IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION B
Abstract
QSL – You Touch Mine and I’ll Touch Yours is an international collaborative project inspired by the early history of radio technology. Under specific atmospheric conditions, amateur shortwave operators have long been able to communicate in real time across vast distances—an extraordinary feat for a century-old analog medium. Although digital tools have largely replaced this format, HAM enthusiasts recognize the unique sense of presence and wonder that comes from direct, long-distance interaction. This project seeks to revive that experience of physicality and connection by bringing together students in Poland, Spain, and the United States to create collaborative artworks for the post-digital era. Over the course of a semester, students from three art schools engage in an extended exchange of images, messages, and objects—circulating digital files, transforming each other’s materials, re-materializing them through analog processes, and sending them through the physical postal system. Each participating country hosts its own exhibition of the evolving works. Initiated within a course titled English and International Relations in Arts, the project explores how students from Spain, Poland, and the United States can use multiple languages in professional communication while jointly developing artistic content. A shared multi-user digital platform enables participants to observe all interventions, experiment with interdisciplinary practices, and reflect on how verbal, digital and physical modes of communication intersect. In this (video / paper / panel), professors Hokanson, Norton, and Savchenko will discuss the challenges and successes of the project’s first iteration, with particular attention to the requirement that all digitally exchanged works be physically instantiated in development. They will outline a replicable model for educators and institutions interested in extending the collaboration and adapting the format to their own contexts.
Dan Norton is an artist, lecturer, and Director of International Relations at Adema University School of Fine Arts, the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain. His research explores connected art practice and the use of sound in archive intervention.
Taylor Hokanson is an Associate Professor of Art at Columbia College Chicago in the United States. His current research agenda explores collaborative technology and the cross-cultural symbolism of cured meat.
Vasyl Savchenko is an Ukrainian artist, currently living and working in Gdańsk. Head of the Post-Digital Graphics Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. In artistic and academic research, explore the relationship between art technology boundaries.
Jaume Reus PhD in Art History. As a cultural manager, he has been director of the Arts Santa Mònica Centre, Barcelona, and has worked as head of temporary exhibitions and education in museums and contemporary art centres such as the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation in Mallorca or Es Baluard Museum of Contemporary Art in Palma. He has also been director of the Institute of Cultural Industries of the Balearic Islands. He has taught at several universities: University of the Balearic Islands, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Central University of Ecuador. He is currently professor of the Fine Arts degree at ADEMA. University centre attached to the UIB (University of the Balearic Islands). He has written articles for catalogues and specialized magazines. He is currently a contributor to the magazine Segno.es. He has taught courses and conferences in Mexico, the United States, Cuba, Ecuador, France and Spain. He is the author of the book: Art i conjuntura. La Jove Plàstica a Mallorca, 1970-1978, published in 1999. His curatorial projects have been seen, among others, in Mexico City (FAD and Academia de San Carlos, UNAM), Quito (Museo de la Ciudad and Centro de Arte Contemporáneo), Bonn (Tapetenfabrik), Toulouse (Les Abattoires), Barcelona (Arts Santa Mònica) and Palma (Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Mallorca, Centro cultural La Misericordia and Casal Solleric). He has carried out exhibition projects by artists, among others, Erick Beltrán, Miquel Barceló, Amaru Cholango, Gunnar Friel and Ferran García Sevilla.
3:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Wednesday 24th June, 2026