Friday Seminar Series
The ethos of SymbioticA is that ideas are discussed and shared openly and the Friday Seminar Series is designed to allow an open forum to disseminate artistic, scientific, ethical and philosophical research and practice of resident researchers, visiting artists and scholars to our University. Our Friday Seminar Series are held, salon style, in our studio space at commence at 3.30pm. All welcome. Subscribe to SymbioticA’s mailing list to keep up to date with our latest program.
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SymbioticA will be holding regular Friday Seminars in 2009. All welcome. |
This Week's SeminarSymbioticA Friday Seminar > What is Science and Technology Studies? Can a bridge be racist? Is objectivity stable? And what is really going on in science labs? While this talk won't answer these questions, it will examine how thinkers in Science & Technology Studies have approached these questions. All welcome.
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Upcoming SeminarsSymbioticA Friday Seminars > SymbioticA Friday Seminar > TBC
Past SeminarsSymbioticA Friday Seminar > Indigenous Australian Plant Use: A Guided Tour through Kings Park Friday 6 November, 3.30-5pm Off campus venue: Kings Park. Meet outside Aspects Gift Shop, next to Fraser’s Restaurant Kings Park and Botanic Garden, Perth’s oldest and best loved park, is a living collection of the State’s natural and cultural heritage. This special guided tour, lead by the Kings Park Guides, will take the group on a walk to explore the bushland through landscaped parklands and garden’s which demonstrate the State’s botanical diversity. Discover plants which had, and often still have, practical uses for both Aboriginals and Europeans. Cost is $4 per person towards that goes toward the Kings Park Guides. The guided tour will be followed by a delightful afternoon picnic in the park. Bring a plate or drink. For more information on Kings Park visit: http://www.bgpa.wa.gov.au/ All welcome. SymbioticA Friday Seminar > Oil Spill Emergency off WA Coast It is over two months since a West Atlas mobile offshore drilling unit leaked oil about 250 kilometres north of Truscott, and 690 kilometres west of Darwin. The fourth attempt at plugging the leak has been postponed due to equipment failure. The leak is considered to have covered 45,000 square kilometres of ocean. Following a mass protest in the city of Perth on Friday morning at 11am, the WA Marine Co-ordinator of the Wilderness Society, Dr Jill St John, will present a paper outlining the enormity of the leak, dangers to the marine life in the vicinity and what individuals can actually do to make a difference. Dr Jill St John joined the Wilderness Society in 2008 as the Marine Co-ordinator in WA. Jill has a passion for all things marine, especially fish. With its huge coastline and small population, WA has escaped the marine problems of the more populated east. However, the recruitment failure of the famous rock lobster fishery and the recent oil and gas leak suggests WA is catching up quickly. Location: SymbioticA Room 228, Level 2, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia. All welcome. FLASH MOB PROTEST SymbioticA Friday Seminar > WASh Program (Western Australia, Shanghai) Michelle Outram, Simon Wise, Oron Catts, Tania Visosevic and Cat Hope, delegates on the WASh Program (Western Australia, Shanghai) will share stories on their recent visit to Shanghai, discuss future plans for the program, what it is and why they’re doing it. The aim of the WASh Program, established by the Australia-China Institute for Culture and the Arts (ACICA), is for West Australian media, electronic and interdisciplinary artists to develop their practices, profiles and arforms by establishing links and exchanges with a variety of institutions, organisations and local artists in Shanghai. The vision is a low-cost, long-term cultural and artistic bridging program. WASh 2009, funded by the Department of Culture and the Arts, consisted of a delegation of six artists/artsworkers (Cat Hope, Oron Catts, Tania Visosevic, Sam Fox, Simon Wise & Michelle Outram) visiting Shanghai with ACICA Director Sheng Liang in September. During the visit, the group presented seminars/talks and attended meetings and social events, successfully establishing connections with organisations, institutions and artists. Building from this success, WASh 2010, will be a 'pilot' program of linked artist residencies, lectureships and the presentation of works made possible through support from partner organisations in Shanghai and Australian funding.
