[spectre] Radars & Fences II: Tactical Bioart in the Age of Biotechnology

[Ursula Scherrer]

Radars & Fences II
Tactical Bioart in the Age of Biotechnology
http://blogs.nyu.edu/blogs/md1445/rf/


Event Time

Thursday, March 5, 2009
4:30 PM - 8:30 PM

Location

NYU School of Law
Information Law Institute
40, Washington Square South
Room 218


Description

Radars & Fences II features five researchers and artists who have  
been at the forefront of the battle for the democratization of the  
life sciences over the last decade: Beatriz da Costa, Natalie  
Jeremijenko, Richard Pell, Claire Pentecost, and Paul Vanouse will  
present their own work and discuss with the public models of  
interdisciplinary engagement at the beginning of the "biological  
century."

Please RSVP at http://www.nyu.edu/media.culture/events/event.html? 
e_id=1336


Schedule

4:30 – 4:40 pm    Welcome

* Ted Magder, NYU Council for Media & Culture; Chair, Department of
Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU

4:40 – 4:50 pm     Conference Overview

* Marco Deseriis, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Media, Culture, and
Communication, NYU


4:50 - 6:30 pm     Panel: Tactical Bioart in the Age of Biotechnology  
(Part I)

* Beatriz da Costa, Associate Professor of Arts, Computation,  
Engineering at the University of California, Irvine
Of Pigeons, Microbes and Humans: earthly encounters in the 21st century

* Richard Pell, Assistant Professor of Art, Carnagie Mellon  
University, Pittsburgh Permitted Habitats and Endangered GMO's: An  
introduction to the Center for PostNatural History.

* Claire Pentecost, Associate Professor, School of Photography, Art  
Institute of Chicago Fields of Zombies: Biotech Agriculture and the  
Privatization of Knowledge


6:30 - 7:00 pm        Evening Break (Refreshments will be served)


7:00 – 8:30        Panel: Tactical Bioart in the Age of Biotechnology  
(Part II)

* Paul Vanouse, Assistant Professor of Visual Studies, University at  
Buffalo.
Buffaloed and Bamboozled: DNA Hype in the Post-biological Era

* Natalie Jeremijenko, Associate Professor of Visual Arts, Department  
of Arts and Arts Professions, NYU
Living together: on the shocking realities of cohabitation, the human  
biome, the microbial imagination and wrestling the strongest animals  
in the world.


The panel is moderated by Alex Galloway, Associate Professor,  
Department of Media, Culture and Communication, NYU


***

Rationale

In the age of genetics, biotechnology, and bioinformatics, life is  
increasingly
fashioned and configured at the intersection of several discourses  
and practices,
such as population genetics, molecular and informatic sequences,  
human enhancement technologies, and the therapeutic and agricultural  
applications of genomics.

Asides from raising crucial epistemological questions, these  
technoscientific practices compete for attention, credibility, and  
funding within the scientific community,
the market place, and the public domain. But as the far-reaching  
implications of biotech research unravel, the opacity and secrecy  
surrounding the industry and the patenting of life become  
increasingly problematic. This is partly due to the difficult ethical  
questions raised by the life sciences, but also to the rapid  
extension of
scientific knowledge production to a number of non-scientific  
environments.

As Bruno Latour (2001) has pointed out, the tendency of the  
experimental method to transcend its modern boundaries is the result  
of three distinct processes: 1) the end of the scientific laboratory  
as a secluded space available only to specialists; 2) the increasing  
agency of patients and ordinary citizens in formulating the  
scientific questions to be solved; 3) and the extension of the scale  
of scientific experiments to the whole planet, as in the case of  
global warming, AIDS, and so on.

Within this triple displacement, which turns the technoscientific  
experiment into a more and more collective endeavor, a thriving  
community of bioartists, researchers, and hobbyists have provided new  
analytical and activist models by which to intervene and participate  
in the life sciences. Through a broad set of hands-on interventions  
that provide a critique-in-action of both the political economy and  
the naturalization of the biotech industry, bioartists and  
researchers have fostered interspecies contacts, engineered hybrid  
life forms, and set up independent Biolabs. Together, they propose  
new scientific protocols and call for a wider, and far more direct  
participation among lay, artistic, activist, and academic publics.

Radars & Fences II features five researchers and artists who have  
been at the forefront of the battle for the democratization of the  
life sciences over the last decade: Beatriz da Costa, Natalie  
Jeremijenko, Richard Pell, Claire Pentecost, and Paul Vanouse will  
present their own work and discuss with the public models of  
interdisciplinary engagement at the beginning of the "biological  
century."


*****

This forum is being coordinated by doctoral candidate Marco Deseriis  
as part of a grant awarded by the NYU Council for Media and Culture  
with assistance provided by the Information Law Institute