Further information
SymbioticA's special events include talks, lectures and think-tanks.
These events often involve visiting guests, both local and international as well as residents from our residency program.
They can be stand-alone events or featured as part of a coinciding event on campus or around Perth and abroad.
1. Heaven and Earth and Joe Davis Australian Premiere
3. Steve Kurtz - Crossing the Line
5. Artists in the Science Shrine
6. Gail Wight - Unreasonable Interactions seminar
7. ORLAN - This is my Body, This is my Software: between Western and non-Western Cultures
8. BIOHAZARD? AVANT GARDE SCIENCE MEETS TRASH CABARET
Heaven and Earth and Joe Davis
Australian Premiere
Presented by SymbioticA and Revelation Perth International Film Festival
Speakers: Joe Davis
Date: 8:30pm Tues 19th July 2011
Location: Astor Cinema Mount Lawley
Cost: $17 Full $14 Concession
Artist, philosopher and scientist Joe Davis started making crystal radios as a child, nurturing a lifelong fascination with electro-magnetics, DNA and the nature of the universe. Art and science fuse in his work; whether creating a genetically modified apple designed to tempt the Devil, recording the sounds of micro- organisms or encoding Greek philosophy into fly DNA. After Joe explains the broadcast of the harmonic frequencies of vaginal contractions into space as a comment on the censorship of gender by the space program, the universe no longer appears the same.
Exploring Davis’s fascinating life via home movies, reminiscences from family and friends, and the always stimulating presence of Joe (the kind of man who makes dumpster-diving an exploration of possibilities) an absorbing portrait of a true polymath emerges. Director Sasowsky captures Joe’s wonder for the universe and succeeds in making the audience feel the same sense of awe, excitement and raw possibility.
Design for Debate
A discussion about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing, and emerging technologies.
Presented by SymbioticA and The Bureau of Ideas
Speakers: Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, London UK
Chaired by Oron Catts, SymbioticA Director
Date: Monday 3rd August 2009
Location: 6-9pm Hyde Park Hotel
Cost: $5 students/concession $15 waged
London designers Dunne & Raby use design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public. Designers are usually expected to make technology sexy, consumable, and easy to use; to ensure its entry into everyday life goes as smoothly as possible. But as it becomes more complex, there may be the need to slow down and debate the impact of different technological futures before they happen. Dunne and Raby believe designers need to collectively decide on which futures are the most desirable, and the least harmful.
Following their participation in Melbourne at the State of Design Festival, SymbioticA in collaboration with The Bureau of Ideas bring Dunne and Raby to Perth for a public presentation.
The talk will include projects from Dunne & Raby and their students on the MA Design Interactions course at the Royal College of Art to illustrate new design roles, contexts and methods.
Dunne and Rabys work has been exhibited at MOMA, the Pompidou Centre, and the Science Museum in London and is in the permanent collections of MOMA, V&A, FRAC and FNAC. They have consulted for Sony, Philips Design, National Panasonic and France Telecom and have published two
books: Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects (Princeton Architectural Press) and Hertzian Tales (MIT Press).
Anthony Dunne is professor and Head of the Design Interactions Department at the Royal College of Art in London. Fiona Raby is a faculty member.
For more information visit: www.thebureauofideas.com | www.dunneandraby.co.uk
Steve Kurtz - Crossing the Line
Presented by SymbioticA and the Institute of Advanced Studies
Speaker: Steve Kurtz
Date: Thursday 30 October 2008
Location: Social Sciences Lecture Theatre, UWA
This lecture is free and open to the public, no RSVP required.
In this brief lecture, Steve Kurtz will discuss some of the elements in the work of Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) that seem to antagonize agencies of power and domination.
Over the years, CAE has been attacked, threatened, and / or denounced by police, the FBI, politicians, corporate lawyers, federal prosecutors, and even religious institutions.
Kurtz will offer some possibilities as to why CAE has been in constant struggle to maintain a public voice, and how the mechanisms of expression management have been increasingly militarized and intensified over the past 20 years.
There will be a screening of the short film CAE: Producing Immolation by Sensimilla Productions immediately following the lecture.
About Steve Kurtz:
Steven Kurtz is a Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY, Buffalo and a founding member of Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). CAE is a collective of tactical media practitioners of various specializations, including computer graphics and web design, wetware, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and interventionist performance.
