Winter Symposium 2026:
Cultures of Creativity and Critique: life, information and the state of the art
Date: 19th of March – 22nd of March.
Location and co-host: Piteå School of Music at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Short summary:
Please consider submitting an abstract or an artistic submission to our winter symposium called:”Cultures of creativity and critique: life, information and the state of the art”.
It is part of the Nordic Summer University (NSU) and will be hosted by the Piteå School of Music at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. The event will take place from the 19th of March to the 22th of March. And the deadline for submissions is the 15th of January 2026.
There will be space for talks, installations and performances. There will be an evening event, with space for improvisation and participants are encouraged to contribute.
Feel free to contact us if you are wondering how you would fit in and please send a short letter about your contribution and a bio to eric.deibel@nsuweb.org. It would be appreciated if you can “cc” the other coordinators: georgios.diapoulis@chalmers.se, and talya.deibel@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
Full description:
As part of the study circle/symposium series Cybioses: art, critique and technology, we are pleased to announce a call for abstracts and artistic submissions for our symposium on “Cultures of creativity and critique”.
See below for information on costs and the partial grants that we offer. This year our grant program is limited and only covers part of the costs. However, there are a few grants available. Deadline is the same as the date on which the abstracts are due, both need to be submitted on the 15th of January. More information below.
Invitation
We invite scholars, artists, students, technologists, and other professionals working or writing on future technologies to take part in the winter symposium of our study circle Cybioses: art, critique and technology, part of the Nordic Summer University (NSU), a migratory non-hierarchical group of international researchers that has existed for over 70 years. Since its inception, the primary aim of NSU has been to provide a forum for experimentation and cross-disciplinary collaboration, welcoming members both from within and outside of universities and other institutions.
1. Cybioses: art, technology and critique (what is it?)
The study circle has existed for eight years and its name ‘Cybiosis’ (pl. cybioses), is a neologism, based on ‘cybernetic’, ‘symbiosis’, and ‘bio’. It embodies the new technological modes of living that we aim to investigate. Cybioses is meant, from the start, as a speculative metaphor. The term is intended to support an imagination of the ambivalent relation between:
(cybernetic) systems of symbioses and inclusion, and the relentless drive to commodify life forms and extend the networks of technological control.
This has been the orientation of our circle for a long time; new is the explicit focus on forms of collaboration as integral to technological culture. Our participants are typically immersed in their own ways in technoscientific realities and together it there is an “engaged diversity” from where to explore the ambivalence of modern life the heavily disciplined and formalized interdisciplinary and participatory spaces of technology development.
After all, we invariably participate in nearly inescapable process of commodification and control, while exploring collaboration remains integral to the ability to challenge, to think, to discuss, to make plans and so on.
2. Cultures of creativity and critique:
The title of the winter symposium draws attention to the two sides. Creativity and critique are premised on cultures that are the same time specific, and their own entities, even if they are heavily influenced by the wider culture.
Perhaps everything is at stake: “life, information and the state of the art”. Or, perhaps, it is sufficient that there is a rapid transformation of critique and creativity as ways of being in the world that is worthy of attention.
The overall aim of the gathering is to allow for experimentation in between creativity and critique. We will be based in a school of music, and that means there will be a lively research environment where artistic research, live coding, and new types of concerts are not out of the ordinary.
Critique, in this context, does not refer to the art critic or even to the role of the critic who takes on the persona of the author, the artist, the moralist and so on. These solitary individuals, so the old story goes, are the ones to stand up to the pressures of mainstream technological culture, or progress in general. This can certainly be a valid way to experience modern life, specifically if focusing on the constant interaction with distant actors who seemingly wield all the power, with technology as essential for control, exploitation, violence, the constant monitoring of information flows, surveillance of everything and everybody.
Indeed, this type of (social) criticism is a powerful way to articulate the importance and pervasive relevance of art, inspiration or authenticity as indicative of the entire repertoire of 19th individualism and humanism. Yet, the endresult will often be that there are red lines that are being crossed, without much of stance from where to resist all these pressures, and consider change in general.
