Festival programme

Unmasking Nature Exhibition
Nov
6
to 22 Nov

Unmasking Nature Exhibition

Burrow, stim and fidget your way through Unmasking Nature’s sensory feast—foraged from the rich biodiversity of Ireland for the diverse ways people connect to the world around us. Everyone is welcome to our hibernation sanctuary.

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Studiotopia
Nov
6
to 22 Nov

Studiotopia

Studiotopia is a project that Cezar Mocan and Hung Lu Chan were the Irish residents as part of this programme and over the duration of the project explored XYZ. Here we see their works exploring XYZ

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Memoir 1: Trust We by Adam Gibney
Nov
6
to 22 Nov

Memoir 1: Trust We by Adam Gibney

SEED: Signal and Trace presents six new commissions by Shane Finan, Cailean Finn, Adam Gibney, Clíona Harmey, István László and Fiona Mc Donald.

The exhibition asks what we come to know about environmental change when its data is felt rather than read, and what the readings leave out.

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Gnomon 1 by Cliona Harmey
Nov
6
to 22 Nov

Gnomon 1 by Cliona Harmey

SEED: Signal and Trace presents six new commissions by Shane Finan, Cailean Finn, Adam Gibney, Clíona Harmey, István László and Fiona Mc Donald.

The exhibition asks what we come to know about environmental change when its data is felt rather than read, and what the readings leave out.

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Bedeguar by István László
Nov
6
to 22 Nov

Bedeguar by István László

SEED: Signal and Trace presents six new commissions by Shane Finan, Cailean Finn, Adam Gibney, Clíona Harmey, István László and Fiona Mc Donald.

The exhibition asks what we come to know about environmental change when its data is felt rather than read, and what the readings leave out.

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CPR by Shane Finan
Nov
6
to 22 Nov

CPR by Shane Finan

SEED: Signal and Trace presents six new commissions by Shane Finan, Cailean Finn, Adam Gibney, Clíona Harmey, István László and Fiona Mc Donald.

The exhibition asks what we come to know about environmental change when its data is felt rather than read, and what the readings leave out.

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Power Creep
Nov
6
to 22 Nov

Power Creep

Power Creep by Cailean Finn


Power Creep is a sculptural work that examines the relationship between Ireland’s energy landscapes and expanding demands of digital infrastructure driven by developments in Artificial Intelligence. Borrowed from gaming culture, the term power creep describes the gradual escalation of power within a system, where continual growth is required to maintain relevance. In this work, it reflects the exponential expansion of computational infrastructure, and its increasing consumption of energy, water, labour, and land within an Irish context.

Fragmented online digital vernacular is processed using a LLM; with its generated output distributing commands to an automated typewriter. The typewriter acts as both an interface and historical artefact within the computational stack; materialising the resource-intensive infrastructures obscured through the metaphor of the “cloud”. Power Creep reflects on the reconfiguration of the Irish landscape through the very technologies that consume it, asking who really benefits from this digital infrastructure? and what finite costs underpin its exponential ‘creep’?

Location: The Tower, The Digital Hub
Exhibition Dates + Times: 6-22nd of November, Wednesday to Sundays, 12-6pm
Artist Name/s (Pronoun/s): Cailean Finn (He/Him)

The SEED project is funded by a Research Ireland COALESCE Strand 2A grant. It is led by Dr. Trish Morgan from DCU’s School of Communications as Principal Investigator, along with Dr. Shirley Coyle from DCU’s School of Electronic Engineering as co-PI.


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Memoir 1: Trust We by Adam Gibney
Nov
6
to 14 Nov

Memoir 1: Trust We by Adam Gibney

Memoir 1: Trust We

Memoir 1: Trust We was conceived to live in people's homes rather than in the gallery. It is a distributed network of electro-fitted domestic vases, an infrastructure for community-collected temperature data that speaks to our post-truth landscape, climate change, and climate denial. In its intended form it is a DIY assembly kit: each participant builds their own vase, and each becomes one node in a wider network. This wider deployment remains speculative for now. Exhibited at Beta Festival, is a demonstration of this public telematic artwork.

Each kit includes an external radio-controlled  sensor that reads the outside temperature against historical records for that place and date. Only when all three vases independently confirm a daily heat record has been broken does the work activate: a scent is released, a sound marks the moment, and the participant is invited to respond, in writing, drawing, or another mark, to a single open-ended question.

Each broken record prompts one question word, how, why, when, what, where, which, who, and the work runs until the network has moved through them all. The responses gather into a new kind of Ordnance Survey Memoir. In the 1830s, as the Ordnance Survey mapped Ireland, surveyors were directed to compile written accounts of each parish, knowledge the map alone could not hold.

The SEED project is funded by a Research Ireland COALESCE Strand 2A grant. It is led by Dr. Trish Morgan from DCU’s School of Communications as Principal Investigator, along with Dr. Shirley Coyle from DCU’s School of Electronic Engineering as co-PI.

Location: The Tower, The Digital Hub
Exhibition Dates + Times: 6-22nd of November, Wednesday to Sundays, 12-6pm
Artist Name/s (Pronoun/s): Adam Gibney (He/Him)

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asses.masses
Nov
14

asses.masses

Interested in durational performance? In gaming? Have we just the treat for you. Beta Festival is thrilled to present asses.masses a durational performance collectively played by the audience.

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Synthesize_Her TRANSMIT Workshop
Nov
15
to 16 Nov

Synthesize_Her TRANSMIT Workshop

Build your own radio mesh network communication Device. Over 4 hours, participants learn to build their own mesh network communication device, gaining fundamental skills in electronics, listening and de-centralised infrastructure.

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Cyberdeck Workshop with Annike Tan
Nov
21

Cyberdeck Workshop with Annike Tan

Diy portable and personalised computer workshop! A cyberdeck is a niche hobby originally inspired by cyberpunk fiction, such as the works of William Gibson. They can be as simple or as complex as you’d like and you can use them for anything!

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The Garden of d@ta by Maureen Béguin
Nov
7

The Garden of d@ta by Maureen Béguin

The Garden of d@ta is an installation made of sculptures, performance-vidéos and sound that immerse you in a very special data center in 2050  - build by Maureen Morin, a eccentric tech entrepreneur. The installation is also the set of the performance by the same name.

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ni**le by Carys D. Coburn
Nov
6

ni**le by Carys D. Coburn

On Saturday 7 November, Goethe-Institut Ireland hosts the second night of The F Word, Beta’s programme exploring disinformation, polarisation and the forces shaping how we understand and navigate our increasingly fragmented digital world.

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