SymbioticA Friday Seminar > What does design have to offer to a biotech revolution? Daisy Ginsberg uses design to explore the implications of emerging and unfamiliar technologies, science and services. This includes creating compelling narratives that allow us to question our unprecedented future, using design to open up new thought areas and unravel the complexity of invisible science. Over the last 18 months Ginsberg has been exploring how the two very disparate scales of molecular science and human design interact. At the Royal College of Art, London, she began researching synthetic biology, the application of engineering principles to biology, the abstraction of the chaos of life into standardised components and systems. Daisy has now moved into the lab, designing a Synthetic Biology Protocol for SymbioticA during her residency. Prior to the MA Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, Ginsberg read Architecture at Cambridge University, worked in urbanism and spent a year at Harvard learning about narrative and design research. Her time at the RCA was spent exploring what design - integral to the developments of the Industrial and Information Revolutions - has to ‘offer’ to a Biotech Revolution. More information: http://www.daisyginsberg.com/ Location: SymbioticA Room 228, Level 2, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia. All welcome. SymbioticA Friday Seminar > Awash in Spatial Information: Promise, Limitations and Controversy What is spatial information? How is it constructed, maintained and controlled? With the current social valence of spatial information, it is critical that we have an understanding of its continuing development so we can leverage and critique it effectively. This talk will seek to deeply engage the audience by way of small group conversations. Questions will focus on issues of deep contention (privacy, access, control, etc.), cultural encoding, possibilities for spatial information and those of interest to the group. E. J. Neafsey is a Ph.D Candidate in the Environmental Information Science concentration at Cornell University. He completed his undergraduate work at Cornell in January 2005 and received his M.S. degree there in May 2008. He has taught geospatial information science and sustainable agriculture as part of his program at Cornell. Previous research focused on proximal sensing using diffuse-reflectance near-infrared spectroscopy for the estimation of key soil properties to soil classification and survey, in situ, in western and central New York. He is currently developing a spectral database for soil samples in southern New England and prediction models for key soil properties for archived, field benchmark and subaqueous soils in the region. Locally, he is working with the Western Australia Department of Agriculture and Food to update soils maps in the Wheatbelt using field, radiometrics and terrain data and enhance soil carbon measurement techniques. SymbioticA Friday Seminar > "pFARM :: Organic Fetish Biotech" pFARM :: Organic Fetish Biotech documents the activities of the pFarm collective and its phantasmagoric, organic bio-tech experiments in inter-species fantasies, fetishes and flea-market offerings. Created by Adam Zaretsky and the pFARM Collective, the film explores cultural power relations between organic farming, recent advances in new reproductive technology and our domestic conceptions of wildness. Zaretsky is a PhD Candidate in Electronic Arts at The Department of the Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He is a bioartist, performer, researcher and art theorist whose work focuses on Biology and Art Wet Lab Practice. He was the first international resident in SymbioticA, and not only enthusiastically participated in the labs but was instrumental in establishing SymbioticA's undergraduate academic program with the development of the VIVOART course. His work was shown in SymbioticA’s BIOFEEL exhibition in 2002. No SymbioticA staff participated in Mr Zaretsky’s fetishes as far as we are aware.
Bring popcorn! All welcome.
SymbioticA Friday Seminar > Garage Mahal Andrew Hayim De Vries will tour and discuss his latest art/design project Home Where Project #2 Garage Mahal. The house is designed and constructed using simple and cost effective industrial components and practices addressing the key areas of environmental sustainability to minimise the use of power and water and the necessity for maintenance of the property. The Vertical Greenwalls, vegetable and other gardens on the property are watered by an integrated greywater recycling and rainwater catchment and subterranean drainage system. Through the combined use of natural ventilation and internal insulation, the Vertical Greenwalls and passive solar design throughout the property, Garage Mahal offers a cool sanctuary in the often harsh summer of Western Australia and warmth during winter months. Andrew Hayim De Vries is a West Australian artist and designer based in Fremantle, W.A. Home Where Project #1 100 Hubble Street was an eclectic example of art, architecture and urban recycling that evolved over a period of 20 years in East Fremantle. For more information visit: Location: All welcome.
