n.blog

the final panel of Subtle Technologies was dedicated to the workshop on tissue culture that took place the week before the festival.

here are a few pictures.

below: the participants shared their impressions. Most participants confirmed the difficulty implied with working with biological material. it takes a long time, continuous engagement and experience to be able to use this material with success and, eventually, to  get any result. In addition,  it is  easy to get carried away by the wonder of the tools, the procedures and by the excitement of working in the lab. However, as one of the participant observed, it was refreshing to be constantly reminded to keep a critical eye on the material, the discipline and the environment they were working in. Most of them confirmed that their excitement was always mixed with a general feeling of awe deriving from the particular material with which they were engaging.

below: Oron Catts explains that the culture that has been growing in the past few days in the lab will now have to be distroyed.

below: opening the box containing the culture

an example  

 

In a world where we understand technologies as means to an end, that is as "tools" that "do something" or that "help us solve problems," Nicholas Stedman's "Blanket" is a special case. 
His blanket does not fulfil any repetitive, conventional task, nor does it maintain any cold distance with the "user". Rather, it evokes sensual and sensorial perceptions as its touch caresses and plays with the body of the person who dares engaging with it. This work, on the one hand, reconsiders the way we conventionally perceive technological artifacts, while, on the other, infuses them with more poetic and sensorial connotations. 
the present collaboration with performance artist Kerry Segal contributes to enhance the sensoriality of the Blanket. Segal does not simply interact, but explores, learns and exchanges gestures as if the Blanket was a companion, rather than just a task-intensive machine.
 
below: a brief sequence of the dialogue between Segal and the Blanket

below: the internal body of the blanket: 31 motorized joints interconnected by aluminum
linkages into an XY grid   
 

Below:the two artists reflect on their ongoing collaboration and how the artistic practice of both equally contributes to the project. 

 

As part of her collaboration with neuroscientist student Erin Fortier, performance artist Joce Tremblay spent 72 hours as a "Circadian subject," confined in a basement room, which she now defines as a "cave," consensually forcing her body (and neurological system) to a condition of full isolation from the external environment, included natural light, external sounds and human interaction. the objective was to test and experience (an auto-biology) the way the molecular clockwork (the Circadian Rhythm) decodes information by responding to and interacting with external and environmental inputs and how this  ecosystem mutates as the external circumstances change.
In the meantime, Fortier was monitoring her peer's activity through the Internet.
here are some comments she shared with the audience once she was finally released from her confinement:  In addition to extreme isolation and boredom, the artist experienced a change in her sensorial perception of sound, time and space, while her body was adapting to a new environment, as she garnered an awareness of how time cues are  environmentally,  socially, naturally and  artificially dictated

 

To conclude the three days debate on the role and the location of the body within the ecology of medicine, the sciences and technology, Kirsty Robertson's reflections represented a worth conclusion.
focusing her intervention on the intertextuality of the skin, Robertson mapped the role of the skin as an ambiguous element that floats at the intersection between the world of textiles, art and the medical domain, while it embodies the --corporate and metaphorical-- battles and the risks of such worlds. Some recent artistic practices bring forth evidence of such interwoven and complicated series of relationships. 

Zane Berzina's responsive textiles, for instance, faithfully map the skin by responding thermo-chromatically to the touch.

Below: Zane Berzina, Skin Maps, light microscope micrographs, various magnifications of
human skin surface, textile, 2000-2004

 

In the case of Freddie Robins' Skin-a good thing to live in, the knitted sweater takes the sahpe of a pink swater, that fits as if it represented  an alternative to and a second  skin.   

 

Below:Freddie Robins, Skin - a Good Thing to Live In, machine knitted wool, hand
crochet, 2002

 

 

In some way, medical artist Irene Healey  continues the discourse about the public perception of science as she provides a few --often omitted--remarks.
When we think about the body in relation to technologies or to medicine, we always imagine a body that is abused, manipulated, taken advantage of, or, worse, ignored.
In her professional experience, Healey sees patients who seek her help to recover parts of their body forever lost to accidents, to extensive surgery or to illness. neither do they perceive her profession negatively, nor is their idea of the body populated by cyborgs, hybrids and so on. they just want their body to go back to the way it  was.  

a member of the American Anaplastology Association, Healey's role is to reconstruct missing body parts such as noses, hears and other facial features, using materials that haven't changed much (or haven't gone too much technological) since the foundation of the discipline.
This requires a competence that can be performed by a person with a training in the arts. Thus, the role of the artist, in this field, is crucial. To be fair, artists have always been called to help practitioners in medicine and to build anatomically accurate models. as we observe the early wax anatomical models, we cannot help notice their resemblance to the statues of saints and martyrs sitting in Christian churches. The same artists working for their embellishment were often using the same models in the anatomical workshops.

