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

[Parker Higgins]

I attended Radars & Fences I last year, and it was really great.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marco Deseriis <md1445 at nyu.edu>
Date: Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 12:38 PM
Subject: Radars & Fences II: Tactical Bioart in the Age of Biotechnology
To: Marco Deseriis <md1445 at nyu.edu>


 *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
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