Zaretsky, Ph.D., a member of the InArts Lab working group in the Rewilding Cultures project, and a post-doctoral researcher in the Hub of Art Laboratories (HAL) of the Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University, was among the participants in the recent Electric Wonderland summer camp (Croatia, 5-11 August), an event that was carried out within the framework of the abovementioned project. Rewilding cultures was developed by the Feral Labs Network and was co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, bringing together eight institutions from as many countries, all with a shared interest in the confluence of art, science and technology.

Specifically, the project is a joint effort by Projekt Zavod Atol (Slovenia), Digital Art International – Makery (France), Helsingør Kommune – Catch (Denmark), Schmiede Hallein – Verein zur Förderung der digitalen Kultur (Austria), Bioart Society (Finland), Cultivamos Cultura (Portugal), the Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University (Greece) and the Association for Development of ‘do-it-yourself’ Culture – Radiona (Croatia). The uniqueness of the events organized by Rewilding Cultures lies in their hybrid nature as well as in the locations in which they take place, i.e. remote environments, away from the usual urban set-up of contemporary creative hubs. Such settings encourage both artistic and scientific/technological experimentation among the participants, and the events focus on the process of research, fieldwork, co-creation, and collaboration, instead of the presentation of already completed works.

With this in mind, this year’s version of Electric Wonderland –its fourth so far- took place in the Croatian countryside, more specifically on Mount Velebit, and was hosted by the Radiona makerspace, one of the eight partners in the Rewilding Cultures. The workshops and performances that were put together for the 2022 camp pertained to a variety of practices –typography, lithography, 3D printing, DIY, on-the-spot musical instrument building, photolithography and more- calling for participants to draw on an artistic rather than a science- or technology-centered mentality and modus operandi. The coordinators/instructors in these events included a wide variety of important artists, scholars and researchers from Europe, Asia and the Americas (Idiot, Mirabelle Jones, Marc Dusseiller, Albert Thrower, Shi Wei Chieh et al.). In this context, Mr. Zaretsky presented a performance titled Slap and Tickle, which built on his research and artistic interests and explored the connectivity between electrical power and the human body. More https://www.makery.info/en/2022/08/24/en-croatie-electric-wonderland-reveille-la-montagne/

Adam Zaretsky is a former researcher at the MIT department of biology, who for the past decade has been teaching an experimental bioart class called VivoArts at: San Francisco State University (SFSU), SymbioticA (UWA), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), University of Leiden’s The Arts and Genomic Centre (TAGC), and the Waag Society. His art practice focuses on an array of legal, ethical, social and libidinal implications of biotechnological materials and methods with a focus on transgenic humans. Zaretsky stages lively, hands-on bioart production labs. Currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Hub of Art Laboratories (HAL) of the Department of Audio & Visual Arts (AVArts) of the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece focusing on biomedia as dataart. As was already mentioned, he is also a member of the InArts Lab in the Rewilding Cultures project.