In a number of ways, this last day of symposium appears to pay special attention to  public accessibility, the relation with and the perception of science.  

The recent exhibitions launched by the Ontario Science Centre (an agency of the government of ontario) show its mandate as informer and educator. This can be perceived in the public display and demonstrations of scientific breakthroughs and technological tools, programs geared towards education in schools and directed to a young audience, as well as a space that accommodates artistic exhibitions and installations.
Said that,  as an exhibition space, the Science Centre, like any institution of this kind, has to make choices on what can and what cannot be displayed, what exhibitions to promote or to endorse.  
It is then obvious that the latest exhibitions displayed at the science centre focus on "cutting edge", "controversial" or "debatable" science. In this context, it is no wonder that exhibitions that involve the representation, construction, and manipulation of the body were able to gather lots of attention from the media and from the public.


this is the case of the "amazing" (note the amplifying attribute) aging machine

the controversial Gunther von Hagens  BODY WORLDS 2

Digifest/Fusion exhibition in 2006

a new exhibition that explores a possible human voyage to Mars

While the goal of a science center might be to provide public accessibility to science, Dolores & David Steinman cope with the construction and perfection of biomedical visual models (in this case models and animations of blood vessels) and how such models may be received by individuals (the patient, the general public, the scientist).

In an era of "fascination with visibility and imagery" complex and technology enhanced images are often preferred tools that can help visualize raw data or mathematical models. thanks to their immediacy, visual models may be preferred to language. yet, they can  generate miscommunication due to a lack of common language, manipulation of information, differences in interpretation of data.

Although presenting a very dissimilar topic Jack Butler's installation focuses on another underrepresented and often dismissed problematic: almost a life-time research, Genital Embriogenesis engages with the representation of the genital differentiation of the embryo and questions the arbitrary assignment of sex (female or male, while intersexual appearances are judged as "diverting" from the norm).

His work consists of a multipart installation, whose goal is to challenge the conventional ideas of objectification and pornography involved in the  representations of genital embryogenesis.below is one of the several images alternating  as a sort of animation/slide show on a lcd display. they portray plasticine clay models of  different stages of genital development. this, to state that all bodies start in a state of sexual indifference and go through a series of often unacknowledged transformative hybrid stages before (if they ever do) reaching the complete development into the normally perceived and crystallized states of "male" and "female."   

 

 

here is a picture of the installation, "Fatemap," which condenses almost all the body of the artist research and combines his scholarly and scientific findings on genital differentiation and a reconstruction of  a science lecture turned performance he staged before an audience of artists and academics.

 

Given the complexity and the critical importance of this artwork and the lack of space , I asked the artist to explain to me the genesis of his project and how the final installation took shape.

first part:

 

 

A very short break gives me just enough time to hop on my bike and reach Interaccess, Toronto Electronic Arts Centre, to attend the opening of the exhibition "Whose Body Is It, Anyway?" curated by artist/curator Camille Turner (below)

 

 

Should the illegal traffic of organs regularized? if you were in an extreme condition of health emergency and you were offered to buy a new organ, what would you do?
these were two questions I was asked by Monir Moniruzzaman, the author of one of the two installations opening tonight at Interaccess . there is no easy answer to the above questions, as moral and ethical issues regarding the commodification of body parts and the supposed sacrality of the body arise.

Inspired by his doctoral research at the department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto, this installation examined the extremely lucrative--and illegal--industry of organ traffic in Bangladesh. in a country where 78% of the population  lives with less than 3 $ day and with a government that pays no attention to this illegal activity, organ brokers and intermediaries, recipients and sellers alike openly and freely publish their requests on newspapers

 

pressed by debts, people are forced to offer their kidneys or part of their livers to prospective recipients, while requests of organs are advertised as if by selling your organ were a "noble" gesture.  the traffic becomes a normalized activity as the donors are provided with fake documents to travel to India and undergo the transplant. This is an alienating experience because the donor cannot speak to anybody of their experience. they are left often traumatized, with a small compensation, poor post-surgery assistance and a visible scar.

