The Body, Art and Bioethics
Friday 6 August 2010
A symposium exploring the culture and ethics of the use and ownership of living material, from the cell to the whole body, in art, science, law and philosophy.

The body is increasingly being transformed into commodity and media, put on display, fragmented, manipulated, preserved and rearranged. Scientists, artists, lawyers, historians and social scientists will come together to trace the radical shifts in our understanding of the body –  and life itself – and investigate how these emergent realities influence our notion of being human while simultaneously challenging the relationship to the ‘Other’ that is living or semi-living. Speakers include:
Dr Catherine Waldby, University of Sydney, whose research includes the Feminist-Marxist critique of the distribution and use of parts of bodies whether classified as “gift” or “waste”
Dr Luigi Palombi, Australian National University, an expert on biotechnology patents in Australia, the European Union and the United States of America. Elizabeth Costello,writer, who discusses the hypocrisy of complex relations between the treatment of  animals, Dr Ethan Blue, UWA – a historian whose research involves the prison system and relations between medicos and inmates; Kathy High, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: an artist who explores the Other animal and interspecies intimate relations Dr Ionat Zurr, UWA – the Semi-Living point of view. Dr Stuart Hodgetts, UWA – a research scientist’s experience working with animals and artists in the labs  Dr Darren Jorgensen, UWA – surveys the use of the body within art history.Oron Catts SymbioticA Director will investigate the bioethics inherent within a number of biological art projects researched and developed within SymbioticA.
To register interest email: sym@symbiotica.uwa.edu.au
Website to come:  http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/activities/conferences <https://mail.anhb.uwa.edu.au/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/activities/conferences>
Symposium Graphic Design by Paul Rayment

Following the call for papers:

I kindly invite You to send proposals of paper, poster, artworks or
live-performance for the 13th Generative Art Conference.
GA2010 will be held in Italy, at Politecnico di Milano University, the
15-16-17 December 2010. The opening cocktail will be the previous day,
the 14th of December, at 6PM.
This year we reached the 13th annual event and GA conference increased
of interest and importance. It is now the 1st reference for people
researching and creating with generative advanced approaches.
Around 600 papers presented in the previous conferences are in the GA
website www.generativeart.com for free full consultation.
As the other years we will wait for your proposals (papers, posters,
artworks/installations, live performances) until September 15th and we
are sure that with your contributions GA2010 will be, once more, a
moment of great exchange of experiences and an occasion of meeting
people working with the same approach in a wide range of different
disciplines.
I hope that you will be interested to this meeting and that you will joint us.

The CALL FOR PAPER / POSTER / ARTWORK / PERFORMANCE is in the website
www.generativeart.com where you can find the list of the participants
to the previous GA conferences and their papers.

For increasing the possibilities to exchange experiences and
discussions, the conference, as the 12 previous editions, will have
only one main session (with around 40 paper presentations and a poster
session).
In the evening of the days of the conference a live-performances
Festival will be presented to a more large audience, together with an
exhibition of generative artworks.
The PROCEEDINGS (Abstract book and DVD with papers, posters, artworks
and performances presentations, with ISBN number) WILL BE PRINTED
BEFORE THE CONFERENCE and will be available starting from 14 December
2010.

TOPICS:
Art & Science
Philosophy & Technology
Infinity & Identity
Image & Space
Music
Poetry
Mathematics
Visionary Scenarios & Virtual Environment
Architecture
Cities Identity & Town Design
Software Art
Web Art
Industrial Design & Intelligent Production
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Life
Artificial Behaviors
Generative Robotics
Mechatronic
Teaching Theory
Visual Grammar

Deadlines:
. 15 September 2010 (or before for early application and for receiving
an official invitation letter)
Presentation of proposals of Papers, Posters, Artworks, Installations,
Live Performances. PLEASE USE THE FORMAT
www.generativeart.com/on/upupup/GA2010_abstractTemplate.doc because
the abstracts will be printed in the proceedings book.
You can send your abstract directly by email to
celestino.soddu@generativeart.com . If you need an invitation letter
for funds applications and you need to have early acceptance, please
confirm it in the email.
. 15 October 2010
Communication of accepted proposals
. 10 November 2010
Presentation of final Papers (around 4000 words), Posters (max 2000
words), Artwork-installation and Live Performance presentation (max
2000 words)

