Transformational – A Psychotransgenic Workshop on Making With Life

Louise Mackenzie / United Kingdom
Northumbrian University
info@loumackenzie.com

This talk presents initial responses from transformational – a bio-art workshop that forms part of an ongoing research collaboration between Northumbria University and the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle University.  transformational You introduce the concept of psychotransgenics: the situating of oneself physically in the position of transforming a thought into a living organism and the encounter of doing so. The workshop enables participants to explore the potential of DNA as data storage device for text, music or image, create their own DNA storage designs for potential future use, choose whether they wish to physically store information within the body of a living organism and then reflect on their decision via a video diary.

Transformational forms a part of Evolution of the Subject – an ongoing research project that explores the evolution of data within living material through fine art practice. It is in part a dissemination of the artist's research, addressing the questions: How might the agency of organisms be explored through a fine art practice situated within biotechnology? What possibilities exist when we have the ability to store data within living organisms? In what ways can an art practice situated in the laboratory expand the discourse around the use of transgenic organisms?

  • Date
    June 9, 2017

    Creatures Such As We

    Byron Rich and John Wenskovitch

    Creatures Such As We is an installation designed to ensure that the mistakes of Western colonization are not repeated as humanity ventures beyond the confines of our planet. By superimposing the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of Mars on Earth and placing democratized augmented reality monuments at coordinates corresponding to the landing sites of these spacecraft, Creatures Such As We strive to present a hopeful vision of interplanetary exploration as a force of good.
  • Date
    June 9, 2017

    Cuban Underground

    Sara Brucker / France
    PXN, TIU
    tempsnoir.com/
    As Cuba opens up to the outside world, the Cuba Underground series explores the island's alternative culture and goes out in search of Cuba's new generation of rebels. Skateboarders, graffers, punks, designers, and tattoo artists… On the edge of the law, they break with social conventions and create new trends to make Havana one of the cultural capitals of the world.
  • Date
    June 12, 2017

    Ambiguous Materiality: Empathy through tangible sound


    Donna Legault / Canada

    Donna Legault's interdisciplinary practice acknowledges non-human entities as sites for sensory research and explores opportunities afforded by technology to extend the limits of human perception. Her work includes sound, electronic installation, sculpture, and performance. The intersection of these practices investigate the resonance of sound as a dynamic extension of everyday actions. Donna's talk details investigative strategies for exploring the materiality of sound at the intersection of visual practice.
  • Date
    June 12, 2017

    “Laughing Stock:” Stock Photography and Satire, from Digital Meme Culture to Post-Internet Art

    Nathalie Agostini

    This study interrogates the contrast between the relatively unexplored territory of stock photography as an academic focus, and its widespread exploitation in visual culture. Ubiquitous online in its various commercial and editorial formats as well as on social media, stock photography is worthy of attention because of the many characters it takes on. Taking satire as a starting point, this study examines the limits of stock photography, or the “wallpaper of consumer culture,” captured by the renderings of stock images in meme culture, while surveying alternate possibilities of their handling in art and contemporary photography practices.
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