More and more technically sophisticated portable devices are designed to help us control and satisfy our communication and entertainment needs. Yet the technical and the creative potential of these handhelds, watches, tablets or voice-controlled assistants has not been fully exploited by many applications. That said, they offer Balázs Kovács opportunities to spread easy-to-install solutions with low energy consumption for creative work: programming, controlling physical and computational processes and creating art by creating new constellations of different life forms. And he assumes that – in the sense of the concepts of post-civilisation – they can even help to transform our digitally networked existence into a more resilient, solid, ecologically meaningful way of life. In his lecture, Kovács presents some such solutions, projects and ideas: solar-powered instruments, human-driven small local networks, virtual-real and techno-botanical hybrids.

Balázs Kovács is a philosopher and sound artist from Pécs, Hungary. After his PhD in interactive sound and habilitation in virtual <-> real sound art bridges, he became head of the BA programme in electronic music and media art at the University of Pécs and hosts the Hangfarm Open-Air and Low-Power Exhibition for sound art  in Ellend, Hungary. In search of solutions for independently powered electronic music, he organised the first photoSynth-Symposium in 2018. Among other things, his live performances as Xrc or Eszelős Meszelős led to participation in the BLAUES RAUSCHEN Festival 2017.