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Art in the Age of Planetary Consciousness; an April 22, 2022 talk in Venice (Italy) and online (+ an April 21/22, 2022 art/sci event)

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The Biennale Arte (also known as the Venice Biennale) 2022: The Milk of Dreams runs from April 23 -November 27, 2022 with pre-openings on April 20, 21, and 22.

As part of the Biennale’s pre-opening, the ArtReview (international contemporary art magazine) and the Berggruen Institute (think tank with headquarters in Los Angeles, California) are presenting a talk on April 22, 2022, from the Talk on Art in the Age of Planetary Consciousness on the artreview.com website (Note: I cannot find an online portal so I’m guessing this is in person only),

Join the artists and ArtReview’s Mark Rappolt for this panel discussion – the first in a new series of talks in collaboration with Berggruen Arts – on 22 April 2022 at Casa dei Tre Oci, Venice

We live in an age in which we increasingly recognise and acknowledge that the human-made world and non-human worlds overlap and interact. In which actions cause reactions in a system that is increasingly planetary in scale while being susceptible to change by the actions of individual and collective agents. How does this change the way in which we think about art? And the ways in which we think about making art? Does it exist apart or as a part of this new consciousness and world view? Does art reflect such systems or participate within them? Or both?

This discussion between artists Shubigi Rao and Wu Tsang,who will both be showing new works at the 59th Venice Biennale, is the first in a new programme of events in which ArtReview is partnering with the Berggruen Institute to explore the intersections of philosophy, science and culture [emphasis mine] – as well as celebrating Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice as a gathering place for artists, curators, artlovers and thinkers. The conversation is chaired by ArtReview editor-in-chief Mark Rappolt.

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Venue: Casa dei Tre Oci, Venice

Date: 22 April [2022]

Time: Entry from 4.30pm, talk to commence 5pm [Central European Summer Time, for PT subtract 9 hours]

Moderator: Mark Rappolt, Editor-in-Chief ArtReview & ArtReview Asia

Speakers: Shubigi Rao, Wu Tsang

RSVP: rsvp@artreview.com

About the artists:

Artist and writer Shubigi Rao’s interests include libraries, archival systems, histories and lies, literature and violence, ecologies, and natural history. Her art, texts, films, and photographs look at current and historical flashpoints as perspectival shifts to examining contemporary crises of displacement, whether of people, languages, cultures, or knowledge bodies. Her current decade-long project, Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book is about the history of book destruction and the future of knowledge. In 2020, the second book from the project won the Singapore Literature Prize (non-fiction), while the first volume was shortlisted in 2018. Both books have won numerous awards, including AIGA (New York)’s 50 best books of 2016, and D&AD Pencil for design. The first exhibition of the project, Written in the Margins, won the APB Signature Prize 2018 Juror’s Choice Award. She is currently the Curator for the upcoming Kochi-Muziris Biennale. She will be representing Singapore at the 59th Venice Biennale.

Wu Tsang is an award-winning filmmaker and visual artist. Tsang’s work crosses genres and disciplines, from narrative and documentary films to live performance and video installations. Tsang is a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellow, and her projects have been presented at museums, biennials, and film festivals internationally. Awards include 2016 Guggenheim Fellow (Film/Video), 2018 Hugo Boss Prize Nominee, Creative Capital, Rockefeller Foundation, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and Warhol Foundation. Tsang received her BFA (2004) from the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and an MFA (2010) from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Currently Tsang works in residence at Schauspielhaus Zurich, as a director of theatre with the collective Moved by the Motion. Her work is included in the 59th Venice Biennale’s central exhibition The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani. On 20 April, TBA21–Academy in collaboration with The Hartwig Art Foundation presents the Italian premiere of Moby Dick; or, The Whale, the Wu Tsang-directed feature-length silent film with a live symphony orchestra, at Venice’s Teatro Goldoni.

I’m not sure how this talk will “explore the intersections of philosophy, science and culture.” I can make a case for philosophy and culture but not science. At any rate, the it serves as an introduction to the Berggruen Institute’s new activities in Europe, from the Talk on Art in the Age of Planetary Consciousness on the artreview.com website,

The Berggruen Institute – headquartered in Los Angeles – was established in 2010 to develop foundational ideas about how to reshape political and social institutions in a time of great global change. It recently acquired Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice as a new base for its European activities. The neo-gothic building, originally designed as a home and studio by the artist Mario de Maria, will serve as a space for global dialogue and new ideas, via a range of workshops, symposia and exhibitions in the visual arts and architecture.

In a further expansion of activity, the initiative Berggruen Arts & Culture has been launched with the acquisition of the historic Palazzo Diedo in Venice’s Cannaregio district. The site will host exhibitions as well as a residency programme (with Sterling Ruby named as the inaugural artist-in-residence). Curator Mario Codognato has been appointed artistic director of the initiative; the architect Silvio Fassi will oversee the palazzo’s renovation, which is scheduled to open in 2024.