I don't know how many of you have ever watched ReGenesis, a recent Canadian-based tv series that dramatizes some of the accomplishments, discoveries and challenges of today's science by making a group of scientists working for a science lab the main protagonists. the new version of CSI? ER?
apparently, the series, now at its third season, has received several awards for its portrayal of scientific facts and its realistic depiction of the profession of the scientist.
still, the tv series is fiction. But it is advertised as a tool that can be used for "educational purposes." what is even more problematic is that it is an initiative supported by the Ontario Genomics Institute, whose annual report front page read: "the future is in opur genes" and whose mandate is "research, business development, outreach". no wonder someone  raised some issues when the panel of 5, including the chair of the Social Impact Programs at the Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI) presented the series to the audience of subtle technologies. after having discussed thoroughly the risks of commercialization of science and the responsibility of the private and corporate sector in distorting, manipulating and "selling" certain ideas to the public, the presentation of ReGenesis seemed just like a cool science ad, rather than a critically balanced, honest presentation.
not having a tv (or pay tv, as this series airs on cable), I cannot judge its accuracy or its quality. I have my doubts though. one of the panelists told me that I can bittorrent some episodes. I will probably follow his advice.

In the meantime, you can check their pretty website as well as the Ontario Genomics Institute. note, the series can be found under the link labelled "education"

www.OntarioGenomics.ca
www.OntarioGenomics.ca/education/regenesis.asp

In addition to Oron Catts and Stuart Bunt, a number of artists who had spent some time at the lab were present among the presenters as well as among the audience. their artworks often succeed in stirring debates, in raising awareness and in revealing often-unpleasant details  that lie behind scientifically advanced products .

Montreal based Shawn Bailey and Jennifer Willet, who intervened during the panel on thursday and were SymbioticA fellows  in 2004, have now founded their own project in Montreal: Bioteknica.
their work, consisting in public autopsies of lab manufactured "entities" or display of  teratomata (a particularly ugly-looking tumor) is presented as the corporate product of a biotech firm. The goal: to stir debate. here is their website
http://www.bioteknica.org

Australian Independent artist Boo Chapple , who also worked  at SymbioticA illustrated her ongoing project which focuses on  how the industry and the media omit the derivation of --often ugly, or smelly-- raw materials used to build cosmetics.

Interested how popular culture constructs the body, her work  reveals how, for example, advertisements and the cosmetics industry hides and purifies the materials used to make them. for instance, her investigation on collagen has revealed that the material used to make it derives from rats tails, while e.coli, one of the most common bacteria living in our colon can be used to make lipstick.
the result is a series of works that thoroughly analyze the history of  a commodity and  that contaminate and destroy the aura of purity and femininity created by the industry.
see for instance these two works:

Scientific director of Symbiotica Stuart Bunt addressed some of the latter issues 9see previous article) in his presentation.
He described the relation between artists and scientists working at SymbioticA as a "productive friction"  and, nonetheless, as a relation between equals.
however, the dynamics that make an environment like SymbioticA, affiliated with a scientific institution and with the university, are far more complex. The already, and sometimes difficult dialogue between different linguistic codes, research methods and  the divergence in intentions of the scientist and the artist, are only a few of the layers the characterize the ongoing collaborations. In fact, one should also consider the ethics involved in the artists' use of biological material as well as the continuous negotiation between SymbioticA, the scientific units within the university and  the university at large.
On top of the above issues, there is the connection between scientific research and the needs for technological advancement (Bunt sees the former partially subjected to the latter), the pressures  of commercial and industrial interests as well as the consequences deriving from producing artifacts which can be potentially coopted or instrumentalized by other parties (as spectacle, to disseminate false or incorrect ideas etc..).
Thus, for Bunt, as biology is becoming a creative science --also thanks to the role of technology entering this area-- it is crucial that both the scientist and the artist don't loose their critical edge.
Moreover, there are the issues connected with the very treatment of biological material itself. In fact, the treatment of the biological is still associated with a feeling of uneasiness, which is non-existent when one deals with mechanical material.
the phrase "God has left astrophysics but has yet to leave biophysics" is particularly true in this context.
Finally, once the art produced in this environment exits the lab, other risks incur. As this form of art is often considered a niche and cannot be exhibited in a regular gallery, it is very likely to be viewed first hand by  a very restricted audience. the rest of the audience experiences it through documentation and press releases.