Formed in 1987, CAEs focus has been on the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism. The collective has performed and produced a wide variety of projects for an international audience at diverse venues ranging from the street, to the museum, to the Internet.
Critical Art Ensemble has also written six books on various aspects of cultural resistance. Its writings have been translated into 18 languages. (www.critical-art.net) Critical Art Ensemble artists Steve Kurtz and Lucia Sommer are currently artists in residence at SymbioticA, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia.
Website: www.ias.uwa.edu.au
Artsactive Think-Tank
Hosted by SymbioticA, the participants interrogated the issues impacting upon the success and sustainability of art/science residency programs, now and into the future.
Date: 22-24 July 2008
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Outcomes of the think-tank included a set of best-practice methodologies for the delivery of inter-disciplinary residency programs in academic and industry settings. The findings were disseminated immediately after the think-tank at the international conference, ISEA 2008, being held in Singapore (see below).
As well as representatives from SymbioticA, the think-tank involved Denisa Kera (Transgenesis, Czech Republic), Marta de Menezes (Ectopia, Portugal) and Anne Kienhuis (Arts and Genomics Center, Netherlands) and Vicki Sowry, art research science Program Manager at the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT). The participants received a guided tour of SymbioticA and the lab facilities at The University of Western Australia, as well as a field trip to Lake Clifton - home to largest lake-bound thrombolite reef in the Southern Hemisphere.
Artsactive is the international network of organisations involved in running artists' programs in science and industry research labs. There are two Australian members: SymbioticA and the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), which works with science, industry, academic and government partners to deliver programs of support to media artists. Artsactive is supported by DISONANCIAS and the Basque Government (Industry Department), Spain.
The International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) was initiated in 1988 and is the world's premier media arts event for the critical discussion and showcase of creative productions applying new technologies in interactive and digital media. Held biannually in various cities throughout the world, this migratory event was held in Asia for the second time in its history in 2008.
Presented by Vicki Sowry, art research science Program Manager at the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT), this invited panel was held on 26 July 2008 in the Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium, Singapore Management University.
The panel featured members of the Artsactive network alongside individuals with substantial experience in delivering interdisciplinary residency programs. Panellists include; Oron Catts (SymbioticA, Australia), Marta de Menezes (Ectopia, Portugal), Anne Kienhuis (Arts and Genomics Center, Netherlands), Denisa Kera (Transgenesis, Czech Republic), Irene Hediger (Artists in Labs, Switzerland) and Lonce Wyse (ISEA08 AIR program, Singapore).
The panel presented the findings of the Artsactive think-tank held in Perth, Western Australia immediately prior to ISEA2008. The think-tank, hosted by SymbioticA, interrogated the issues impacting upon the success and sustainability of art/science residency programs now and into the future, including: residency models and methodologies, contracting, IP and copyright, partnerships and ethics.
Artists in the Science Shrine
International organisations discuss opportunities for artists residencies in science and research settings.
Date: Tuesday 22 July 2008
Location: 12.30-1.30pm, Social Science Lecture Theatre 1, G28, The University of Western Australia
Artsactive is an international network of projects, organisations and individuals involved in artists collaborations with science and industry research labs. It was created in 2006, and gathers now 14 organizations and 4 experts.
This public presentation will introduce the local arts/science community to the national and international opportunities and models of art/science organisations. Speakers include Denisa Kera (Transgenesis, Czech Republic) Marta de Menezes (Ectopia, Portugal) Anne Kienhuis (Arts & Genomics Center, Netherlands), Vicki Sowry (Australian Network for Art and Technology) MC: Oron Catts (SymbioticA, Australia).
This seminar is part of the Artsactive think-tank hosted by SymbioticA over three days in July to interrogate the issues impacting upon the success and sustainability of art/science residency programs now and into the future.
Website: www.artsactive.net
Gail Wight - Unreasonable Interactions seminar
Date: 15th April, 2008
Location: 1-2pm, G22, ground floor, Architecture building, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA
I believe that by engaging and teasing out the irrational, the irreverent, and the unreasonable aspects of communication, we can begin to discover ways of interacting that lie outside familiar territory and broaden our conception of understanding. In particular, our attempts to communicate with machines and other animals offer valuable insights into our assumptions about this interchange. Visual art has offered me a playful way to explore ways in which we interact within these vastly dissimilar realms, and I attempt to situate these engagements within a history of science.