Having been most interested in the Berggruen Institute (founded by Nicolas Berggruen) and its events, I’ve missed the arts and culture aspect of the Berggruen enterprise. Mark Westall’s March 15, 2022 article for FAD magazine gives some insight into Berggruen’s Venice arts and culture adventure,

In the most recent of his initiatives to encourage the work of today’s artists, deepen the connection between contemporary art and the past, and make art more widely accessible to the public, philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen today [March 15, 2022] announced the creation of Berggruen Arts & Culture and the acquisition of the historic Palazzo Diedo by the Nicolas Berggruen Charitable Trust in Venice’s Cannaregio district, which is being restored and renovated to serve as a base for this multi-faceted, international program and its activities in Venice and around the world.

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At Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture will host an array of exhibitions—some drawn from Nicolas Berggruen’s personal collection—as well as installations, symposia, and an artist-in-residence program that will foster the creation of art in Venice. To bring the palazzo to life during the renovation phase and make its new role visible to the public, Berggruen Arts & Culture has named Sterling Ruby as its inaugural artist-in-residence. Ruby will create A Project in Four Acts, a multi-year installation at Palazzo Diedo, with the first element debuting on April 20, 2022, and on view through the duration of the 59th Biennale Arte.

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Internationally renowned contemporary art curator Mario Codognato, who has served as chief curator of MADRE in Naples and director of the Anish Kapoor Foundation in Venice [I have more on Anish Kapoor later], has been named the artistic director of Berggruen Arts & Culture. Venetian architect Silvio Fassi is overseeing the renovation of the palazzo, which will open officially in 2024, concurrent with the Biennale di Venezia.

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Nicolas Berggruen’s initiatives in the visual arts and culture have spanned the traditional and the experimental. As a representative of a family that is legendary in the field of 20th-century European art, he has been instrumental in expanding the programming and curatorial autonomy of the Museum Berggruen, which has been a component of the Nationalgalerie in Berlin since 2000. As founder of the Berggruen Institute, he has spearheaded the expansion of the Institute with a presence in Los Angeles, Beijing, and Venice. He has supported Institute-led projects pairing leading contemporary artists including Anicka Yi, Ian Cheng, Rob Reynolds, Agnieszka Kurant, Pierre Huyghe, and Nancy Baker Cahill with researchers in artificial intelligence and biology, to create works exploring our changing ideas of what it means to be human.

Palazzo Diedo is the second historic building that the Nicolas Berggruen Charitable Trust has acquired in Venice, following the purchase of Casa dei Tre Oci on the Giudecca as the principal European base for the Berggruen Institute. In April and June 2022, Berggruen Arts & Culture will present a series of artist conversations in partnership with ArtReview at Casa dei Tre Oci. Berggruen Arts & Culture will also undertake activities such as exhibitions, discussions, lectures, and residencies at sites beyond Palazzo Diedo and Casa dei Tre Oci, such as Museum Berggruen in Berlin and the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles.

For those of us not lucky enough to be in Venice for the opening of the 59th Biennale Arte, there’s this amusing story about Anish Kapoor and an artistic feud over the blackest black (a coating material made of carbon nanotubes) in my February 21, 2019 posting.

Art/sci and the Berggruen Institute

While the April 22, 2022 talk doesn’t directly address science issues vis-à-vis arts and culture, this upcoming Berggruen Institute/University of Southern California (USC) event does,

What Will Life Become?

Thursday, April 21 [2022] @ USC // Friday, April 22 [2022] @ Berggruen Institute // #WWLB

About

Biotechnologies that push the limits of life, artificial intelligences that can be trained to learn, and endeavors that envision life beyond Earth are among recent and anticipated technoscientific futures. Such projects unsettle theories and material realities of body, mind, species, and the planet. They prompt us to ask: How will we conjure positive human futures and future humans?

On Thursday, April 21 [2022] and Friday, April 22 [2022], the Berggruen Institute and the USC Dornsife Center on Science, Technology, and Public, together with philosophers, scientists, and artists, collaboratively and critically inquire:

What Will Life Become?

KEYNOTE CONVERSATION
“Speculative Worldbuilding”

PUBLIC FORUM
“What Will Life Become?”

PANELS
“Futures of Life”
“Futures of Mind”
“Futures in Outer Space”

WORKSHOP
“Embodied Futures”

VISION

The search for extraterrestrial biosignatures, human/machine cyborgian mashups, and dreams to facilitate reproduction beyond Earth are future-facing technologies. They complicate the purported thresholds, conditions, and boundaries of “the human,” “life,” and “the mind” — as if such categories have ever been stable. 

In concert with the Berggruen Institute’s newly launched Future Humans Program, What Will Life Become? invites philosophers, scientists, and artists to design and co-shape the human and more-than-human futures of life, the mind, and the planet.

Day 1 at USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience 101 features a Keynote with director and speculative architect Liam Young who will discuss world-building through narrative and film with Nils Gilman; a Public Forum with leading scholars K Allado-McDowell, Neda Atanasoski, Lisa Ruth Rand, Tiffany Vora, moderated by Claire Isabel Webb, who will consider the question, “what will life become?” Reception to follow.