I asked Oron Catts to explain in his own words the complexity that characterizes the relation between technoscience and art. In fact, the general public often assumes that such relation is either binary or is perceived in overly simplified terms. how can the artist navigate this complexity?

his answer, which I recorded below, is worth pages of lengthy explanations, as it renders such complexity in quite a comprehensive way.

a considerable section of Subtle Technologies was dedicated to the work taking place at SymbioticA. As part of  the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Austrialia, SymbioticA offers residencies to artists and other individuals who wish to conduct research and engage in wet biology practices.
Important to notice is the particular mandate of this institution. in fact, as both  artistic director Oron Catts and scientific director Stuart Bunt pointed out in several occasions, the lab strives to engage with, while maintaining a critical eye, on the scientific procedures and the activities with which the participants are engaging.   
Communicating the above scientific practices is also part of the mandate of Symbiotica. For Subtle Technologies they organized a hands on workshop where local artists from Toronto were given the opportunity to test  some of the practices conducted at the lab.

Artist, researcher, curator and founder of the Tissue Culture and Art Project
 (2000), Oron Catts introduced the work he has been doing since 1996 at the School of Anatomy (at UWA) by explaining how biology has changed, both conceptually and in terms of its public perception, in the course of the years. Broadly speaking, the practice of biology does no longer consists in mere observation and collection of material and specimens but has veered towards the manipulation and the engineering of living material.  

Tissue culture, developed in the 50ies and dealing with  Semi-Living material (see definition here http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au/atGlance/galnceMainFrames.html)  fits this notion of engineering. In addition, it generates a number of reflections about the meaning of life itself, and the relation between human beings and other surrounding organisms.

However, Given the sensational news regarding human cloning, the dangerous misunderstandings regarding disciplinary scientific differences and the infamous popularity of the notion of eugenics, the meaning of "engineering" and "manipulatiion" of the living are always colored with controversy and suspicion. The meaning of tissue culture itself, then, has produced a number of misconceptions, such as the perception that its advancements have been able to produce, for example, victimless steaks.
Thus, attempts to address the meaning of life without necessarily addressing the above misconceptions and without focusing on "human life" might be a hard task, as the above issues  come back on a regular basis.
finally, questions are raised around the role and the pressure that  corporations and commercial industries impart on scientific activity.

this is another--quite ironic--ppt picture from Amos, our Master of Ceremonies

Judging from the titles of the presentations, today's symposium promises to introduce some intriguing, as much as controversial, issues that shed  light and challenge traditional assumptions of science and medicine, look at the commercialization and strumentalization of scientific discoveries and denounce  phenomena seldom acknowledged by Western society (because they reveal a reality we often find uncomfortable).
 
Alan Bleakley's "Writing out Prescriptions: Deconstructing the Chemical Regulation of Mood" set the tone for the day.
One of the topics that keep coming back over and over again is the
messiness (using the word used during Thursday's OCAD panel by Jennifer Willet from Bioteknica )  involved in the relationship between the  scientific field and the arts.

In particular, Dr. Bleakley from the Peninsula Medical School focuses on the communication gap (in terms of function as well as the metaphoric use of language)  existing between science, technology and the arts. For him, a possible collaboration between  artists and physicians that examines the language used in both fields would  address a crucial question: is science authoritarian? is the language used by science ambiguous? through his/her work, the artist has an opportunity to unveil and examine the ambiguity of such language.

our bodies are inhabiting a pharmaceutical landscape where the use of drugs such as Prozac has been gradually naturalized.
In this context,  the ambiguity of scientific language is made visible when one examines the way  medications  against "agitated depression" are advertised and prescribed and the circumstances that "require" the prescription of such drugs.

see the map of the complicity triangle here



one can look at the statistics to realize how specific drugs have been advertised to target particular populations or sections of society. Drugs appear to have become the easy solution to conditions that could be rather solved with a change in living standards and habit. for instance, specific drugs are massively prescribed to "cure"  Attention Deficit Disorder in kids, now considered a condition, rather than an educational and behavioral problem.

another way to show the biases of writing prescriptions is to do close readings of pharmaceutical formularies (British National Formulary or BNF), the drug bibles for physicians in England. the names given to drugs, the language used to describe the suggested posology or the tone of the formularies themselves are all symptomatic of a practice that is anything but objective.  

finally, Bleakley looks at the way novelists such Hyperrealist Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace and Rick Moody,  were able to render scientific ambiguity and the naturalized pharmaceutical landscape, through the portrayal of a lansdcape where people are not known by their names, but after the drugs they used.


