Text by Rebekah Rousi

Artist Benjamin Knock (Australia/United Kingdom) has entered the building. Knock, a highly agile multidisciplinary artist who also dabbles in volcanology, is currently inspiring our students in a course titled, Technology and Communication within Art Research. The course was offered to students across disciplines, mostly attracting students of communication studies, information systems, automation and artificial intelligence, and software engineering. During March, Knock is taking the students on a trip through the earth’s surface. First starting with listening exercises on the frozen sea, Knock is eager to show students how their everyday objects such as smartphones and laptops, can be transformed into high-tech tools for geological discovery.

While exploring the scientific properties of the environment around us, students are taken through issues of sustainable development and beyond. In fact, through this course, sustainability turns into meaning – it is not just a fight for survival and preservation of natural resources, it is a quest for identity and assurance that this perfectly designed earth is properly respected and understood. The course started with an invigorating lecture by Knock who showed a range of slides connected to tools, data and concepts, combined with awe-inspiring videos that both explain his past and artistic career, as well as demonstrate his prowess – technological mastery and extensive knowledge of the primordial terrain and deep time. Knock manifests geological data into dancing, chirping 3D-rendered videos, while painting with volcanic pigments, and creating sculptures and installations that titillate the senses while exceeding immersion into the world of geological analysis.

During the course, students are integrating the technological and scientific with the highly personal and subjective space of multidisciplinary art. The main objective is to allow students to learn and understand the mechanics and dynamics of the grand triad of art, science and communication (enabled by technology). By the end of the course students will produce, exhibit and elaborate on a multimedia project (one digital and one material) that will then be shown in an exhibition running at the Tritonia ArtSpace (University of Vaasa) from March 6^th-May 30^th, 2026. The exhibition is yet to be named, as the students are also responsible for its planning, design, curation and installation – including the assemblage of efforts to shape and convey the sensibilities of the projects within one umbrella title.

In parallel to his teaching, Knock is engaged in a commissioned project with Sture Udd to develop a permanent exhibition for the iconic Wasa Innovation Center Catacombs spaces. The exhibition will open August 11, 2026 on the evening of the first day of the Wasa Future Festival. Be sure to stay tuned for more to come.