Day 2 at the Berggruen Institute features a three-part Salon: “Futures of Life,” “Futures of Mind,” and “Futures in Outer Space.” Conceptual artists Sougwen Chung*, Nancy Baker Cahill, REEPS100, Brian Cantrell, and ARSWAIN will unveil world premieres. “Embodied Futures” invites participants to imagine novel forms of life, mind, and being through artistic and intellectual provocations.

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I have some details about how you can attend the programme in person or online,

DAY 1: USC

To participate in the Keynote Conversation and Public Forum on April 21, join us in person at USC Michelson Hall 101 or over YouTube beginning at 1:00 p.m [PT]. We’ll also send you the findings of the Workshop. Please register here.

DAY 2: BERGGRUEN INSTITUTE

This invite-only [mephasis mine] workshop at the Berggruen Institute Headquarters features a day of creating Embodied Futures. A three-panel salon, followed by the world premieres of art commissioned by the Institute, will provide provocations for the Possible Worlds exercises. Participants will imagine and design Future Relics and write letters to 2049. WWLB [What Will Life Become?] findings will be available online following the workshop.

*I will have more about Sougwen Chung and her work when I post my commentary on the exhibition running from March 5 – October 23, 2022 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, “The Imitation Game: Visual Culture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”

Of Health Myths and Trickster Viruses; a Who Cares? windup event on Friday, April 1, 2022 (+ more final Who Cares? events)

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Toronto’s ArtSci Salon has been hosting a series of events and exhibitions about COVID-19 and other health care issues under the “Who Cares?” banner. The exhibitions and events are now coming to an end (see my February 9, 2022 posting for a full listing).

A March 29, 2022 Art/Sci Salon announcement (received via email) heralds the last roundtable event (see my March 7, 2022 posting for more about the Who Cares? roundtables), Note: This is an online event,

 
Bayo Akomolafe
Seema Yasmin

Of Health Myths and Trickster Viruses

Friday, April 1 [2022], 5:00-7:00 pm [ET]

Des mythes sur la santé et des virus trompeurs

Le Vendredi 1 avril [2022], de 17H à 19H A conversation on the unsettling dimensions of epidemics and the complexities of responses to their challenges.
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Une conversation sur les dimensions troublantes des épidémies et la complexité des réponses à leurs défis.

Inscrivez- vous ici/Register here

Seema Yasmin,  Director of Research and Education, Stanford Health Communication Initiative. She is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, Pulitzer prize finalist, medical doctor and Stanford and UCLA professor.

Bayo Akomolafe Chief Curator, The Emergence Network.  He is a widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author ~

Seema Yasmin, Director of Research and Education, Stanford Health Communication Initiative. Elle est une journaliste lauréate d’un Emmy Award, finaliste du prix Pulitzer, médecin et professeure à Stanford et UCLA.

Bayo Akomolafe, Chief Curator, The Emergence Network. Il  est un conférencier international très célèbre, un penseur posthumaniste, un poète, un enseignant, un intellectuel public, un essayiste et un auteur.

There are the acknowledgements,

“Who Cares?” is a Speaker Series dedicated to fostering transdisciplinary conversations between doctors, writers, artists, and researchers on contemporary biopolitics of care and the urgent need to move towards more respectful, creative, and inclusive social practices of care in the wake of the systemic cracks made obvious by the pandemic.

We wish to thank/ nous the generous support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, New College at the University of Toronto and The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University; the Centre for Feminist Research, Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, The Canadian Language Museum, the Departments of English and the School of Gender and Women’s Studies at York University; the D.G. Ivey Library and the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto; We also wish to thank the support of The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences

This series is co-produced in collaboration with the ArtSci Salon

The Who Cares? series webpage, found here, lists the exhibitions and final events,

Exhibitions
March 24 – April 30 [2022]

Alanna Kibbe – TRANSFORM: Exploring Languages of Healing. Opening March 31, 5 pm 
Canadian Language Museum, 2275 Bayview Avenue, York University Glendon Campus

in person. Virtual opening available

Camille Baker – INTER/her. Opening April 7 [2022], 4 pm
Ivey Library, 20 Willcox Street, New College, University of Toronto

in person. Virtual opening available

Closing Presentation and Interactive Session
Karolina Żyniewicz – Signs of the time, Collecting Biological Traces and Memories

Artist talk: April 8 [2022], 4:00-6:00 [ET]
online

Memory Collection: Apr 9 [2022], 2:00-4:00 [ET]

online and in person

Singapore contributes to art/science gallery on the International Space Station (ISS)

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A March 15, 2022 Nanyang Technological University press release (also on EurekAlert) announces Singapore’s contribution to an art gallery in space,

Two Singapore-designed artefacts are now orbiting around the Earth on the International Space Station (ISS), as part of Moon Gallery.