The point carries over to collaboration, participatory technology and social experiments, which are themselves often technically mediated. These strategies are the (stereo-)typical substance of the associated idealized views of the future and the good life. Therefore ,the title and subtitle were chosen to complicate this frame. The emphasis on “cultures”, foregrounds that there are many ways to lead creative and critical lives.
These are changing rapidly, and there are multiplicity, contradictions, particularly when considering the need to consider participation and collaboration as objects of reflection and action. We will seek to inhabit the ambivalent space in between collaboration (as a positive value, one that is integral to us, as participants, and for meaningful societal change) and the type of technology development that is performative and narrow-minded in its view of the future.
To put it as a question:
“can we, and how can we, retain or renew the various creative and critical cultures, including their ways of working and collaborating, given how many elements have been formalized and made into a procedure that is characteristic of the diffusion of emerging technologies?”
This requires (strong) critique and (practical) demonstrations of modes of collaboration that put the spotlight on overly narrow and passive conceptions of collaboration in the arts, thinking and flat ideas about the role of innovation, invention and design. At the same time we would be delighted with contributions that disrupt the idea of the arts and critical thought as nothing more than instrumental, serviceable and powerless in the context of technology development and its hold over society.
There are plenty of examples to foreground concerns over our capacity to understand, communicate, and act in the brave new world, of AI, of social media, of bio- and neurotechnology, and so on. Yet, it is equally crucial to avoid framing “cultures of creativity and critique” in terms of inevitable demise, along with growing concerns over the status of the individual (its autonomy, dignity and reason) that tends towards nostalgia, with a future that is about detachment, as the corollary of a past that is remembered in terms of how life was real, and minds were sharp.
And yet, there remains that (old? Newish?) underlying aspiration to work together, experiment across disciplinary lines, even under difficult circumstances. Perhaps there are still futures for creative engagement, and for being deeply (and critically) attached to what is at stake. What would be needed is a joining of forces, of unconventional types of agencies, critique, art, and invention, aiming for a more creative exploration of the many new terrains that have been opened up.
Our symposia have always been about this type of collaboration, as the sensible response to powerful and technologically driven ideas about growth that can continue indefinitely, about living with dwindling natural resources that fuel environmental collapse and extinction of countless species in the context of human-made climate change.
Its implication is a future wherein there will be conflicts, disagreement, irresponsibility, and a plethora of challenges to conventional (and convenient) boundaries between the natural and artificial, living and non-living, minds and machines, creativity and automation. And yet, in these scenarios there should be a stubborn insistence that there is no need to conclude that nothing remains but indifference, detachment, and disengagement; that it is more important and consequently as ever to keep exploring what new types of creativity, change, and renewal are becoming possible.
Who should consider joining
We are interested in reflecting on cultures of creativity and critique that revolve around difference, in terms of ideas, events, or narratives coming from different fields, explicitly including artistic practices, philosophical niche topics, natural scientists willing to share their experiences and more.
The topic is defined broadly on purpose, as our working method is to seek to deepen and renew our collaboration with artists, hackers, designers, technologists, theorists, and others. This is the defining setup of the Cybioses workshops, which have been running for over 8 years, with various histories going back much further. We hope once again to find contributors with experimental approaches to presenting and collaborating.
In the past, there have been long and short presentations, textual (read out) and performative, theory-based, and practical, with artistic and aesthetic aims. Accordingly, this symposium, as is customary with Cybioses, seeks to explore its themes from a broad range of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives. We welcome contributions from the arts, the sciences, technology, the social sciences and the humanities, seeking a new conversation on this topic and deepening the thematic of the Cybioses study circle.
Topics that relate strongly to the key works of the symposium are encouraged, such as:
- technological cultures
- creativity in art, technology and society
- creativity as integral to critique / critique as integral to creativity
- creativity and the human mind
- the future of creativity and critique
- creativity and critique in performance and improvisation
- reflection in/through/on practice
- intellectual histories of creativity and/or collaboration
- the political economies of collaborative models an participation
- participatory democracy and technology
- creativity and surveillance
- synergy between fields of innovation
- the rules of collaboration (e.g. ethics, law, policy, government)
- responsible and irresponsible innovation (as a policy model, or in specific fields)
Other topics that fit the profile are welcome and perspectives that we welcome include (but are not limited to):
- ethical and philosophical perspectives
- science, technology, and engineering
- science and technology studies
- the arts and humanities
- political economy and theoretical critique
- cybernetic thought and information theory
- hard/soft/wetware experiments
- critical examinations of neoliberal and authoritarian systems
- a focus on alternatives, including failed experimentation
- literature studies
Feel free to contact us if you are wondering how you would fit in, or if your topic is not on this list. The same applies to the type of contributions. We encourage participation from scholars, artists, students, technologists, and other professionals. Experimental approaches to presenting and collaborating are encouraged. There will be space for installations and performances. There typically are performances as a central part of the winter session, and recently there were video installations, and exhibitions.