Program:
. 14 December, 6:00PM exhibition opening cocktail
. 15 December, 9:00AM GA conference, 1:00PM lunch, 3:00PM GA
conference, 8:30PM Conference dinner
. 16 December, 9:00AM GA conference, 1:00PM lunch, 3:00PM GA
conference, 7:30PM Pizza snack, 8:30PM Live-performances Festival
. 17 December, 9:00AM GA conference, 1:00PM lunch, 3:00PM GA
conference, 7:30PM Pizza snack, 8:30PM Live-performances Festival

–    Early submitting, if requested, could be accepted in 15 days to
obtain a letter of invitation usable to fund applications or for
getting Visa.
–    No funds are available from GA2010 organization.
–    To ensure a high-quality conference, all abstract and papers will
be reviewed by the Conference Chair and Scientific Committee.
–    The proceedings of GA2010 will be printed in advance for having a
written support to the conference. The proceedings will present, in
sequence, the book with abstracts of papers, posters, presentation of
artworks, presentation of live performances with a DVD of full papers,
software, artworks, music and video of performances and all materials
presented by the participants. GA2010 proceedings will have its own
ISBN number.
–    All the presented and accepted contributions will be also
published in the website www.generativeart.com after the conference.
The websites www.generativeart.com and www.generativedesign.com have
constantly in the last years around 3000 visitors each day.

Fees:
as the previous editions, having chosen not to have sponsors, the fee
covers only the expenses of the conference like bags with proceedings,
printed materials, welcome cocktail, 6 coffee breacks, 3 lunches, 2
pizza snacks, the conference dinner and so on.
– No fees for performers presenting  their live performances and
attending only to the evening performances.
– Reduced fees for people presenting papers, posters, artworks and
installations.
– Extra reduced fee, without lunches, for students presenting posters.
More information about fees are in the website
http://www.generativeart.com starting from September, or, at present
in the website www.argenia.org

******************************
DAB LAB
research gallery

Invites you to a presentation by visiting PhD Fellow Pernille
Leth-Espenen discussing Arts, Science and Technological Mediation.

Pernille visits UTS from the Department of Aesthetic Studies at Aarhus
University, Denmark, please find her abstract attached for further
information.

Interactivation Lab Thursday May 27 at 5pm.
Level 4 courtyard, UTS
Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
University of Technology, Sydney
702 Harris Street, Ultimo
ph 95148016
www.dab.edu.au/dablab <http://www.dab.edu.au/dablab>

ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGICAL MEDIATION

In recent years artworks interpreting scientific representations and
technologies have occurred more frequently. As installation art they
are representing data or processes in nature, in the body, or in
society.

What might be the motivation for this artistic interest in scientific
representations and technologies? According to sociologist of science
Bruno Latour, scientific knowledge is constructed through scientific
representations, diagrams, and measuring devices. Furthermore,
philosopher of technology Peter-Paul Verbeek argues that scientific
representations and technologies are not neutral. Science is becoming
increasingly influential in shaping how human beings interpret their
world. Technologies and scientific representations are mediations of
reality and have ethic consequences as they affect our actions as well
as our conception of nature, of our own body, and of society.

In the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian formalist Viktor
Shklovsky argued that the purpose of art is to remove objects from the
automatism of perception by making familiar objects appear unfamiliar.
In my view, many of these artworks de-familiarize scientific
representations and technologies.

In the talk, I will thus argue that by making unusual, poetic, and
unfamiliar scientific representations, artworks are investigating how
technologies mediate our actions and our perception of the world.
Through this investigation they are also reflecting upon the ethical
consequences of these mediations.