These artworks were successfully launched into space recently as part of a test flight by the Moon Gallery and will come back to Earth after 10 months.

Currently consisting of 64 artworks made by artists all around the world, the Moon gallery will eventually consist of 100 artworks, which will then be placed on the moon by 2025. Out of these 64 art pieces on the ISS, only two are Singaporean artworks.

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Here’s Singapore’s contribution,

Caption: NTU [Nanyang Technological University] Singapore Assistant Professor Matteo Seita (left), who is holding the Cube of Interaction, and Ms Lakshmi Mohanbabu (right), who designed both cubes. The Structure & Reflectance cube in the foreground was 3D printed at NTU Singapore.. Credit: NTU Singapore

A December 8, 2021 news item on phys.org describes the project,

The Moon Gallery Foundation is developing an art gallery to be sent to the Moon, contributing to the establishment of the first lunar outpost and permanent museum on Earth’s only natural satellite. The international initiative will see one hundred artworks from artists around the world integrated into a 10 cm x 10 cm x 1 cm grid tray, which will fly to the Moon by 2025. The Moon Gallery aims to expand humanity’s cultural dialog beyond Earth. The gallery will meet the cosmos for the first time in low Earth orbit in 2022 in a test flight.

The test flight is in collaboration with Nanoracks, a private in-space service provider. The gallery is set to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the NG-17 rocket as part of a Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply mission in February of 2022. The art projects featured in the gallery will reach the final frontier of human habitat in space, and mark the historical meeting point of the Moon Gallery and the cosmos. Reaching low Earth orbit on the way to the Moon is a pivotal first step in extending our cultural dialog to space.

On its return flight, the Moon Gallery will become a part of the NanoLab technical payload, a module for space research experiments. The character of the gallery will offer a diverse range of materials and behaviors for camera observations and performance tests with NanoLab.

In return, Moon Gallery artists will get a chance to learn about the performance of their artworks in space. The result of these observations will serve as a solid basis for the subsequent Moon Gallery missions and a source of a valuable learning experience for future space artists. The test flight to the ISS is a precursor mission, contributing to the understanding of future possibilities for art in space and strengthening collaboration between the art and space sectors.

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A December 8, 2021 NYU press release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, provides more detail about the art from Singapore,

STRUCTURE & REFLECTANCE CUBE

Our every perception, analysis, and thought reflect the influences from our surroundings and the Universe in a world of collaboration, communication and interaction, making it possible to explore the real, the imagined and the unknown. The ‘Structure and Reflectance’ cube, a marriage of Art and Technology, is one of the hundred artworks selected by the Moon Gallery, with a unifying message of an integrated world, making it a quintessential signature of humankind on the Moon.

Ms Lakshmi Mohanbabu, a Singaporean architect and designer, is the first and only local artist to have her artwork selected for the Moon Gallery. Coined the ‘Structure and Reflectance’ cube, Lakshmi’s art is a marriage of Art and Technology and is one of the hundred artworks selected by the Moon Gallery. The cube signifies a unifying message of an integrated world, making it a quintessential signature of humankind on the Moon.

The early-stage prototyping and design iterations of the ‘Structure and Reflectance’ cube were performed with Additive Manufacturing, otherwise known as 3D printing, at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore’s (NTU Singapore)Singapore Centre for 3D Printing (SC3DP). This was part of a collaborative project supported by the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC), a national programme office which accelerates the adoption and commercialisation of additive manufacturing technologies. Previously, the NTU Singapore team at SC3DP produced a few iterations of Moon-Cube using metal 3D printing in various materials such as Inconel and Stainless Steel to evaluate the best suited material.

The newest iteration of the cube comprises crystals—ingrained in the cube via additive manufacturing technology— revealed to the naked eye by the microscopic differences in their surface roughness, which reflect light along different directions.

“Additive Manufacturing is suitable for enabling this level of control over the crystal structure of solids. More specifically, the work was created using ‘laser powder bed fusion technology’ a metal additive manufacturing process which allows us to control the surface roughness through varying the laser parameter,” said Dr Matteo Seita, Nanyang Assistant Professor, NTU Singapore, is the Principal Investigator overseeing the project for the current cube design.  

Dr Seita shared the meaning behind the materials used, “Like people, materials have a complex ‘structure’ resulting from their history—the sequence of processes that have shaped their constituent parts—which underpins their differences. Masked by an exterior façade, this structure often reveals little of the underlying quality in materials or people. The cube is a material representation of a human’s complex structure embodied in a block of metal consisting of two crystals with distinct reflectivity and complementary shape.”

Ms Lakshmi added, “The optical contrast on the cube surface from the crystals generates an intricate geometry which signifies the duality of man: the complexity of hidden thought and expressed emotion. This duality is reflected by the surface of the Moon where one side remains in plain sight, while the other has remained hidden to humankind for centuries; until space travel finally allowed humanity to gaze upon it. The bright portion of the visible side of the Moon is dependent on the Moon’s position relative to the Earth and the Sun. Thus, what we see is a function of our viewpoint.”

