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.

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SymbioticA will be holding regular Friday Seminars in August and September. Seminar information shall be updated soon. 

5th September Seminar > Holding Together the Multiple Potentials of Science
Brian Rappert
3.30-5pm
Claims about the revolution in our understanding of world enabled by modern biotechnology have been accompanied by an unsettling question in many international forums after 9/11: might the knowledge being gained be used to further - rather than prevent - the spread of disease?  In other words, might the life sciences become the death sciences? As part of this concern about the ‘dual uses’ of research, questions are being asked today regarding what novel threats might stem from life science research and the extent to which security considerations ought to figure into the practices of researchers. 
 
There are two aims to this seminar: one, to discuss the methods and results of over 100 interactive seminars with practicing scientists undertaken by Rappert in some 14 countries.  The second is to ask how future interventions regarding the dual use potential of science could be informed by ongoing artistic interventions in the life science that likewise try to hold together the dual aspects of science (for instance, as simultaneously perverse/normal, sterile/wet).
 
Brian Rappert is an Associate Professor of Science, Technology and Public Affairs in the Department of Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Exeter. His long term interest has been the examination of how choices can and are made about the adoption and regulation of security-related technologies; this particularly in conditions of uncertainty and disagreement.  His book Controlling the Weapons of War: Politics, Persuasion, and the Prohibition of Inhumanity (Routledge, 2006) is an attempt to ask how humanitarian limits are set war.  Biotechnology, Security and the Search for Limits: An Inquiry into Research and Methods (Palgrave, 2007) considers the prospects and problems with introducing security-inspired controls to prevent the destructive use of biotechnology research.   http://www.people.ex.ac.uk/br201/

12th September Seminar >

19th September Seminar > ‘Vision, Memory, Spectacle’, Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association International Conference
Tarsh Bates
Tarsh will discus AWGSA's recent International Conference: 'Feminism’s reputation for excess and spectacle perseveres in media images and popular memory, but how do we remember the vision(aries) of earlier feminisms? How is feminism screened? Is there agency in spectacle? How do current shifts in visual culture affect gender relations (does feminism have a SecondLife)? And does it matter, if women are still spectacularly poor in the global corporation? This conference is intent on pursuing the visual, memory and spectacle in diverse forms, as well as any topics that further understandings of gender and sexuality, race and class, historically and in contemporary everyday life. It is for everyone interested in contemporary work in women’s studies, feminist activism and gender research.'
Tarsh Bates is a Master of Science (Biological Arts) student at SymbioticA.

26th September Seminar >