 

as the festival enters its second day, I thought I would ask Jim Ruyxton, programming director and founder, to give me some impressions on its accomplishments.

what do you like best? how much did you accomplish in the past few years?

this is his answer, which, really,  renders full well all the commitment and the passion that has been injected into Subtle Technologies in its  past ten years

 

 

 

 The Festival offerings incorporated a series of performances and exhibitions that enriched, while further illustrating, some of its themes. the first appointment is tonight, with a series of performances features very dissimilar approaches to the medicalized body and its relation with the machine.

Claudia Witmann's  performance imagines the language of her body after an injury, by using the sometimes extreme Butoh gestures as her preferred means of communication and by amplifying the otherwise feeble voice uttered by the injured organ through a microphone attached to her body.  "Bubble" the title of the piece, is the name she gave to  the specific part of her spine where she suffered the injury.
the performance reconstructs in a very dramatic way the process through which the body is talking in its own language and is trying to say something. however, this is a very frustrating experience as the artist as "patient" has troubles translating and understanding the voice coming from within her, while, at the same time, she has to cope with the extremely difficult lingo used by doctors to describe her condition.

On a different level, Bill Vorn and Emma Howes propose a quasi-science fictional scenario  where the dancer (Howes) engages and interacts with two monumental robotic creatures. The scenario offered is fascinating and intimidating, as it evokes references from Alien (the dancer wears a black wired suit that reminds of Ripley) from some Sci-Fi Japanese anime.

here are some pictures

 

 

 

 

 

again, the afternoon presented quite a vast and diverse range of examples of how new and old technologies, science and art are intimately entangled at different levels and serving a number of purposes. These were some of the protagonists of the afternoon: Community based creative expressions with the purpose of informing about Aids medications effectiveness and side-effects as well as psychologically supporting African women living with the disease(CATIE); ad hoc architecture to ease the lives of sick kids (at the SICK KIDS hospital);  social network software encouraging users to discover their "inner animal" and engage with the community (Utopics).


David Theodore asks the question: how can we understand architecture as a flexible medium that reflects specific needs? how do we foster the interaction between the built, material place, the surrounding and in-between space and the people who inhabit it?
His project is composite: it consists of a specific architectural research on the history of hospitals designed for children, and the way the space is being designed to reflect their needs and to relief their pain and boredom during their stay. to this, one has to add  over 600 pictures and dialogues that have been recorded by the kids at the hospital. now these pictures are randomly displayed as part of an installation located in the hall of the conference venue.

here are a few pictures

 

 Tricia Smith's "Body Mapping: Women Navigating the Positive Experience in Africa
Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (CATIE)" documents a project that is currently taking place in Tanzania and Zambia.
(CATIE) is a project whereby the psychosocial meets the biomedical. It seeks the active involvement  of local women who are affected by AIDS or are HIV positive and combines body mapping as well as treatment information sessions. After having drawn a map of their body, they are asked to respond to a number of questions about their past life experience, their current health, the side-effects they are experiencing when taking their daily medications, the visible signs HIV/AIDS is leaving on their body (symptoms and transformation of their body figure). All the responses are then recorded in textual as well as visual  form directly on the body. By alternating "creative sessions" to information sessions, this type of body mapping  provides precious information and material support to the participating women, fosters solidarity and sympathy between them, and leads them to a process of acceptance and sense of security. It can be simultaneously considered, as Smith claims,  a "form of art and narrative therapy."
the material result consists in visually appealing artworks which can be used to raise money and awareness about the project and the condition of these women.

here is an example:

 other examples can be found on the Festival Website as well as on CATIE website
http://www.catie.ca

 

------------

A very different project, Geoffrey Pugen's Utopics is the "tongue-in-cheek"--quite refreshing--latest example of  social networking  software.