The hidden structure of materials, people, and the Moon are visualized as reflections of light through art and science in this cube. Expressed in the Structure & Reflectance cube is the concept of human’s duality—represented by two crystals with different reflectance—which appears to the observer as a function of their perspective.

Dr Ho Chaw Sing, Co-Founder and Managing Director of NAMIC said, “Space is humanity’s next frontier. Being the only Singaporean – among a selected few from the global community – Lakshmi’s 3D printed cube presents a unique perspective through the fusion of art and technology. We are proud to have played a small role supporting her in this ‘moon-shot’ initiative.”

Lakshmi views each artwork as a portrayal of humanity’s quests to discover the secrets of the Universe and—fused into a single cube—embody the unity of humankind, which transcends our differences in culture, religion, and social status.

The first cube face, the Primary, is divided into two triangles and depicts the two faces of the Moon, one visible to us from the earth and the other hidden from our view.

The second cube face, the Windmill, has two spiralling windmill forms, one clockwise and the other counter-clockwise, representing our existence, energy, and time.

The third cube face, the Dromenon, is a labyrinth form of nested squares, which represents the layers that we—as space explorers—are unravelling to discover the enigma of the Universe. 

The fourth cube face, the Nautilus, reflects the spiralling form of our DNA that makes each of us unique, a shape reflected in the form of our galaxy.

Not having heard of the Moon Gallery or the Moon Gallery Foundation, I did a little research. There’s a LinkedIn profile for the Moon Gallery Foundation (both the foundation and the gallery are located in Holland [Netherlands]),

Moon Gallery is where art and space meet. We aim to set up the first permanent museum on the Moon and develop a culture for future interplanetary society.

Moon Gallery will launch 100 artefacts to the Moon within the compact format of 10 x 10 x 1cm plate on a lunar lander exterior panelling no later than 2025. We suggest bringing this collection of ideas as the seeds of a new culture. We believe that culture makes a distinction between mere survival and life. Moon Gallery is a symbolic gesture that has a real influence – a way to reboot culture, rethink our values for better living on Earth planet.

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The Moon Gallery has its own website, where I found more information about events, artists, and partners such as Nanoracks,

Nanoracks is dedicated to using our unique expertise to solve key problems both in space and on the Earth – all while lowering the barriers to entry of space exploration. Nanoracks’s main office is in Houston, Texas. The business development office is in Washington, D.C., and additional offices are located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turin, Italy. Nanoracks provides tools, hardware and services that allow other companies, organizations and governments to conduct research and other projects in space. Some of Nanoracks customers include Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Space Agency (DLR), NASA, Planet Labs, Space Florida, Virgin Galactic, Adidas, Aerospace Corporation, National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), UAE Space Agency, Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), and the Beijing Institute of Technology.

You can find the Nanoracks website here.

Data Meditation and three roundtables: a collection of Who Cares? March 2022 events

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You can find out more about Toronto’s Art/Sci Salon’s Who Cares? speaker series in my February 9, 2022 posting. For this posting, I’m focusing on the upcoming March 2022 events, which are being offered online. From a March 7, 2022 Art/Sci Salon announcement (received via email),

We’re pleased to announce our next two events from our “Who Cares?” Speaker Series

Nous sommes heureux d’annoncer notre deuxième événement de notre “Who Cares?” Série de conferences

March 10 [2022], 2:00-3:00 pm [ET]

Data Meditation: Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico

HER – She Loves Data 

Nuovo Abitare

Join us for a discussion about questions like: 

Why does data have to be an extractive process?

What can we learn about ourselves through the data we generate everyday?

How can we use them as an expressive form to represent ourselves?

Data Meditations is the first ritual designed with the new approach of HER: She Loves Data, which addresses data as existential and cultural phenomena, and the need of creating experience (contemporary rituals) that allow societies and individuals to come together around data generating meaning, new forms of solidarity, empathy, interconnection and knowledge.

Rejoignez-nous pour une discussion basée sur des questions telles que : 

Pourquoi les données doivent-elles être un processus d’extraction ?

Que pouvons-nous apprendre par rapport à nous, grâce aux données que nous générons chaque jour ?

Comment pouvons-nous les utiliser comme une forme expressive pour nous représenter ?

Data Méditations est le premier rituel conçu avec la nouvelle approche de HER [elle] : She loves Data , qui parle des données en tant que phénomènes existentiels et culturels , mais également , la nécessité de créer des expériences [ rituels contemporains ] qui permettent aux sociétés et aux individus de se réunir autour de données générant du sens , de nouvelles formes de solidarité , empathie ,  d’interconnexion et de connaissance. 