BIOGRAPHY

Pernille Leth-Espensen is a PhD Fellow at the Department of Aesthetic
Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark. Her PhD Scholarship is funded
by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. She is undertaking a residency at
SymbioticA at University of Western Australia until mid May. She was
awarded with Aarhus University’s Goldmedal for her Masters Thesis “The
Status of Nature in Contemporary Art”. She is a co-editor of the
Danish Art Journal Passepartout: http://www.pptout.dk/tidsskrifter/

European Artistic Research Network (EARN)

The Academy Strikes Back
Renee Green, Irit Rogoff,
Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Dieter Lesage
4-5 June 2010

European Artistic Research Network (EARN)
Sint-Lukas Brussels University
College of Art and Design
Brussels, Belgium

www.artresearch.eu

The Academy Strikes Back is the concluding presentation of a two-year
project aimed at the current academicization of art education. The
project takes place within the context of the European Artistic
Research Network and was developed by Jan Cools (Sint-Lukas, Brussels)
and Henk Slager (maHKU, Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art and
Design).

The project’s starting point is the importance of artistic research
for formulating competencies, learning outcomes and didactic
strategies in art education. Previous events were A Certain Ma-Ness,
(Amsterdam, March 2008) with a.o. Simon Sheikh, Jan Verwoert,
Clementine Deliss, Mick Wilson, Bart Verschaffel, and Becoming
Bologna, (IUAV, Venice, June 2009) with a keynote by Daniel Birnbaum,
that took place within the framework of the 53rd Venice Biennale.

During The Academy Strikes Back the specificity of the Academy as a
research environment is at the forefront of our enquiry and debate.
How can artistic (doctoral) research contribute to the overall
research environment at the Academy? To investigate this, three
doctoral researchers (Jeremiah Day, Clodagh Emoe, Paul Landon) have
been invited to do workshops, based on their own research projects,
for the Brussels master students. Documentation about the various ways
that (doctoral) research can be embedded in the structure of the
Graduate School is on display in the Sint-Lukas Gallery (June 5 –
20, 2010).

As a consequence of the institutionalization of the artistic research
environment, it is inevitable that the debate about the specificity of
the Academy is being brought back into the Academy where it most
urgently belongs. The symposium will elaborate on this by asking four
specialists the following sub-questions:

– Can the academicized Art Academy still offer a viable space and
platform for the experimental development of a critical art practice?
– Is there an affirmative relationship between institutionalized
artistic research and the art scene?
– How transparent is ‘peer reviewing’ in the art world and what role
can it play in academicized art education?
– How can the outcomes of artistic research be disseminated?

Programme: The Academy Strikes Back

June 4: 14-18
Jan Cools (Research coordinator Sint-Lukas, Brussels), Henk Slager
(Dean maHKU, Utrecht): Introductions

Renee Green (Dean Graduate Programs San Francisco Art Institute):
Hail the invisible College or What Can Matter Now?
Jeremiah Day: Researcher maHKU, Utrecht
Moderator: Gertrud Sandqvist (Professor Malmo Art Academy)

Irit Rogoff (Professor Goldsmith’s College, London): Practicing
Research/Singularising Knowledge
Centrifugal (Susan Kelly, Taru Elving – Zagreb): Book of Europe
Moderator: Mick Wilson (Dean GradCAM, Dublin)

June 4: 19-21
Opening Parallel Exhibition: Sint-Lukasgalerie, Paleizenstraat 70,
Brussels
www.sintlukas.be

June 5: 10-13
Hans-Ulrich Obrist (Co-Director Exhibitions Serpentine Gallery,
London): Peer Reviewed Art
Paul Landon: Researcher Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki
Moderator: Hans de Wolf (Professor Free University Brussels)

June 5: 14-17
Dieter Lesage (Professor Erasmus University College Brussels):
Supplementality
Clodagh Emoe: Researcher GradCam, Dublin
Moderator: John Aiken (Director Slade School of Fine Art, London)

Location Symposium: Auditorium Sint-Lukas, Address: Groenstraat
162-184, Brussels