SymbioticA Thursday Seminar > Relations to the Immaterial Thursday 3 September 3.30-5pm There is no way that a vague and jargon-heavy paragraph will give you any idea of what an artist's work will be. What is the purpose of a description of the work - is it meant to provoke thoughts? questions? confusion? Certainly not to actually tell the viewer what the work is or does. Because if I told you what the work was, why would you need to see it? Words like 'space', 'body' and 'relation' have all but no content when they are used to generalize in place of specific and meaningful gestures. Filling up a paragraph with words is a formal gesture, a placeholder occupying a comfortable location in the suburban neighbourhood of the work, not too close, and perhaps just civilly sharing a fence or some bushes. Joshua Schwebel is a Canadian artist in the third person, currently in residence at PICA. All welcome. Join Josh at PICA for his Artist Talk and Studio Opening 2 September, 6-8pm. In Vetland Dr Perdita Phillips is showing the results of her 2009 Art Meets Vet Science Artist in Residency program at Murdoch University’s School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences. Her X-ray sculptures, photographs and drawings will be situated in both the clinical and research areas. Working on themes of internal and external surfaces the artist has investigated diagnostic palpation as the point of contact between human and nonhuman worlds. The artist floor talk will be followed by the exhibition opening at 5pm. Perdita Phillips artistic practice includes sculpture, photography, drawings, sound, video and installation. Whilst materially diverse, underlying themes of ecological processes, and a commitment to a resensitisation to the physical environment, are apparent. Working with objects, environments, found things and made things, Perdy creates a world where everyday entities and events are brought out of their invisibility. Perdy was an Australia Council SymbioticA resident in 2007/2008 and is undertaking a SymbioticA Adaptation residency, funded by the Sidney Myer Fund and The Australia Council InterArts Office in 2009. In Vetland runs from 29 August to 25 September, Monday to Friday 9:00am — 5:00pm, Saturday and Sunday 12:00pm — 5:00pm, starting at the Anatomy Museum on the ground floor of the Vet Building, School of Veterinary & Biomedical Sciences at Murdoch University. Please RSVP to the exhibition opening for catering purposes vettrust@murdoch.edu.au or telephone 9360 2731 For more information visit:
Waste-for-Life Waste-for-Life (WLF) is a loosely joined network of scientists, engineers, educators, designers, cooperatives, innovators, and documentarians that work internationally and inter-disciplinarily to develop poverty-reducing solutions to environmental and social problems. WFL works at the intersection of waste and poverty using low-threshold/low-cost technologies to add value to resources that are commonly considered harmful or of minimal worth, but are often the source of livelihood for society’s poorest members. Two WFL team members visited Buenos Aires for six months in 2007 and again in 2008 for an additional month. There, they met and worked with several cartonero or waste-picker cooperatives. This talk presents a view of these cooperatives through the lens of WFL and the potential affect the intervention may have on co-ops working within Buenos Aires vast garbage collection and recycling machinery. Professor Caroline Baillie has recently been recruited as Chair of Engineering Education for the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics at The University of Western Australia. Caroline is particularly interested in ways in which science and engineering can help to create solutions for the environment as well as social problems. Before coming to Perth, Caroline was Chair of Engineering Education Research and Development at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, where she was also cross appointed into Chemical Engineering, Sociology and Women's studies. Formerly she was lecturer at Imperial College, UK and the University of Sydney, as well as Deputy Director of the Materials Subject centre, part of the Learning and Teaching support network in the UK. For more information visit: www.wasteforlife.org All welcome. Conquering Life? Friday 14 August, 3.30-5pm Australian artist Boo Chapple will discuss the 2009 Honours Class “BioArt: contemporary art & the life sciences” she recently ran at The Arts & Genomics Centre (TAGC), in Leiden, The Netherlands. The Class was an art and science crossover lab that encouraged students from various disciplines to foster interdisciplinary exploration of the intersections between art, and life through hands-on laboratory protocols, and critical readings. During her time at TAGC, Boo also cooperated with Leiden University Prof. Dr Ron de Kloet in an ArtScience project on stress. Boo Chapple is an artist and researcher whose conceptually driven practice has been enacted across a diverse range of media including sound (installation, performance, design), performance installation, video, and art/science projects. Boo was a SymbioticA resident in 2004 and 2006. The bone audio speakers she researched during her year long Australia Council SymbioticA residency will be exhibited in “Art in the Age of Nanotechnology” from the 24 September - 29 November 2009 at the John Curtin Gallery. In 2007-08 she undertook at 12 month residency at the Design Research Institute, RMIT. She has received several sound commissions (ABC/The Listening Room, Performance Space) and exhibited work in national and international contexts, including Ars Electronica, the Beijing Biennale of Architecture, the San Francisco MoMA and Enter3, Prague. She has been an invited panellist at the Whitney Museum, an invited speaker for Eyebeam, NYC and presented work at numerous national and international art events and conferences. Her writing and art projects have been published in Leonardo Journal, Aminima, Art of the Biotech Era and Plastic Green. For more information on Boo’s practice, visit: http://residualsoup.org All welcome. Box-jellyfish have no Brains Box jellyfish have no brains. Cubomedusae have 24 eyes many with sophisticated lenses, but no