Register HERE/Inscrivez-vous ici

[Beyond triage and data culture roundtable]

March 11, 5:00-7:00 pm [ET]

Maria Antonia Gonzalez-Valerio,
Professor of Philosophy and Literature, UNAM, Mexico City.
Sharmistha Mishra,
Infectious Disease Physician and Mathematical Modeller, St Michael’s Hospital
Madhur Anand,
Ecologist, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph
Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico,
Independent Artists, HER, She Loves Data

One lesson we have learnt in the past two years is that the pandemic has not single-handedly created a global health crisis, but has exacerbated and made visible one that was already in progress. The roots of this crisis are as cultural as they are economic and environmental.  Among the factors contributing to the crisis is a dominant orientation towards healthcare that privileges a narrow focus on data-centered technological fixes and praises the potentials of technological delegation. An unsustainable system has culminated in the passive acceptance and even the cold justification of triage as an inevitable evil in a time of crisis and scarcity.

What transdisciplinary practices can help ameliorate the atomizing pitfalls of turning the patient into data?
How can discriminatory practices such as triage, exclusion based on race, gender, and class, vaccine hoarding etc.. be addressed and reversed?
What strategies can we devise to foster genuine transdisciplinary approaches and move beyond the silo effects of specialization, address current uncritical trends towards technological delegation, and restore the centrality of human relations in healthcare delivery?

L’une des leçons que nous avons apprises au cours des deux dernières années est que la pandémie n’a pas créé à elle seule une crise sanitaire mondiale, mais qu’elle en a exacerbé et rendu visible une qui était déjà en cours. Les racines de cette crise sont aussi bien culturelles qu’économiques et environnementales. Parmi les facteurs qui contribuent à la crise figure une orientation dominante en matière de soins de santé, qui privilégie une vision étroite des solutions technologiques centrées sur les données et fait l’éloge du potentiel de la délégation technologique. Un système non durable a abouti à l’acceptation passive et même à la justification froide du triage comme un mal inévitable en temps de crise et de pénurie.

Quelles pratiques transdisciplinaires peuvent contribuer à améliorer les pièges de l’atomisation qui consiste à transformer le patient en données ?
Comment les pratiques discriminatoires telles que le triage, l’exclusion fondée sur la race, le sexe et la classe sociale, la thésaurisation des vaccins, etc. peuvent-elles être abordées et inversées ?
Quelles stratégies pouvons-nous concevoir pour favoriser de véritables approches transdisciplinaires et dépasser les effets de silo de la spécialisation, pour faire face aux tendances actuelles non critiques à la délégation technologique, et pour restaurer la centralité des relations humaines dans la prestation des soins de santé ?

Register HERE/Inscrivez-vous ici

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We wish to thank/ nous [sic] the generous support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, New College at the University of Toronto and The Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University; the Centre for Feminist Research, Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, The Canadian Language Museum, the Departments of English and the School of Gender and Women’s Studies at York University; the D.G. Ivey Library and the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto; We also wish to thank the support of The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences

There are two more online March 2022 roundtable discussions, from the Who Cares? events webpage,

2. Friday, March 18 – 6:00 to 8:00 pm [ET]
Critical care and sustainable care
Suvendrini Lena, MD, Playwright and Neurologist at CAMH and Centre for Headache, Women’s College Hospital, Toronto
Adriana Ieraci, Roboticist and PhD candidate in Computer Science, Ryerson University
Lucia Gagliese – Pain Aging Lab, York University

(online)

3. Friday, March 25 – 5:00 to 7:00 pm [ET]
Building communities and technologies of care
Camille Baker, University for the Creative Arts, School of Film media and Performing Arts
Alanna Kibbe, independent artist, Toronto

(online)

There will also be some events in April 2022 and there are two ongoing exhibitions, which you can see here.

Who Cares? a series of Art/Sci Salon talks and exhibitions in February and March 2022

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COVID-19 has put health care workers in a more than usually interesting position and the Art/Sci Salon in Toronto, Canada is ‘creatively’ addressing the old, new, and emerging stresses. From the Who Cares? events webpage (also in a February 8, 2022 notice received via email),

“Who Cares?” is a Speaker Series dedicated to fostering transdisciplinary conversations between doctors, writers, artists, and researchers on contemporary biopolitics of care and the urgent need to move towards more respectful, creative, and inclusive social practices of care in the wake of the systemic cracks made obvious by the pandemic.

About the Series

Critiques of the health care sector are certainly not new and have been put forward by workers and researchers in the medical sector and in the humanities alike. However, critique alone fails to consider the systemic issues that prevent well-meaning practitioners to make a difference. The goal of this series is to activate practical conversations between people who are already engaged in transforming the infrastructures and cultures of care but have few opportunities to speak to each other. These interdisciplinary dialogues will enable the sharing of emerging epistemologies, new material approaches and pedagogies that could take us beyond the current crisis. By engaging with the arts as research, our guests use the generative insights of poetic and artistic practices to zoom in on the crucial issues undermining holistic, dynamic and socially responsible forms of care. Furthermore, they champion transdisciplinary dialogues and multipronged approaches directed at changing the material and discursive practices of care. 

Who cares? asks the following important questions:

How do we lay the groundwork for sustainable practices of care, that is, care beyond ‘just-in-time’ interventions?

