Tactics&Practice #17: Becoming Image | Node #3
The 17th edition of Tactics&Practice: Becoming Image, Aksioma’s discursive programme exploring contemporary investigative art, society and new technologies, that will take place from February to June 2026, in cooperation with Kino Šiška and Academy of Fine Arts and Design (UL ALUO), examines the recent transformation of digital images from representational surfaces into operational environments. All three workshops and the last lecture in this year’s program take place at UL ALUO.
What does it mean to inhabit a computational world-turned-image? When photographs no longer capture but composite, when renders replace recordings, when machine vision dictates what is permitted, and when synthetic media generates realities untethered from any physical referent – how do we understand vision, identity and presence?
The programme investigates how computational photography, machine vision, CGI and generative AI have fundamentally altered the ontological status of the image – no longer a window onto the world but a world unto itself.
Participants: Alan Warburton, Felicity Hammond, Martyna Marciniak, Nina Davies, Rebecca Edwards, Sheung Yiu, Simone C Niquille, and others
Curator: Marco De Mutiis
This year’s edition comprises three program sections consisting of exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and a symposium. UL ALUO particularly recommends all three free workshops, as they will take place at the Video, Animation, and New Media (UL ALUO, Tobačna 5) and are primarily intended for students of art and design.
The entire Tactics&Practice #17 program: https://aksioma.org/becomingimage/sl/
Free entry, registration required: https://pretix.eu/aksioma/becomingimage/
NODE #3
- LECTURE
Simone C Niquille: Balloons etc.
Wednesday, 13 May 2026, 15.00–16.00
UL ALUO, Large lecture room, Erjavčeva 23, Ljubljana
Balloons etc. is a lecture that presents a research narrative following the construction of computer-generated images. Departing from a balloon, the lecture unfolds through inflated objects, blown-up JPEG images, projected textures and expanded expectations, while questioning the synthetic image’s depiction of the world. The lecture draws from technical sources, popular culture and art history to puncture the promise of synthetic imagery to represent the world wholesale.
Simone C Niquille is a designer and researcher whose work investigates how computation functions as a contemporary optical system. Working with vision technologies such as computer vision, 3D animation, computational photography, and synthetic training datasets, their practice examines how images no longer simply represent the world but actively organise perception, legibility, and reality itself.
- WORKSHOP
Simone C Niquille: WAWLA (What Are We Looking At)
Wednesday, 13 May 2026, 17.00–20.00
UL ALUO, Video, Animation and New Media, Tobačna 5, Ljubljana
WAWLA (What Are We Looking At) is a workshop led by Simone C Niquille that dives into the world of computer vision, image training datasets and the invisible human labour that makes machines see. We will get familiar with the workflow of creating a computer vision model and the steps behind assembling and preparing an image training dataset while specifically focusing on image segmentation. Segmentation is crucial for computer vision as it “points out” the parts of an image that are of value to the system. At this stage of image processing, an image is visually separated into areas of information. By outlining an object of interest (a road sign, a deer, a face) or filling in a region of particular focus (the road, the tree, shadows), these marked segments ultimately inform the computer vision model’s way of perceiving the world. What is and isn’t segmented depends on various factors, from the technology’s future application to cultural context, image resolution, operation language, subjective perception, and might differ from our own way of reading an image.
During the workshop, participants will get introduced to different examples of image training datasets and the workflow of processing visual data through image segmentation tasks while being faced with the ethical, philosophical and political challenges of teaching systematic vision and deciding “what is important to see”. This workshop is deliberately non-technical. We will be working with paper and markers for accessibility and to make tangible the labour and compromises involved in creating technology that otherwise is obscured by innovation.
Duration: 3h
No prior knowledge required.
Related events:
- SCREENING (part of the V-F-X Festival)
Tuesday, 12 May 2026, 17.00–18.30
Slovenian Cinemateque, Miklošičeva 28, Ljubljana
- EXHIBITION
Simone C Niquille: duckrabbit.tv
12 May–12 June (Opening: 12 May at 19.00)
Aksioma | Project Space, Komenskega 18, Ljubljana
Artistic director: Janez Fakin Janša
Head of production: Marcela Okretič
Production assistant: Ema Maznik Antić
Promotion and social media management: Neža Bukovec, Dominika Maša Kozar, Sara Vatovec
Web developer: Igor Kovačić
Visual identity: Federico Antonini
Bumper: Lara Reichmann (video), Gašper Torkar (music)
Coordination at Kino Šiška: Jasna Jernejšek
Technicians: Valter Udovičić, Matej Marinček, Matevž Ftičar
Organised and produced by:
Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2026
In collaboration with:
Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture
UL ALUO – The Academy of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Ljubljana
For the conference series:
tactics&practice
Supported by:
The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia
The Municipality of Ljubljana
Italian Cultural Institute in Ljubljana
Partners:
Moderna galerija
SCCA– Center for Contemporary Arts
V-F-X Ljubljana Festival
Slovenian Cinematheque