Hypo Chrysos is the second piece of a series of bio-interactive works based on the Xth Sense (XS), an open, biophysical and wearable technology I’ve recently developed. The work was composed ad hoc for the Matadac Festival in Madrid, which this year explores the theme of Machines and Flesh. In conjunction with this premiere, I’m teaching a workshop on biophysical generation and control of music and video using the Xth Sense tech.

This series of public events, taking place in international settings, investigates the new ethical issues arising from art and science collaboration and consider the roles and responsibilities of the artists, scientists and institutions involved. At each event (before a live audience) an internationally known artist will propose an artwork to a specially formed ethics committee (following the rules and procedures typical for the host country), the ethics committee will then debate the proposal and come to a decision, the artist will then be informed of the ethics committee’s decision and, alongside the audience, they can enter into a discussion about the result.

The proposals have been selected as they raise interesting questions for science ethics committees and will help reveal the mechanisms that drive this usually hidden process, enabling the wider public to understand the driving forces behind ethical decisions and the role of artists working in scientific settings more deeply.

The project Trust Me I’m an Artist: Towards an Ethics of Art/Science Collaboration is led by artist Anna Dumitriu in collaboration with Professor Bobbie Farsides (Chair of Ethics, Brighton and Sussex Medical School) in collaboration with the Waag Society and The University of Leiden.

Event 1: Adam Zaretsky: Mutate or Die

This project addresses the life sciences’ enormous investment in the illusion of objective control over the biological world, and the tag team efforts of “pan-capitalism” and the biotech industry’s privatizing of genetic research and patenting life forms. The writer William S. Burroughs’ genetic material will be used in a speculative artistic experiment that will involve the creation of a transgenic mutation. The public will be invited to participate in the process, specifically within the portable lab we will build in a gallery space.

Bioart tends to use cutting edge biotechnology as an art-making device and specializes in presenting living organisms as art. In Mutate or Die, a DNA sample from Burroughs has been isolated, amplified and will be shot into the nuclei of some cells. At the core of the project will be the gene gun blast that will biolistically combine tiny pieces of William S. Burroughs’ gut flora / script/ gene text with another organism’s genetic script / gene text, to produce a transgenic mutation, or put in another way, an “intentional-genetic modification orgiastic”, or “i-GMO”. After the gene gun blast sets the mutations in motion, we will invite the audience into the process as readers / interpreters of the stories embedded within the old beat writer’s gut.

The Waag’s historic Theatrum Anatomicum, is a wholly appropriate venue to house such a discussion. Built in 1691 as a space dedicated to advanced experimenting, observing and learning, it was the place where leading figures of the surgeon’s guild dissected the corpses of many criminals to expose the anatomy of the human body and help advance medical science. At later stages these dissections turned into events where not just medical professionals or students, but also the man in the street could have a glance at this intriguing, taboo-breaking world of new discoveries.

All welcome

For further information email Anna Dumitriu annadumitriu [at] hotmail.com

Field_Notes – Cultivating Grounds is a week long field laboratory for theory and practice on art&science work. Five expert groups (Arctic Waters, Biological Milieu, Body Nature, Environmental Computing, Second Order) will develop, test and evaluate specific artistic approaches based on the interplay of art&science.

With: Anu Osva, Andrew Paterson, Anne Lehtelä, Antti Tenetz, Beatrize da Costa, Benjamin Pothier, Brian Degger, Corrie Van Sice, Dave Lawrence, Ellen Roed, Erich Berger, Ionat Zurr, Jeni Valorinta, Jennifer Gabrys, Julie Freeman, Jūratė Jarulytė, Kerstin Hosa, Laura Beloff, Luis Graca, Marta de Menezes, Melissa Grant, Melissa Murphy, Niki Passath, Oron Catts, Paz Tornero, Rosanne Van Klaveren, Sarah Alden, Tapio Mäkelä, Terike Haapoja, Tiina Vainio, Till Bovermann.

Organized by the Finnish Society of Bioart.