brain that science can see. As some sort of brain is considered indispensable to sight their need for all this sensory hard-ware confounds conventional neuro-scientific logic. Their eyes are not the problem; they fit the standard ocular definition (more or less). The problem is vision without cognition, sight without a central processing unit. To address science’s empirical ability to perceive life according to the capacity of the human brain, Meredith is attempting to develop a perception of the jellyfish’s brain for which biological science currently has no concept. Meredith Walsh is currently undertaking her second residency at SymbioticA. She has an ongoing interest both philosophically and practically in perception and thought as it relates to the empirical power of scientific practice to define the material living world. Her research has explored this theme through a number of residencies, including SymbioticA, the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific Research Organisation) and iVEC (the hub of advanced computing in Western Australia), and her writing/presentations for interdisciplinary audiences such as ICAD (the International Conference of Auditory Display). All welcome. Inhabitate | Transnational Terrain: immersive interdisciplinary dance research Inhabitate introduces current cross disciplinary research developed between dance artists Orr and Sweeney working in geologically significant sites across the UK and Australia. Since 2005 ROCKface have created innovative performance methods combining contemporary choreography with ecological and environmental exchanges through a parallel transnational terrain inquiry. This paper will open ROCKface's definition of dance ecology topographic movement training, choreography as a cartographic practice and transfer of properties. For more information visit: http://orrandsweeney.blogspot.com/ ROCKface was founded in 2006 by Rachel Sweeney (IRL) and Marnie Orr (AUS), to investigate site-driven physical performance languages related across disciplines. We aim to highlight the sensory, kinetic intelligence of the dancer working in situ, drawing from intuitive and proprioceptive memory through distinct perceptual modes of engagement and also in consultation with a range of ‘field’ professionals from geographic and ecological disciplines. All welcome.
Kaori Yamashita 'Surroundings Around' Surroundings Around opens up a discourse about ecosystems and integrity through focusing on the relationship between human activities surrounding the fishing culture. The work focuses on the pattern of tears on the cheeks of the native blowfish (Weeping Toado) to evoke empathy and reveal human hypocrisies towards other animal species and “by-catch”. By-catch is the unwanted and untargeted capture of sea life that is discarded at the end of fishing trips. While dolphins and turtles are protected species in commercial fishing, the native blowfish is discarded as by-catch in recreational fishing. Kaori Yamashita was born in 1979 in Kyoto, Japan. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking at the Kyoto City University of Arts in 2003. Her early work explored the theme of self-searching in relation to other people through self-portraiture. Kaori is also interested in the relationship between humans and the natural world and has developed this theme through her screen-printing practice. She has researched biological arts related to bioinformatics while undertaking of Master of Information Science at Nagoya University in Japan from 2003 to 2006 and is currently completing a Masters of Science, specialising in Biological Arts at SymbioticA, in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia. RiP: A Remix Manifesto In RiP: A remix manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers. The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow are also along for the ride. A participatory media experiment, from day one, Brett shares his raw footage at opensourcecinema.org, for anyone to remix. This movie-as-mash-up method allows these remixes to become an integral part of the film. With RiP: A remix manifesto, Gaylor and Girl Talk sound an urgent alarm and draw the lines of battle. For more information visit: http://www.ripremix.com/ Due to its running time RiP will start at 3.30pm sharp. All welcome. Posthumanism, Animal Alterity, Ethics and Biopolitics 'Posthumanism, Animal Alterity, Ethics and Biopolitics' addresses representations of animals in science fiction from the point of view of Foucault's ideas about biopolitics. Using Karen Traviss' ‘Wess'Har Wars’ series as an example, it explores the ways that challenges to the human/animal boundary open up a space for a new kind of posthuman identity that emerges from a new sense of ethical relations among species. Sherryl Vint is an Associate Professor at Brock University in Canada. She is the author of ‘Bodies of Tomorrow: Technology, Subjectivity, Science Fiction’ (2007) and has recently completed ‘Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal’. She is an editor of ‘The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction’ and of the journals ‘Extrapolation’ and ‘Science Fiction Film and Television’. All welcome. Adaptation workshop showcase SymbioticA’s Friday Seminar showcases outcomes of the week long Adaptation Workshop. Works created in response to five days of interrogating the problems, challenges, and potentials of a unique site combining stories of creation and evolution, desalination and floods, histories of human development (built and social), to environmental threats and new species, will be on display in the Cullity gallery, accompanied by a public presentation. Drawing upon experts in water research, biological arts, geology, ecology, architecture and computer science; and Lake Clifton, Mandurah where local insight and experiences will develop a rich and varied story of the complexities of foreseeing a vision for the site in 2049. Work (or work in progress) stemming from the workshop will be presented, viewed and discussed in an open and informal setting. The seminar is accompanied by light refreshments. All welcome. Location: Cullity Gallery, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, The University of Western Australia.
