The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (AMU) invites you to the international conference Art and Science: Thinking Outside the Box, to be held on 18–20 November 2025 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of AMU’s foundation. The conference will focus on the resonances, tensions, and intersections between the arts, the natural and technical sciences, and the social sciences and humanities. This gathering of artists, scientists, and researchers will not only allow for the comparison of methods and approaches, but above all open up the question of what it means to think – creatively, critically, and rigorously – across boundaries and beyond disciplinary frameworks. Keynote lectures will be delivered by Thomas Ostermeier, Jussi Parikka, and Mayumi Kuno-Mizomura. The conference will be conducted in English. Its grand finale will be the conferral of the honorary doctorate of AMU upon Thomas Ostermeier on 20 November 2025.

Conference Programme

hamu gallery | HAMU | Liechtenstein Palace | Malostranské náměstí 13 | Prague 1

Tuesday 18. 11. 

9:00 – 10:30 | MUSIC/BODY

• Marek Frič (Academy of Performing Arts in Prague) – Singing and the Body: Science as a Tool for Understanding 
• Daniela Peclová (Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, Brno) – Rethinking Music Education with Low-Latency Technology
• Adléta Hanžlová (Charles University, Prague) – Cultivating Voice Proprioception through Embodied Teaching 

11:00 – 12:30 | PASTS AND FUTURES 

• Petra Zeller Dotlačilová (Basel University) – Historically Informed Costume: Between History, Creativity and Embodied Research 
• Laurent Berger (University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier) – Acting in a Chaotic Universe  
• Gemma Dardis (Limerick Institute of Technology) – Alchemical Intuition in Scientific Misadventures 

14:00 – 15:30 | JAROSLAV VOSTRÝ IN MEMORIAM 

The panel will be held in Czech with simultaneous translation into English

• Jan Hyvnar (Academy of Performing Arts in Prague) - Jaroslav Vostrý: Comprehensive Theatre Practitioner, Theorist and Founder of Scenology
• Dominika Grygarová (National Institute of Mental Health, Center for Advanced Studies of Brain and Consciousness) - The Cognitive Power of Art: Neural Responses to Engagement with Visual Artworks
• Zuzana Sílová (Academy of Performing Arts in Prague) - The Liberated Theatre and Artistic Research. Notes on the last monography by Jaroslav Vostrý on the Czech Interwar Avant-Garde  

16:00 – 17:30 | THEORIES I.

Antoni Collot (University of Lorraine) – Soft Laboratory: Allostasis, Artistic Research and Epistemological Divergence  
Michael Lazar (University of Haifa) – Art Science and Everything Inbetween: Rethinking Narratives for Successful Collaborations
Sónia Alves, Soenke Zehle (HBKsaar) – Learning Pathways at the Intersection of Art and Science: Creative Agency and the Cyanotypes Framework 

18:00 – 19:00 | KEYNOTE JUSSI PARIKKA (AARHUS UNIVERSITY) 

Curating Atmospheres, Practicing with Weathers and Climates

Wednesday 19. 11.

9:00 –10:30 | ALTERNATIVE FUTURES: ART AS A TOOLKIT FOR SURVIVAL (Bernd Herzogenrath and guests)

11:00 –12:00 | KEYNOTE THOMAS OSTERMEIER (SCHAUBÜHNE BERLIN)

A Sociological Perspective on Theatre

13:30 – 15:00 | TECH/ART

• Lin Zhu (University of Aveiro) – AI reconstructs the Dancing Body in Screendance  
• Nina Wenhardt (University of Art and Design, Linz) – How to Think like a Bot: From Intelligence to Idiocracy? Artistic Counterstrategies in the Age of Algorithmic Flattening  
• Hajar Redouani (Ibn Zohr University of Agadir) – Exploring Art-Science Collaboration for Knowledge Production in the 21st century  

15:30 – 16:30 | KEYNOTE MAYUMI KUNO-MIZUMURA (OCHANOMIZU UNIVERSITY)

Performing Arts and Science from the Perspective of Performance Enhancement and Health Promotion

17:00 - 18:30 | THEORIES II. 

• Thomas Alam (University Lille 2), Nicolas Bué (University d'Artois) – Social Sciences and the Ninth Art. To What Extent Do Comics’ Language and Grammar Enrich and Popularize Academic Research? 
• Magda Stanová (Academy of Fine Arts, Prague) – Mind Wandering during Lectures 

18:30 | CLOSING REMARKS

 
Thursday 20. 11. 

11:00 – 13:00 | DOCTOR HONORIS CAUSA CEREMONY (Thomas Ostermeier)