What strategies can we devise to foster genuine transdisciplinary approaches that move beyond the silo effects of specialization, address current uncritical trends towards technological delegation, and restore the centrality responsive/responsible human relations in healthcare delivery?

What practices can help ameliorate the atomizing pitfalls of turning the patient into data?

What pathways can we design to re-direct attention to long lasting care focused on a deeper understanding of the manifold relationalities between doctors, patients, communities, and the socio-environmental context?

How can the critically creative explorations of artists and writers contribute to building resilient communities of care that cultivate reciprocity, respect for the unpredictable temporalities of healing, and active listening?

How to build a capacious infrastructure of care able to address and mend the damages caused by ideologies of ultimate cure that pervade corporate approaches to healthcare funding and delivery?

The first event starts on February 14, 2022 (from the On care, beauty, and Where Things Touch webpage),

On care, beauty, and Where Things Touch

Bahar Orang (University of Toronto, Psychiatry)

Feb. 14 [2022], 10:30 am – 12-30 pm [ET]

This event will be online, please register HERE to participate. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. 

A Conversation with Bahar Orang, author of Where Things Touch, on staying attuned to the fragile intimacies of care beyond the stifling demands of institutional environments. 

This short presentation will ask questions about care that move it beyond the carceral logics of hospital settings, particularly in psychiatry. Drawing from questions raised in my first book Where Things Touch, and my work with Doctors for Defunding Police (DFDP), I hope to pose the question of how to do the work of health care differently. As the pandemic has laid bare so much violence, it becomes imperative to engage in forms of political imaginativeness that proactively ask what are the forms that care can take, and does already take, in places other than the clinic or the hospital? 

Bahar Orang is a writer and clinician scholar in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Her creative and clinical work seeks to engage with ways of imagining care beyond the carcerality that medical institutions routinely reproduce

Here’s the full programme from the Who Cares? events webpage,

Opening dialogue
February 14, 10:30-12:30 pm [ET]
On care, beauty, and Where Things Touch
Bahar Orang, University of Toronto, Psychiatry

( Online)

Keynote
Thursday March 10, 1:00-3:00 pm [ET]
Keynote and public reveal of Data meditation
Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico
independent artists, HER, She Loves Data

(Online)

Roundtables
1. Friday, March 11 – 5:00 to 7:00 pm [ET]
Beyond triage and data culture
Maria Antonia Gonzalez-Valerio, Professor of Philosophy and Literature, UNAM, Mexico City.
Sharmistha Mishra, Infectious Disease Physician and Mathematical Modeller, St Michael’s Hospital
Madhur Anand, Ecologist, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph
Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico, independent artists, HER, She Loves Data

(Online)

2. Friday, March 18 – 6:00 to 8:00 pm [ET]
Critical care and sustainable care
Suvendrini Lena, MD, Playwright and Neurologist at CAMH and Centre for Headache, Women’s College Hospital, Toronto
Adriana Ieraci, Roboticist and PhD candidate in Computer Science, Ryerson University
Lucia Gagliese – Pain Aging Lab, York University

(online)

3. Friday, March 25 – 5:00 to 7:00 pm [ET]
Building communities and technologies of care
Camille Baker, University for the Creative Arts, School of Film media and Performing Arts
Alanna Kibbe, independent artist, Toronto

(online)

Keynote Conversation
Friday, April 1, 5:00-7:00 pm [ET]
Seema Yasmin,  Director of Research and Education, Stanford Health Communication Initiative [Stanford University]
Bayo Akomolafe,  Chief Curator of The Emergence Network

(hybrid) William Doo Auditorium, 45 Willcox Street, Toronto

Exhibitions
March 24 – April 30

Alanna Kibbe – TRANSFORM: Exploring Languages of Healing. Opening March 31, 5 pm 
Canadian Language Museum, 2275 Bayview Avenue, York University Glendon Campus

(Hybrid event. Limited in person visits by appointment)

Camille Baker – INTER/her. Opening April 7, 4 pm [ET]
Ivey Library, 20 Willcox Street, New College, University of Toronto

(Hybrid event. Limited in person visits by appointment)

Closing Presentation and Interactive Session
Karolina Żyniewicz – Signs of the time, Collecting Biological Traces and Memories

Artist talk: April 8, 4:00-6:00 [ET]
Memory Collection: Apr 9, 2:00-4:00

* The format of this program and access might change with the medical situation

We wish to thank the generous support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada,  New College, the D.G. Ivey Library, and the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto; the Centre for Feminist Research, Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, The Canadian Language Museum, the Departments of English and the School of Gender and Women’s Studies at York University. We also wish to thank the support of The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences

This series is co-produced in collaboration with the ArtSci Salon

Hopefully, one of those times works for you.

Science Says 2022 SciArt Contest (Jan. 3 – 31, 2022) for California (US) residents

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Science Says is affiliated with the University of California at Davis (UC Davis). Here’s a little more about the UC Davis group from the Science Says homepage,

We are a team of friendly neighborhood scientists passionate about making science accessible to the general public. We aim to cultivate a community of science communicators at UC Davis dedicated to making scientific research accessible, relevant, and interesting to everyone. 