By encouraging the potential user to create an animal, or animal based avatar (taken from an existing or imaginary animal) and by  engaging him to later interact with a community of ("furry" peers located on a google map. the result, according to Utopics, is that the viewer might be able to find his or her inner "inner animal" and interact with other users with similar aspirations. as the user becomes more engaged and experienced with his/her new identity, she can download new plug-ins which will allow her to upload videos and other multimedia animal-themed documents

for instance see how it works by having a peak at the  video ads of Aerobia at http://www.utopics.ca/program

and some pics here

 

 

again, the animal topic is developed by one of teh interventions located in the hall see also embracing animals
Kathy High

http://www.embracinganimal.com

before proceeding with this exhausting and incredibly intense journey into the festival, I wish to spend a few words about our master of ceremony: Amos Letteier. his task is to introduce each  presenter  and to  fill the time in-between presentations (to allow technical preparations and some leg-stretching). As his main creative medium is  no other than "PowerPoint", he has managed to insert a few slides that function as comments and coesive  threads between such diverse presentations. the topic he has chosen is "figures". according to Letteier, figures are just everywhere: statistics, charts, taxonomies, assembled and ordered objects, etc.. can all be ascribed to the category of "figures". below is a  shot I took during one of his guerrilla-interventions, which, although sneaked in-between the time cracks and often dismissed by a air-deprived audience, he sure was a useful as much as intriguing and fun addition.

here is a picture I took today

 

 I caught Amos duriung one of our "very short" breaks and asked him to share some thoughts with me.

here is the --again, very short-- interview

as more advanced technologies and science breakthroughs are introduced --supposedly--to ease our diseases or improve the quality of our lives, we also have to come to terms with the transformations they have gradually brought to the way we see life and death, the way the relation doctor/patient, health/illness, individual/health institution are also inevitably affected. As one of the presenters pointed out quoting McLuhan, technologies are not just tools, or appendages, but become prostheses able to affect our senses. In this context, art could act as a warning system, while a performance or an artistic intervention that utilizes or comments on said technologies, perhaps, may bring some awareness.
in some way, this could be interepreted as a pertinent response to some of the questions posed yesterday such as what is the role of the artist.  

a detail to note. here  "science" and "technologies" are interpreted in quite a flexible way: not, or not just as "material instruments"  but as means or as processes; not only as innovative tools, but also as means with a long tradition and use. presentations focused on performance as a way to reproduce and represent the life of a cancer patient, spiritual midwifery, gene therapy and Ayurvedic/Siddhan healing practices.

For Bonnie Eckard technologies such as cosmetic surgery, anti-aging techniques atc.. celebrate  a society that does celebrates the healthy, beautiful  body while disease and decay is seen as our enemy and, most of all, a failure of science.

her performance work examines the experience and the life journey of a cancer patient through a multi-composite performance. by using gestures (using the Suzuki method and Kabuki movements), sound and monologues, follows  the journey of a cancer patient: the negative and deeply emotional reactions to the diagnosis and her frustrations with the medical language are followed by a gradual transformation that is both internal and physical. as the body decays, the patient embark in an interior journey that finally reconsiders her notion of life and the acceptance of death.

the performance confronts difficult relationships such as the one between the dying or healing patient and the doctor.  Both  have to deal with a disease. Yet, their agendas and their responses to it inevitably stand on completely different levels.

As our diseases are prolonged and our death is postponed, as people live longer with disease, also the way we die has changed. Thus, there needs to be a new way to think about death as an extended process.
The fight of the patient against the disease becomes also a fight against the medical system that, certainly with good intentions, is keen to try new experimental therapies and use invasive testing tools to understand the disease and successfully heal the greatest number of patients. This, as funding is lavishly employed to develop new therapies and medications, while little attention is placed on finding better ways to  alleviate the pain of the dying patient.

Performance, as it is seen here, is a form of survival, an exploration of the interior landscape before death

 

 On the other end of the spectrum, life before life and the process that leads to life is the focus of Heather Maines' intervention. As a "doula,"  (attendant to women for childbirth), her task is to psychologically sustain, by assisting and, as she prefers to say by "accompanying" the woman during labor and the moment of birth.

As her photographs  witness the intensity of labor and the intimate relation she is able to establish with the women she assists, one cannot help drawing a comparison between this presentation and the performance presented before her. one thing that comes to mind is how both interventions were able to make evident moments of our lives that are either considered very private, fearful or taboo. in addition, the image of the pregnant woman is almost always perceived as  sick, as if the baby she is carrying was a burden. this is also reflected in the way technologies are monitoring the new born and are separating it from the mother, basically considered a container, a carrier, not one with the organism she is raising.
while Maines didn't quite deal with reproductive technologies if not tangentially, the exhibition just outside the conference room contains quite a gallery of photographs and posters that criticize and make fun, at different levels, of reproductive technologies
see for example
Jeanette May

http://www.jeanettemay.com/Fertility/FertilityPage.html

 

 

 

Ontario College of Art and Design, 8:00 pm.

