In February 2004 the EAF presented Art of the Biotech Era – an exhibition, symposium & workshop. Since 2004 the EAF has expanded the Art of the Biotech Era project through various undertakings such as Eduardo Kac’s Biotech Art workshop in 2005 involving leading national and international artists and theorists presenting works exploring biotechnology and genomics and discussing the influence of this techno-scientific change of society, the ethical implications of genetic engineering and the concept of aesthetics in biotech arts.

As a part of the project, the EAF has commissioned texts from over 20 national and international writers, published here together with images from artists working in the field. Continue reading

Next Nature 2008: The Biggest Visual Power Show - an intellectual show between a conference and a pop concert; from movies to live performance. From physical experience to virtual imagination :: May 17, 2008; 8:00 - 10:00 pm :: Million Dollar Theater, 307 South Broadway, Los Angeles, CA.

We are living in a time in which the ‘made’ and the ‘born’ are fusing. Hypoallergenic cats are already on the market. Plants are used as sensors, information displays and chemical factories. Animals are being augmented and branded. Young girls are provided with hypernatural vaginas, modeled after the photoshopped vaginas seen in Playboy magazine. In response to donor organ shortages, researchers are working on a 3D organ printer. Continue reading

THURSDAY CLUB :: Camille Baker & Marilene Oliver - MINDTouch + Making DICOM Dance - The Digitised Body as a site for performing subjectivity :: May 8, 2008; 6-8 pm :: Seminar Rooms at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross :: FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME.

MINDTouch explores ideas of non-verbal transference, telepathic collaboration, and the participant as performer, using biofeedback and mobile phone technology under meta-goals of studying “liveness” within mobile networked environments. MINDTouch involves creating a mobile networked performance that utilizes a database of streamed and/or archived video-clips created by video-enabled mobile phones, to then be retrieved, streamed and remixed during (a) live visuals performance(s). Continue reading

2008 International GE3LS Symposium - A challenge to digital artists to explore the complex ethical and societal issues emerging from genomic research and new genomic technologies :: April 28-30, 2008 :: The Westin Calgary, Calgary Alberta, Canada :: Call for Work - Deadline: April 13, 2008.

The Art Exhibit Subcommittee of the 2008 GE3LS International Symposium welcomes submissions of original digital works of art that address the ethical, legal, and social themes related to the human genome, biology in the 21st century, or genetics in society. Continue reading

With Caitlin Berrigan, Adam Zaretsky, Brandon Ballengee, and Kathy High :: organized and moderated by Regine Debatty :: March 14, 2008; 7:30 pm :: New Museum, NY.

Biology plays an increasingly pervasive role in international society and our lives—a role that artists are responding to with a diverse array of practices. Some have started to collaborate with research labs to engage with organic materials; others buy DIY biology sets reminiscent of the early computer kits of the late ´70s. All are getting their hands into the material of life itself to reflect upon some of the most complex issues society has to deal with: the integration of biotechnology in quotidian life, and the ethical, cultural, and even political consequences of scientific discovery.

Synapse: Collaboration between the arts and sciences has the potential to create new knowledge, ideas and processes beneficial to both fields. Artists and scientists approach creativity, exploration and research in different ways and from different perspectives; when working together they open up new ways of seeing, experiencing and interpreting the world around us. For the past decade, the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) has provided opportunities for artists and scientists to work together. Through Synapse, and in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts, ANAT offers residencies, the Synapse Database and now ANAT is pleased to announce its latest initiative: a moderated elist discussion on contemporary art and science collaborations in fields including bioart, artificial intelligence, robotics, climate change and space, amongst others. You can subscribe here. Continue reading

India’s first intensive Biological Art Workshop and Masterclass :: Call for Participants :: National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore :: March 10-14, 2008 :: Please send an expression of interest, a CV and brief bio, by February 8, 2008  to Meena Vari, Srishti: meena [at] srishti.ac.in.

Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology and the National Centre for Biological Sciences, in collaboration with the Arts Catalyst and SymbioticA, is organising an intensive 5 day workshop for artists and others interested people. It will be led by SymbioticA’s Director Oron Catts and his scientific collaborator Greg Cozens from the University of Western Australia. Continue reading

sk-interfaces Conference :: February 8-9, 2008 :: Screen 3, FACT, 88 Wood Street, Liverpool.

This hugely significant event will illustrate many of the aesthetic, philosophical, scientific and medical issues raised in the exhibition sk-interfaces, and will feature specialists of international renown from a wide range of fields and disciplines. The artists’ projects that feature in the exhibition will be discussed in the context of wider debates on and around skin and its role as an interface, as well as biotechnology as an artistic medium and subject. Continue reading

Denise King - Bacterial Terrariums and other delights :: Lecture and Workshop :: January 10, 2008; 8:00 pm :: Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA :: Free.

Denise King visits us from San Francisco’s Exploratorium to discuss the aesthetic cultivation of bacteria. She will be presenting an introduction to identifying bacteria in the field, focusing on environments that are accessible from the Los Angeles area. Along the way she will discuss Winogradsky columns - simple containers that are filled with mud, pond water and plant material that allow the culturing of microbial communities in the laboratory, or in your own living room. Continue reading

[Image: Painting by Gideon of the Body Mapping project] Working Group on The Body in the Social Sciences - Main theme: Mapping the Body: The Bodily Factor in Memory and Social Action - Call For Papers: Deadline for Abstracts - December 31, 2007 :: part of First ISA Forum of Sociology - Sociological Research and Public Debate :: September 5-8, 2008 :: Barcelona, Spain.

The body is part and parcel of the sociological enterprise. The Homo sapiens’s cultural history demonstrates that the contribution the body makes to the brain is not limited to supporting vital operations, but includes regulating the space and time which organizes the contents of a normal mind. This fundamental property enables our ‘mental ship’ to produce the sequences of movements and events which organize the topographical mapping of bodily experience. Continue reading