More information:
www.artresearch.eu

Bio:Fiction Science, Art & Filmfestival
Submissions due: 15 July 2010
The 1st Bio:Fiction Science, Art & Filmfestival aims at attracting public awareness to synthetic biology and its ramifications for our daily life in the future. We want to encourage filmmakers to share their cinematic visions of a present or future society shaped by synthetic biology. What is your view on a world living with synthetic life forms? Your approach is up to you – the
filmmaker, scientists or artist – the entries can be on science, fiction, or science fiction. We welcome regular short film, animation or documentary film. The main criteria is that synthetic biology has to be reflected somehow in the work, but how you do it is up to you.
The nominated films will be presented in public at the festival event in Vienna, Austria, in May 2011. There is no entry fee for submitting films.
Visit: http://www.bio-fiction.com

What do the ecological humanities have to say in time of species extinction unprecedented in human history? How might the ecological arts address living in the emergence of a geological era to be defined primarily by the human impact upon the living world?

http://geoaesthetics.blogspot.com/

10 June-26 September 2010

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/skin.aspx

The ‘Skin’ exhibition invites you to re-evaluate the largest and probably most overlooked human organ. We will consider the changing importance of skin, from anatomical thought in the 16th century through to contemporary artistic exploration.

Covering four themes (Objects, Marks, Impressions and Afterlives), ‘Skin’ takes a philosophical approach. It begins by looking at the skin as a frontier between the inside and the outside of the body. Early anatomists saw it as having little value and sought to flay it to reveal the workings of the body beneath.

+++ 1st Bio:Fiction Science, Art & Filmfestival +++

Call for entries

The 1st Bio:Fiction Science, Art & Filmfestival aims at attracting public awareness to synthetic biology and its ramifications for our daily life in the future.
Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new biological systems not found in nature. Synthetic biology aims at creating new forms of life for practical purposes. By applying engineering principles to biology scientists will be able to design life forms much different from breeding or traditional genetic engineering.

We want to encourage filmmakers to share their cinematic visions of a present or future society shaped by synthetic biology. What is your view on a world living with synthetic life forms? Your approach is up to you – the filmmaker, scientists or artist – the entries can be on science, fiction, or science fiction. We welcome regular short film, animation or documentary film. The main criteria is that synthetic biology has to be reflected somehow in the work, but how you do it is up to you.

Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

Bio:Fiction Award – Short Fiction
Bio:Fiction Award – Documentary Film
Bio:Fiction Award – Animation
Online-Audience Award
Special Award of the Jury
(the prize money in each category will be announced soon)

On http://www.bio-fiction.com you will find more useful and inspiring information on synthetic biology, the entry form and the regulations of the filmfestival.
The nominated films will be presented in public at the festival event in Vienna, Austria, in May 2011. Finally, a Bio:Fiction Award ceremony will build the highlight of the festival.

The deadline for film entries is the 15th of July 2010

There is no entry fee for submitting films.

http://www.bio-fiction.com

Painting and Drawing in the School of Art, COFA presents a lecture by
Oron Catts Director of SymbioticA: Substrate as context

Oron Catts Director of SymbioticA : The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, School of
Anatomy and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia.
Visiting Professor of Design Interaction, Royal College of Arts, London.
Where: Room EG02, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales (cnr Greens Rd and
Oxford St)
Time: 13th May – 1pm – 2pm
Oron Catts is an artist, researcher and curator whose work with the Tissue Culture and Art
Project (which he founded in 1996) is part of the NY MoMA design collection and has been
exhibited and presented internationally. In 2000 he co-founded SymbioticA, an artistic research
laboratory housed within the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, The University of Western
Australia. Under Oron’s leadership, SymbioticA has gone on to win the Prix Ars Electronica
Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) and became a Centre for Excellence in 2008. In 2009 Oron
was recognised by Thames & Hudson’s 60 Innovators Shaping our Creative Future book as one
of five in the category “Beyond Design”, and by Icon Magazine (UK) as one of the top 20
Designers, “making the future and transforming the way we work”.
Oron was a Research Fellow in Harvard Medical School and a visiting Scholar at the
Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University.