[spectre] TOXICITY

[Melentie Pandilovski]

TOXICITY

Project of Video Pool Media Arts Centre
In partnership with INCUBATOR: Hybrid Laboratory at the Intersection
of Art, Science and Ecology
Co-presented by Plug In ICA
December 6, 2013, - February 8, 2014
Plug In ICA, Unit 1 – 460 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba
http://www.toxicitywinnipeg.com/

The idea of “Toxicity”, theoretically and practically, entrenches
itself into the standard phenomenological understanding of the
co-constitution of society and technology. The cultural deciphering of
toxicity reconstructs not only the current environmental situation,
but also socio-political contexts by looking into modes of
contemporary cultural and technological production, the extraction of
minerals,toxic waste, local and international policies, economy,
finances, community-based responses and the thematics of production,
consumption and disposal. The project considers the changes that
Toxicity causes in the cultural, socio-political, psychological (in
the sense of Guattari’s Planetary Psychopathology) and ecological
landscape relating to art and technology by looking into
Info-Pathologies and the methods and manners of the “infiltration” of
technologies into facets of ordinary life, thereby challenging the
inherited taxonomies. “Toxicity” also connects to biopolitical
conflicts in the real and virtual worlds involving: energy control and
the choice of fuel material and alternative energy sources; the
thematic of entropy; the inheritance and programmability of life; the
causes and consequences of environmental changes; the question of
environmental sustainability; micro and macro ecology; GM products,
life, death and appearance. The dualities of power and right,
sovereignty and law, are inextricably bound to contemporary
biopolitical discourses. In Foucault’s own words: “For capitalist
society it is the biological that is important before everything else;
the biological, the somatic, the corporeal. The body is a biopolitical
reality, medicine is a biopolitical strategy.”

TOXICITY 2013 is the inaugural exhibition, conference and workshop of
a series of international exhibitions and symposiums surrounding the
notion of toxicities in the contemporary world. This premier
exhibition, co-curated by Dr. Melentie Pandilovski (Director of Video
Pool, Winnipeg) and Dr. Jennifer Willet (Director, INCUBATOR Lab, The
University of Windsor) will highlight the growing Canadian biotech
arts community within an international context. To that end, TOXICITY
presents artworks by emerging and established Canadian and
international artists utilizing biological media to explore real and
perceived toxic byproducts and outcomes affiliated with biotechnology,
biosecurity, biomedicine, and biopolitics.

The works in the exhibition convey the stories of the artists’
approaches to biotech and include research into: biopolitical conflicts
in the real and virtual worlds involving NGOs, governments and
corporations; energy control and the choice of fuel material and
alternative energy sources; the causes and consequences of
environmental change; the topic of environmental sustainability;
micro- and macro-ecology; life, GM products, death and appearance.
With these themes in mind, the artists selected present an array of
approaches, from the humorous and playful to the deadly serious,
exploring the ways we think about the origins of life, the scale and
dimensions of living matter and the nature of nourishment, death,
fashion and appearance.

The following artists have been curated for the exhibition: Trish
Adams (Brisbane, Australia), Alana Bartol (Windsor), CAE (Buffalo,
USA), Joe Davis (Cambridge, MA, USA), Tangny Duff (Montreal), Aganetha
Dyck (Winnipeg), Ted Heibert (Seattle, USA), Natalie Jeremijenko (NY,
USA), David Khang (Vancouver), Andrew E Pelling (Ottawa), Niki Sperou
(Adelaide, Australia) Reva Stone (Winnipeg), Amanda White (Toronto),
Elaine Whittaker (Toronto), Jennifer Willet (Windsor) with Jeanette
Groenendaal and Zoot Derks (Amsterdam, Holland).

In addition to the exhibition, the works are further contextualized
for Canadian audiences through 'Zones of Inhibition: Biotech/Art
Workshop'
a hands-on bioart workshop held by the Australian artist Niki Sperou
December 5 -8, 2013. Zones of Inhibition: Biotech/Art Workshop; A 4
day practical and theoretical workshop offering the phenomenological
experience of working with live media. Artists will work responsibly
with readily available materials and domestic appliances in order to
produce biotech projects. The aim is to create access to the processes
of science and to bring them into the public domain. Discourse between
areas of specialization is important in order to promote critical
thinking.

'Toxic Life and Engineered Death' is a one-day symposium (December 9,
2013) that connects artists involved in the TOXICITY project with
Canadian and international scholars and the general public in a
discussion of the discourses of the arts/sciences interface. The
symposium offers a chance for the participants and the audience to
consider changes in the cultural, socio-political and ecological
landscape through the lens of art and culture. Topics of presentations
will include: ethical relationships to “partial life,” the
biopolitical and cultural implications of biotechnology, the
homologies between ecological and information “poisoning,” challenges
to inherited taxonomies of culture, science, art and philosophy and
the infiltration of biotechnology into the fabric of everyday life.
Keynotes: Steve Kurtz (Buffalo, USA)
Joe Davis ( Cambridge, MA, USA),
Natalie Jeremijenko (NY, USA),
Speakers: Ted Heibert (Seattle, USA), Melentie Pandilovski (Winnipeg),
Andrew E Pelling (Ottawa), Niki Sperou (Adelaide, Australia), Jennifer
Willet (Windsor).

http://www.toxicitywinnipeg.com/




-- 
Dr. Melentie Pandilovski
Director
Video Pool
Suite 221
100 Arthur Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada R3B 1H3
204-949-9134 ex 41
www.videopool.org
vpdirector at videopool.org