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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 SeminarAdaptation 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. More information on the workshop: http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/apply All welcome. Location: Cullity Gallery, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, The University of Western Australia. |
Upcoming SeminarsSymbioticA Friday Seminars >
Past SeminarsEricaamerica "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. 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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