Ericaamerica "The Cave of Wonders" Western Australian based studio ericaamerica, are often described as creators of new territories between art and fashion. Creative duo Lucas Bowers and Erica Wardle prefer to remain a little more ambiguous about their categorisation, seeing their practice more as the creation of inhabitable artistic spaces - most often through clothing and dioramatic installation. Essentially the ericaamerica team explore any media necessary to bring alternative worlds across the border and into ours. The duo are currently showing their installation "The Cave of Wonders" at the WA Museum, presented as a sister exhibition to "Nick Cave: The Exhibition." The show examines and interprets the work of the legendary singer/songwriter while equally examining the museum's role in history. Lucas Bowers will discuss the challenges both logistical and ethical of creating art from anthropological, historical and zoological objects and materials, and of challenging ideas about the role of museums in modern society, both within the organisation and without. ericaamerica have designed costumes for the BioKino group and ORLAN during their residencies at SymbioticA. "A Cave Of Wonders: ericaamerica interpret the songs of Nick Cave" is on show at the WA Museum until July 19. All welcome.12 June Whilst fashion and ritual are an integral part of our living existence, Pia Interlandi’s research investigates the role of fashion at the end of life and beyond. Observing ‘eco’ trends in both the apparel and funeral industries, transformational processes including decomposition, dissolving, and reincarnation will be explored in order to create a series of garments that explore the relationship between garment and [deceased] body. Aiming to embody notions of ‘life cycles’ and the philosophy of ‘cradle to cradle’ design, the garments and textiles will be used in conjunction with performance and ritual, eventually to be used as proposed alternatives for internment. Pia is SymbioticA’s latest resident. She is currently undertaking her PhD (Architecture and Design) at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Jonathon Thwaites, UWA Radiation and Safety officer and advocate for sustainable technology will discuss biodiesel, alternative fuels, solar and nuclear power and uranium mining on World Environment Day 2009. Jonathon Thwaites was the finalist in the Western Australian Environment Awards for the Community Achievement category. He is the driving force behind the Perth Sun Fair. http://www.perthsunfair.com.au/ The United Nation’s World Environment Day is a day used to stimulate worldwide awareness of environmental issues and encourages political action. www.unep.org/wed All welcome. Art in the Context of Environment and Community Friday 22nd May, 3.30pm-5pm Carmel Wallace’s art practice focuses on the advantages of multi-disciplinary exploration of place and its ramifications for environmental awareness and ethics. Complementing her art practice with teaching, writing and curating, Carmel has instigated, co-ordinated and participated in numerous art projects, all of which are defined by the involvement of a great cross-section of the community from the arts and non-arts sectors. Carmel is currently in Western Australia to exhibit in Walk, a project centred on the environs of the Great South West Walk in Victoria . Its exhibition outcome is travelling nationally and will be in Bunbury Regional Art Gallery 2 May - 16 June. 2009.
DEPTH CHARGE: The Body-in-Future-Culture...An Ethical Minefield? Friday 15th May 15 May 2009 Our bodies and our perception of bodies - whether as real, virtual, fleshy homo sapiens or digitally rendered avatars - are changing fast. New technologies such as genetic engineering present a new labyrinth of transformation and controversy as human beings (in some parts of the world) begin to move “beyond nature”. In the lifetimes of children and young people today, pressing ethical concerns present themselves. Over the last year, a cross-generational team of artists - both dance students and dance professionals - embarked on a journey of imagination. Using choreography, digital imaging and live music, Buzz Dance took some small steps into the labyrinth of bioethics surrounding genetic freedom and ‘trans humanism’. Buzz Dance Theatre Artistic Director Felicity Bott along with artists from the work, including Moving Images designer Sohan Ariel Hayes, will chat about using choreography, digital imaging and live music to imagine future bodies. For ticket information please visit: http://www.buzzdance.com.au/current-productions.php?production_id=29 Art & Research seminar plus Lake Clifton site visit Friday 8th May SymbioticA and the City of Mandurah would like to extend an invitation to you to attend the ART: BUSINESS & RESEARCH seminar on Friday the 8th of May as part of the Stretch Festival 2009. Oron Catts, Director of SymbioticA, Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts at The University of Western Australia will be discussing ‘Artists in Research Laboratories: Pushing the Boundaries of Art - A Project for Lake Clifton’. Download the invitation As part of SymbioticA’s Friday Seminar series a site visit to Lake Clifton will occur prior to the ART: BUSINESS & RESEARCH seminar. If you would like to attend, please email Amanda on: Amanda@symbiotica.uwa.edu.au For more information on Adaptation, please visit: Collaborative Practices Kathy High will show selections of video clips from her works that cover topics such as new reproductive technologies, telepathic animal communication, and transgenic animal research. Her feminist bias frames her construction of our engagement with medicine, interspecies relations and our desires to make transparent and to ‘give voice.’ High is an Associate Professor of Video and new Media at the Department of Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY, a department specializing in integrated electronic arts practices <http://arts.rpi.edu> . In 2007, High started the “BioArts Initiative” at RPI, a collaboration between the Arts Department and the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies. SymbioticA Friday Seminar > 20th March In a broad scoping of issues surrounding life and ecology, SymbioticA’s long term project ‘Adaptation’, opens important dialogue and debate surrounding human inaction, intervention, responses and responsibilities to the world at large. This week’s Friday Seminar will discuss ‘Adaptation’ and the narratives that surround Lake Clifton, current projects, brokering new collaborative partners in the community and within UWA, and the call for expressions of interest. With climate change hinting at catastrophic results to some life forms (while others may benefit) it is the capability to adapt which is an advantage for the future. Embedded in Lake Clifton, south of Mandurah, Western Australia, ‘Adaptation’ proposes a dynamic program of production-based artist residencies and events with a vibrant outreach and community program. Lake Clifton, as a location and a metaphor, offers a microcosmic peak into the broader issues of ecology and life itself. Perdita Phillips’ three dimensional audio soundscape tour ‘The Sixth Shore’ engages with the physical and social environment allowing the ground position and orientation of a participant to influence the soundscape that they hear. The SymbioticA Research Group’s Desalination Project is a kinetic sculpture commenting on the use of technological advances to circumvent Lake Clifton from the effects of salinity, climate change and urban development. SymbioticA is currently calling for expressions of interest in the ‘Adaptation’ project and is encouraging applications from practitioners from all artforms. SymbioticA Friday Seminar > 6th February, 2009 Craig Hilton's interests include the use of photography and other media, to investigate the relationships between the photograph and the viewer and to explore the intersections and interactions between science and art, technology and biology.
SymbioticA Friday Seminar > 30th January, 2009 Caitlin Berrigan’s practice is conceptual, carried by material things: tactile and edible sculpture, immersive installation, electronic media and participatory performance. She is interested in when the artwork itself becomes embodied, producing sensate forms of knowledge. Berrigan’s work is driven by the intimate and complex relationships we have with the environment, the interwoven narratives of technoscience and culture, the molecular, the viral, the grotesque, the unnerving spaces of the body and social responsibility. To make politicized subjects palpable in an artwork releases them from our normalized encounters, creates rupture, and hopefully inspires a new—if unresolved—way to approach them. Berrigan is currently a Master’s candidate in Visual Studies at M.I.T., in Cambridge MA, USA. She has presented her work in the Whitney Museum’s Initial Public Offerings, Storefront for Art & Architecture New York, Gallery 400 Chicago, Anthology Film Archives, L.A. Freewaves, and SIGGRAPH, among other venues and festivals. Artist’s website: http://membrana.us/
SymbioticA Friday Seminar > 23rd January, 2009 Hydra Poesis is an arts company based out of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Arts (CIA) Studios in West Perth. The company seeks to utilise multiple and hybrid performance forms towards the poetic realisation of new thoughts and cultural actions. Driven by the integral connection of content and form, Hydra Poesis’ previous experimental works researched mediated lifestyles and post industrial power. They have involved the development of body-based speaker systems and muti-channel motion-based audio for performance, weaponised camera systems, teleprompters and audience-invasive projection screens integrated with physical and live performance. For more information: http://hydrapoesis.net
Friction Arts has an internationally recognised reputation for socially engaged participatory arts, or “Art Where You Live”. By not doing 'drive by' art, Friction Arts clearly demonstrates their ability to ‘get under the skin’ of communities and create projects that make huge and lasting differences to the people with which they collaborate. Friction Arts’ Directors Sandra Hall and Lee Griffiths will discuss their practice, approach and methodology, including stakeholder management; the matrix of commissioner expectation(s); ethical evaluation and project legacy. This seminar follows on from Amanda Alderson’s seminar on engaging communities through art on October 17 2008.
Friday Seminar archive
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