Natural interfaces and cross-medial technologies allow for the creation of new publishing paradigms in which the term book can be disarticulated and rearranged into unexpected forms, fostering new ways of interacting with data and information.

Leaf++ is the product of a research project that goes in this direction in which a prototypal interactive system involving computer vision, gestural interfaces, augmented reality technologies and cross medial systems to create a novel tool to experience botanical information about plants and their leaves. In Leaf++ an interactive surface and a mobile application can be used to access information of a leaf. By placing the leaf on the interactive surface or by taking a picture of it using the mobile application, a computer vision system is able to recognize it (if it already has been added to a database) and to show available information sources including scientific classification and information, habitat information, world diffusion data, seasonality, curiosities, videos, images and stories regarding the leaf and the plant to which it belongs. Researchers and other forms of users are also allowed to add information to the system: by simply uploading texts, images, videos and geographical locations, they can contribute to the set of information available for the recognized leaf.

The overall interactive system comes out as a really significant experience, employable according to various usage scenarios that go from scientific research to education, to mobile and museum-based entertainment, which not only suggest possible effective uses for these ubiquitous, cross-medial technologies, but also enacts information access and knowledge sharing practices which are outstanding from the point of view of their usability, and of the cognitive approaches fostered by such direct, “augmented” methodologies.

Leaf++ is a cross-medial, augmented reality, multi-author, emergent, evolving and disseminated publication.

See Leaf++: Augmented Reality and the Third Landscape in Parsons Journal for Information Mapping, Volume 3, Issue 3.

With the emergence of affordable EEG devices and other biofeedback sensors for the health and game industry, we see more and more artists inspired by these promising technologies in which they imagine the possibility of measuring one’s emotions.

From the very early experiment of Alvin Lucier and David Rosenboom to the latest art projects using fashionable EEG headsets, the question remains open: what do our brainwaves tell us? And furthermore, how can they be used by artists, at present and in the future?

During this 3 days symposium + showcase, we will attempt to explore the potential of EEG and biofeedback for artistic purpose by comparing and discussing various technologies and projects at the cross-road of Art and Science.

With: Peter Beyls, Christophe De Boeck (Staalhemel), Thierry Castermans (Numediart), Mattia Casalegno & Enzo Varriale (Unstable Empathy), Alexis Chazard (Post traumatic voyager), Kiel Long (The static organ), Luciana Haill (IBVA), Valery Vermeulen (EMO-Synth),…

Programme:

Friday 16 September 2011
10:00-18:00 | Symposium: EEG (and Biofeedback) for the Arts
18:00-22:00 | Opening exhibition + A/V concert

Saturday 17 September 2011
12:00-18:00 | EEG Workshop
12:00-20:00 | Exhibition
20:00-22:00 | A/V concert

Sunday 18 September 2011
12:00-18:00 | EEG Workshop
12:00-20:00 | Exhibition

What is experimentation? What makes art ‘experimental’? What are the results of aesthetic experiments and why do we need them? Could artists invent new modes of experimentation with/for science? What are the differences between experiments and inventions; experiments and failures; experiment and innovation? How do we set up ethico-scientific-aesthetic experiments?

This conference will showcase and discuss innovative arts projects by leading practitioners, thinkers and research groups that model new forms of transdisciplinarity and offer new ways of addressing real-world issues. These include works that have successfully ‘changed the world’ as well as speculative initiatives that radically change the way we think. It will survey the results and potential of Experimental Arts, inviting leaders in the field to discuss how we can extend and support a platform for path-breaking experimentation.

Invited speakers: James Crutchfield (Complexity Sciences Centre, University of California, Davis); David Dunn (Art and Science Laboratory, Santa Fe); Donald Brook (Flinders University); Amy Balkin (CCA; Stanford); Mischa Kuball (Academy of Media Arts, Cologne); Chris Bosse (UTS; L.A.V.A.); Terry Smith (Pittsburgh; NIEA); Elizabeth Ann McGregor (MCA, Sydney); Adrian McKenzie (University of Lancaster); Victoria Vesna (University of California, Los Angeles); Lyndal Jones (RMIT); Pia Ednie-Brown (RMIT); Joyce Hinterding (University of Sydney).

