Keynote Speakers

VINCE BRIFFA

UNIVERSITY OF MALTA

Vince Briffa is a painter, multimedia artist, curator and researcher. His cross-disciplinary and trans-mediatic work consists of painting, gallery and site-specific artwork, sculptural objects, video and installations.
He was awarded the prize ‘Omaggio all’Arte ed all’Innovazione a Venezia 2019’ at the 2019 Venice Art Biennale. In addition has been exhibited in numerous prestigious venues including the Malta Pavilion, Venice Art Biennale, 1999 and 2019; Pierides Museum, Cyprus; Palais des Nations, Switzerland; Museum of Modern Art, Liechtenstein; Casoria Museum, Naples; Villa Manin Contemporary Art, Italy; MAC, Argentina; Palais Liechtenstein, Austria; Museum of Fine Arts, Romania, Museum of Modern Art, Israel, and Malta International Contemporary Art Space MICAS.
Briffa has curated exhibitions internationally including the NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf; the Münchner Künstlerhaus, Munich; Les Rencontres Arles; De Harmonie, Leeuwarden; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta amongst many others.

Title

How does painting mean?
Practice and meaning in painting: Insights from a personal perspective

Abstract

The paper examines the complex relationship between meaning-making, truth, and autonomy as process and product in Vince Briffa’s painting practice. Drawing on phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches, it unpacks the notion that painting operates via a distinct dual ontology—existing as both a material artefact and a channel for meaning that transcends its physical properties. It discusses how meaning is created from the dialogical encounter of artist, medium, viewer, and cultural context, and not only through established semiotic codes. The paper further challenges reductive notions that conflate a painting’s meaning with either artistic intention or social construction, instead proposing that meaning emerges through embodied cognition in which physical engagement with painting material generates knowledge and significance that cannot be obtained through other means. This approach enables us to rethink creative autonomy not in isolation from social dynamics, but as a separate form of truth-making that acts via material resistance and transformation.

DENİZ SÖZEN

UNIVERSITY OF BRIMINGHAM

DENİZ SÖZEN is a visual artist and researcher of mixed Turkish-Austrian heritage and a lecturer in History of Art at the University of Birmingham. She specializes in contemporary art and decolonial methodologies in the context of globalisation and diasporic art. Recent publications include contributions to the Routledge Companion to African Diaspora Art History (ed. Eddie Chambers), and to the Third Text Special Journal Issue ‘Polyphony: method, voice, archive’. In 2022 she was awarded an ACE grant to curate the multilingual digital archival exhibition Maker Unknown exploring gaps and blind spots in the history, categorisation and provenance of non-European artefacts in the Camberwell ILEA collection. Her work has been presented in different contexts internationally.

BAGER AKBAY

ARTIST, DESIGNER, EDUCATOR

Storyteller of Robot Poet Deniz Yilmaz. Bager’s artworks are exhibited in Ars Electronica, Todays Art and Transmediale festivals. He is the co-author of Programming Scratch for Kids, co-founder of Iskele47 Studio and co-curator of Istanbul Maker Faire. Bager is currently a member of Amber Platform which hosts art and technology festivals since 2007 and Baska Bir Okul Mumkun NGO which works in the democratic school movement. Currently teaching in Todays Art History at Istanbul Mimar Sinan University and Marmara University and Programming for Puppeteers at Berlin Ernst Busch University and running an “Art Talk Show” at FLU TV.

Title

Art’s Constriction Areas in the Twentieth Century: Technology, Image and Elitism

Abstract

The distance between art and technology has grown in the twentieth century, and this rupture has led to art being pulled into different areas of pressure. Modernist tendencies have developed a cautious attitude towards engineering and mass production tools in an effort to protect the autonomy of art. During the same period, art has been gradually reduced to imagery; the intensive use of imagery in propaganda and advertising has increased the fear of art being instrumentalized. This process has paved the way for art to be pulled away from society and into an elite area, and over time, its content has weakened on a conceptual level.
The defensive reflexes that art has developed against technology and imagery, their long-term effects, and examples of artists who are trying to overcome this constriction and establish new relationships with technology will be included.

UĞURCAN AKYÜZ

UNIVERSITY OF TOROS

Prof.Dr. Uğurcan Akyüz is currently serving as an art consultant and as the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Design, and Architecture at Toros University, Mersin.
Prof. Dr. Uğurcan Akyüz’s works have made significant contributions to art both technically and conceptually. His efforts, especially in the field of digital art, have pioneered the development of this discipline in Turkey. In recent years, he has explored the intersection of AI and art, introducing technological approaches that offer new creative possibilities to artists. He continues to inspire artists working in this field by researching the intersections of technology, artificial intelligence, and art.

Title

A Subjective Look At Artificial Intelligence Through Art

Abstract

Today; new trends such as data-driven art, algorithmic aesthetics and interactive art can undoubtedly be considered as the footsteps of the art world of the future and will also form the basis for the answers to the following questions:
For example; will artificial intelligence be a power that completely changes art or will it continue to be a supporting tool for “human artists”? As every new technology has had different effects on art throughout history, will artificial intelligence make the creation process easier or will it be effective enough to change it radically?
Here, as a witness to the process and one of the pioneers of digital art in Turkey since 1996, my experiences will be shared with examples from my works in order to leave a note in history with a “subjective approach”.