Moderated by Toronto artist and curator Sally McKay, the panel featured microbiologists Abigail Salyers and Michael Schmidt in conversation with artists Oron Catts of Symbiotica and the duo Jennifer Willer and Sean Bailey from Bioteknica.

To a fairly concise introductory talk that gave each presenter a chance to shortly expose the development, the career choices and the motivations characterizing their work followed an animated discussion that involved the panelists and the public alike.

inevitably, questions such as "what is the role of the artist involved in scientific labs"? or "what is the message produced"? triggered even more complicated discussions including the function of funding agencies, corporate intrumentalization, ethics, spectacularization and public reception of science and the arts.

for instance, it is not clear what are the role, function and responsibility of artists and scientists working in the same context. for some, the artist, despite having an agenda when he or she enters a scientific lab, should not try to "indoctrinate" a potential public about the "dangers" or the issues related to the use of a certain piece of technology or with the imperatives dictated by a certain discipline.
for other, instead, the artist should be able to capture and be able to communicate science to a wider audience.

Intentionality, among the other issues raised tonight, will sure re-emerge in the next few days, when the panelists will be called to give more specific presentations and other artists and experts in the most diverse fields will certainly provide different and more complex takes

 

 

 

As May is coming to a quick end, I am ready for my annual appointment with Subtle Technologies Festival. This is a special year, as the festival approaches its 10th anniversary. To celebrate this achievement, no better topic could be chosen: the Festival title for this year is "In Situ - art | body | medicine"

The expression "In Situ" encompasses many disciplines, from biology, to natural science, engineering and the arts: it indicates a status and a procedure at the same time. As a status, it indicates an object or a phenomenon that is "localized" but not "isolated from its surroundings." As a procedure, it sets to examine a phenomenon exactly where it occurs, in its "natural" or "proper" environment.

As I am preparing to provide a detailed report of the days ahead, I am trying to think about the motivations behind the above theme and to
connect it to current debates at the intersections between the arts, sciences and technologies.

The press release I was supplied with reads:

"As scientific and technological breakthroughs penetrate our daily lives, we
ask where the boundaries are. We investigate how we relate bodies in situ:
as parts, as a whole, as systems. How do we identify, map, modify, protect,
violate, and heal?"

this, to me, really speaks to the theme. However, it also raises a number of questions. for instance:
how are we made aware of technological and scientific breakthroughs before we even start looking for the boundaries?

how can we find, define and even question the boundaries? do mainstream media and cultural prejudices play a role in this?

and again, in this "messy" context, how can artists dealing with the above theme send across a message without being misunderstood?

can the collaboration between artists, scientists and technologists provide a platform for discussion or does it run the risk of further "spectacularizing" much trumpeted innovations in science and technology?

-------------------------------------
I will keep these questions in mind as the festival unfolds and I will make sure that presenters, organizers and participants alike will discuss, if not answer, some of them.
actually, some of them are currently being addressed online on the "In Situ Forum" at
http://www.year01.com/wordpress_artBody/

You can find more information about the Festival and a detailed schedule, on this website:
http://www.subtletechnologies.com/2007/

The festival will feature

1) a panel on "Art, Science, and the Emotional Response: a discussion on the
biological as a medium in art and science," co-presented with MicrobeWorld
and Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD)

2) a core Symposium with 26 presenters from the most diverse disciplines

3) three performances featuring dance, robotics and butoh.

Biography Becomes Biology

Grace State Machines: Flesh Bodies,

Bubble

4) a public art envent "Neighbourhood + Ayurveda, Queen Street West: How do alternative methods of
medicine affect a neighbourhood?"

5) exhibitions:

The Anatomies, The Ontario Science Centre

Whose Body is it Anyway? InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre

Subjects of Hybridization and Children and Youth Picture SickKids Hospital, Innis Town Hall

I encourage everybody to browse the excellent website: in addition to program, forum, and bios of the presenters, it contains links to an incredibly rich collection of resources archived on del.icio.us and a number of flickr photos

but more later.