Submission and contact
Please send a short letter about your contribution and a bio to eric.deibel@nsuweb.org. It would be appreciated if you can “cc” the other coordinators: georgios.diapoulis@chalmers.se, and talya.deibel@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
The deadline for abstracts is the 15th of January. This should include:
- A written proposal (max. 350 words) with a title and descriptive subtitle. This text should include your presentation proposal, its format, its duration, facilities you need (e.g., space, technical equipment), and an explanation of what motives you to join.
- A short bio (max. 200 words)
Please send a single PDF file with your name in its title.
This Winter Session we have space for a few partial grants. Submission on the same date (15-1). Please include a short reasoning in your submission.
Finally, it might be possible to attend the symposium without presenting. In this case, please just e-mail us a short bio.
You will be sent an acknowledgment that your abstract has been received. You will be notified of whether it has been accepted within a week after the deadline. The preliminary program will be announced as soon as payments have been processed.
Registration fees
The registration fee includes the participation fee for the winter symposium and one year’s membership to NSU (also valid for the summer session).
Students and independents: €60
Those associated with institutions or companies: €150
West Nordic (Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands) & Baltic residents: €60
Important dates
Submission deadline: January 15th for abstracts.
Payment deadline: the 31th of January
Arrival: on Thursday the 19th of march (before noon)
Departure: Sunday the 22th of march (after lunch)
Note for international participants: Lulea is in the North of Sweden, but it is well connected with an international airport and regular trains. Additionally, the faculty has plenty of space for talks, installations and performances. Moreover we will be able to host an evening event, with space for improvisation and participants are encouraged to contribute.
About NSU
The Nordic Summer University (NSU) (www.nsuweb.org) is a Nordic network for research and interdisciplinary studies. NSU is a nomadic, academic institution, which organizes workshop-seminars across disciplinary and national borders. Since it was established in 1950, Nordic Summer University has organized forums for cultural and intellectual debate in the Nordic and Baltic region, involving students, academics, politicians, and intellectuals from this region and beyond.
Decisions about the content and the organizational form of the NSU lay with its participants. The backbone of the activities in the NSU consists of its thematic study circles. In the study circles researchers, students, and professionals from different backgrounds collaborate in scholarly investigations distributed regularly in summer and winter symposia during a three-year period.
For more information and to sign up to the NSU newsletter go to: www.nsuweb.org
We look forward to your submissions.
Eric Deibel,
Independent scholar. Formerly an assistant professor of STS at Bilkent, and senior researcher at UCD. He has coordinated the circle for nearly 6 years. He is based in Maastricht in the Netherlands.
Georgios Diapoulis
Senior Lecturer in Interaction Design, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Gothenburg / Chalmers University of Technology. This is his first time coordinating the circle but he is a long time participant.
Talya Deibel
Assistant professor at Maastricht University, specialization health law and ethics. She has coordinated the circle for 2 years.
Stefan Östersjö, local co-chair
Professor of Musical Performance and Head of subject at Luleå University of Technology, head of GEMM (Gesture, Embodiment and Machines in Music) research cluster, developing interdisciplinary approaches to research in music.
Previous symposia
Our previous topics were “Creativity under surveillance” (Summer session 2025, Finland), “Creative Machines” (Winter Session 2025, Copenhagen), “Speculative Technologies and Future Frictions” (Summer 2024, Denmark), “Information crisis” (Winter 2024, Vilnius, “What a waste” (summer 2023, Lithuania), and “Slow futures” (winter 2023, Brussels). Previous years’ themes further have included “the future imperfect”, “Human technology Futures”, “Improvisation and Technology” and more..