Undercurrent: As Below, So Above brings together the work of Kat Austen, Lauren Moffatt and Siobhán McDonald developed during their participation in S+T+ART4WaterII in residence in Galway, Belfast and Dublin port. The projects explore and reflect on ports as interdisciplinary liminal spaces for reimagining our entanglements with water, technology, and ecology.

Kat Austen’s ~~ Not Breaking ~~ ~~ This Wave Drowns Hate ~~ listens to the ocean through microplastics and community-created AI, offering visions of symbiotic futures. Lauren Moffatt’s Chorcorallium immerses visitors in speculative reef ecologies where industrial debris becomes the foundation for imagined coral life, shaped by collective voices and artificial intelligence. Siobhán McDonald’s SHAPESHIFTER traces Dublin Port’s shifting identities, from wetlands to rising seas, layering scientific data with film, painting, and sculpture to reveal unseen histories and fragile futures. Together, these works transform ports and oceans into sites of imagination and repair, using art and technology to question how we might live with, listen to, and learn from water in an age of crisis and change.

Undercurrent: As Below, So Above is open Wednesday - Sunday, 2PM-6PM

The Ethics Studio is an interactive space dedicated to exploring our attitudes, values, ideas and expectations of technologies past, present, and those yet to come. The space showcases current research, allows a deep dive into festival themes as well as a library of tools used to navigate the ethics of technology and society.

You are invited to join us in this living research studio to learn, discuss, create and play. In the space, there are multiple interactive research exhibits that come to life with your input. Get involved, explore, experiment and be a part of the discussion.

You may be asked to join a conversation with our researchers or artists, take part in an interview or a number of fun activities. These interactions are completely voluntary and no personal information is sought or required.

The Ethics Studio is designed as a collaboration between Beta Festival and ADAPT SFI Research Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology.

The Ethics Studio is open Wednesday - Sunday, 12PM-6PM

As part of this year’s festival, we are thrilled to collaborate with IMMA’s Living Canvas to present a dual screening over the course of the festival that explores planetary infrastructure and ecological imagination. Through DISNOVATION.ORG’s speculative study of water as both resource and commons in Counter-narratives of Water, and Liam Young’s The Great Endeavor, envisioning a planetary-scale carbon removal project, the programme invites reflection on the architectures—visible and invisible—that sustain and endanger life on Earth. Together, these works reframe environmental crisis as a design question and a collective imaginary.

Local Artists Network spotlights exciting Irish voices with emergent practices. This strand of the programme is dedicated to new work by some of Ireland’s most exciting artists experimenting with art and technology featuring new work from Pallas Projects artist Caroline Mac Cathmhaoil, István László, Aoife Dunne in collaboration with Digital Art Studios Belfast and Peter Power & Leon Butler’s new work Foolish Flame.

Exhibition schedule:

Aoife Dunne: Riddel's Warehouse, 3-8 Nov

Caroline Mac Cathmhaoil: Pallas Projects, 6-19 Nov

CFA Digital Making Showcase: D8 Studio, The Digital Hub, 8 & 9 Nov

Climate Immersion Showcase: Digital Depot, The Digital Hub: 7-16 Nov

Foolish Flame: The Bank, The Digital Hub, 20-23 Nov

Istvan Lazslo: Digital Depot, The Digital Hub, 7-23 Nov