Professor Gail Wight is a practicing artist and the Director of Experimental Media Arts and the Director of Graduate Studies in Studio Practice at Stanford University.
ORLAN - This is my Body, This is my Software:
between Western and non-Western Cultures
Date: Thursday, 26 July, 2007
Location: 6pm, Social Sciences Lecture Theatre UWA
ORLAN is undoubtedly a mutant of the body-cult era, Bernard Blistene, A conversation ….in ORLAN on Carnal Art, Flammarion, 2004
The internationally renowned French artist ORLAN has been active in photography, video, sculpture, installations and performance since 1965. She wrote the Carnal Art manifesto, and from 1990 to
1993 she conducted her series of nine surgery-performances, which involved a series of plastic surgeries. These were filmed and broadcast in institutions throughout the world, among which the
Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. She lives and works between Los Angeles, New York and Paris and is Professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure dArts Paris-Cergy. A retrospective was organised at the Modern Art Museum of Saint-Etienne, her native city in 2007, on the occasion of her 60th birthday.
ORLAN recently completed a one year position as a researcher at the Getty Institute and is currently an artist in residence at SymbioticA : the art and science collaborative research laboratory in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia. Her project at SymbioticA, The Harlequins Coat, will be created with skin cells cultivated in vitro, taken from ORLAN and from people with various skin colour and origin.
ORLAN is hosted by SymbioticA and supported by the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, the Faculty of Art, Humanities and Social Sciences and the Institute of Advanced Studies at The University of Western Australia. ORLANs flight is sponsored by Alliance Francais de Perth and The French Embassy in Australia.
ORLAN will conduct further lectures in August for students and will exhibit at the Holmes a Court Gallery, Goddard de Fiddes and in the SymbioticA exhibition Still,Living at The Bakery ARTRAGE complex during BEAP2007
Website: www.orlan.net
BIOHAZARD? AVANT GARDE SCIENCE MEETS TRASH CABARET
A Bioart - Benefit to raise funds and awareness for the defense fund of Steve Kurtz and Critical Art Ensemble
Date: August 4th, 2004 8:00 pm - late
Location: Bar Open, Francis St. Alley Way near Alexander Library, Northbridge.
Cost: $15 / $10 Concession
Initiated and Curated by: Kira O'Reilly
U.S.A. based artist, member of Critical Art Ensemble and professor, Steve Kurtz, faces continued FBI harassment and possible 20 year charges.
Why?
In the wake of his wifes death the FBI were called to investigate the presence of bio substances in this home. He had legally acquired these for use in his art practice, they were three bacteria commonly used as educational tools in schools and university biological departments. Originally threatened with charges of bioterroroism under the post 9/11 patriot Act, harassment of Kurtz now continues as he is charged with 'mail fraud', with up to 20 years imprisonment, horrendous legal costs and huge implications for both scientific and artistic communities in the United States and worldwide.
Who are CAE?
Critical Art Ensemble is a collective of five artists of various specializations dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics, and critical theory.
Critical Art Ensemble has very publicly and legally performed scientific processes to demystify them and make them accessible to audiences. "Free Range Grains," CAE's latest project, includes a mobile DNA extraction laboratory for testing food products for the presence of genetically modified organisms
From the CAE website: http://www.critical-art.net/ http://www.caedefensefund.org/
Featuring:
Bio DJs Jo 19 and Bilsby providing the sounds
A world first! - Bioart auction of Donna Franklin designs, TCA's Semi-Living worry doll, Kira O'Reilly's mutated labcoat and more…
Art, film and performance by such luminaries as:
- BIOTEKNICA - from Canada
- Kira O'Reilly - from UK
- Tanya Visosevic from everywhere
- Cat Hope from every other where
- Oron Catts TC&A Project, bio-barman, shaken and stirred
- PVI collective
- Chrism & Fenris electronic yet foxy electro
University information
CRICOS Code: 00126G
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Friday, 5 August, 2011 10:36 AM
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