Main program includes keynote lecture, five plenary sessions and three parallel strands over two days.

Session topics:

• Formative Technologies
• Politics/History
• Agency/Materiality
• Experimental Humanities
• Bio Art/Sense Perception
• Experiments in Collaborative Experience
• Affective Experiments
• Soundscape/Filmscape/Landscape
• Urban Construction
• New Materialities
• Health/Body
• Ecology/Sustainability
• Exhibiting
• Experimental Discourse & Practice

Also features lunchtime screening of iCinema Centre’s Scenario on Friday.

Visit the Conference Website for full program and registration.

BioARTCAMP is a hybrid workshop/ symposium/ performance event where artists, scientists, theorists, filmmakers, and students will work together to build a portable laboratory in Banff National Park. Participants will contribute to the general construction of an art/science field research station at Castle Mountain, an offsite and outdoors location. A variety of collaborative art actions and projects will be conducted in the outdoor laboratory. Senior artists will present bioartworks within a camping/laboratory context at a public art/science fair event hosted live at the Castle Mountain location. The two-week residency will conclude at The Banff Centre with a symposium and panel discussion including all participants.

BioARTCAMP will host an open house event inviting audiences to visit a portable wilderness laboratory highlighting various art/science projects completed by visiting artists and scientists at The Banff Centre. Audience members will have the opportunity to try safe hands-on biotechnology protocols. Music, food and beverages will be served. This event is open to the general public as well as visitors to The Banff Centre. People of all ages are encouraged to attend.

Also see: BioARTCAMP Speaker Series :: July 30-31, 2011; 10:00 am – 5:00 pm :: The Banff Centre, 107 Tunnel Mountain Drive, Banff, Canada.

BioARTCAMP is a collaborative art/science project hosted by Dr. Jennifer Willet from INCUBATOR lab at The University of Windsor, and The Banff Centre, Canada. Here artists, scientists and students will build a portable bioart laboratory in Banff National Park and conduct variety of art and science research projects.

With Iain Baxter, Marie-Pier Boucher, Zoot Derks, Tagny Duff, Jeanette Groenendaal, Kurt Illerbrun, Angus Leech, Marta De Menezes, Bulent Mutus, Jennifer Willet, Paul Vanouse.

Designer Suzanne Lee shares her experiments in growing a kombucha-based material that can be used like fabric or vegetable leather to make clothing.

Over the last decade, in the same formal space, VIDA has been bringing together inter-disciplinary projects that respond to new development in Artificial Live. By means of formal strategies that defy the boundaries between existing practices, these projects offer new ways of reflecting on what we understand by life.

As in previous years there are two categories to the competition:

FINISHED PROJECTS

In this category Vida 13.2 will award prizes to artistic ALife projects developed after 2009. The sum of 40,000 Euros will be shared between the projects selected by the jury: First Prize: 18,000 Euros, Second Prize: 14,000 Euros, and Third Prize: 8,000 Euros. In addition seven honourable mentions will be awarded.

ARTISTIC PRODUCTION INCENTIVES IN IBEROAMERICA, SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

In this category Vida 13.2 helps to fund artistic ALife projects that have not yet been produced. This is aimed at citizens or residents of countries comprising Latin America, Spain and Portugal. The sum of 40,000 Euros will be shared between the selected projects.

DATES

Period for submission of projects: from 11 April to 27 July 2011.
The deadline for submitting projects is 27 July 2011 at midnight (Spanish mainland time zone).

JURY

The projects submitted will be examined by an international jury comprising the following members: Mónica Bello Bugallo (Spain), Jens Hauser (France), Karla Jasso (Mexico), Sally Jane Norman (New Zealand/France), Simon Penny (USA/Australia), Nell Tenhaaf (Canada) and Francisco Serrano, Executive Director of Fundación Telefónica.