As for the contest, here’s more from the 2022 Science Art Contest webpage,

Jan 3-31, 2022 @ 12:00am – 11:59pm

…

We want to feature your science art in our second annual science art competition! The intersection of science and art offers a unique opportunity for creative science communication.

To participate in our contest you must:

1. Submit one piece of work considered artistic and creative: beautiful microscopy, field photography, paintings, crafts, etc.

2. The work must be shareable on our social media platforms. We encourage you to include your handle or name in the submitted image.

3. You must live within California to be considered for prizes.

You may compete in one of three categories: UC Davis affiliate (student, staff, faculty), the local Davis/Sacramento area or California. *If out of state, you can submit your work for honorable mention to be featured on our social media and news release, although you can’t be considered for prizes.

Winners will be determined by popular vote via a Google Form offered through our February newsletter, social media and website. Prizes vary depending on the contest selected. For entrants in either the UC Davis affiliate contest or local Davis/Sacramento contest, first prize will receive a cash prize of $75 and second place will receive a cash prize of $50. For entrants in the California contest, first place will receive a cash prize of $50.

Submit Here

Submissions open the first week of January and close on January 31, 2022. Voting begins February 2, 2022 and ends February 16, 2022. Winners will be announced by social media and a special news release on our website and contacted via email on February 23, 2022. Prizes will be awarded by March 4, 2022.

H/t to Raymond K. Nakamura for his retweet of the competition announcement by the Science Says team on Twitter.

Art/Sci or SciArt?

It depends on who’s talking. An artist will say art/sci or art/science and a scientist will say sciart. The focus, or pride of place, of course, being placed on the speaker’s primary interest.

Jean-Pierre Luminet awarded UNESCO’s Kalinga prize for Popularizing Science

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Before getting to the news about Jean-Pierre Luminet, astrophysicist, poet, sculptor, and more, there’s the prize itself.

Established in 1951, a scant five years after UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) was founded in 1945, the Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science is the organization’s oldest prize. Here’s more from the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science webpage,

…

The UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science is an international award to reward exceptional contributions made by individuals in communicating science to society and promoting the popularization of science. It is awarded to persons who have had a distinguished career as writer, editor, lecturer, radio, television, or web programme director, or film producer in helping interpret science, research and technology to the public. UNESCO Kalinga Prize winners know the potential power of science, technology, and research in improving public welfare, enriching the cultural heritage of nations and providing solutions to societal problems on the local, regional and global level.

…

The UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science is UNESCO’s oldest prize, created in 1951 following a donation from Mr Bijoyanand Patnaik, Founder and President of the Kalinga Foundation(link is external) Trust in India. Today, the Prize is funded by the Kalinga Foundation Trust(link is external), the Government of the State of Orissa, India(link is external), and the Government of India (Department of Science and Technology(link is external)).

Jean-Pierre Luminet

From the November 4, 2021 UNESCO press release (also received via email),

French scientist and author Jean-Pierre Luminet will be awarded the 2021 UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science. The prize-giving ceremony will take place online on 5 November as part of the celebration of World Science Day for Peace and Development.

An independent international jury selected Jean-Pierre Luminet recognizing his longstanding commitment to the popularization of science. Mr Luminet is a distinguished astrophysicist and cosmologist who has been promoting the values of scientific research through a wide variety of media: he has created popular science books and novels, beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogues, poetry, audiovisual materials for children and documentaries, notably “Du Big Bang au vivant” with Hubert Reeves. He is also an artist, engraver and sculptor and has collaborated with composers on musicals inspired by the sounds of the Universe.

His publications are model examples for communicating science to the public. Their scientific content is precise, rigorous and always state-of-the-art. He has written seven “scientific novels”, including “Le Secret de Copernic”, published in 2006. His recent book “Le destin de l’univers : trous noirs et énergie sombre”, about black holes and dark energy, was written for the general public and was praised for its outstanding scientific, historical, and literary qualities. Jean-Pierre Luminet’s work has been translated into a many languages including Chinese and Korean.

…

There is a page for Luminet in both the French language and English language wikipedias. If you have the language skills, you might want to check out the French language essay as I found it to be more stylishly written.

Compare,

De par ses activités de poète, essayiste, romancier et scénariste, dans une œuvre voulant lier science, histoire, musique et art, il est également Officier des Arts et des Lettres.

With,

… Luminet has written fifteen science books,[4] seven historical novels,[4] TV documentaries,[5] and six poetry collections. He is an artist, an engraver, a sculptor, and a musician.

My rough translation of the French,

As a poet, essayaist, novelist, and a screenwriter in a body of work that brings together science, history, music and art, he is truly someone who has enriched the French cultural inheritance (which is what it means to be an Officer of Arts and Letters or Officier des Arts et des Lettres; see English language entry for Ordre des Arts et des Lettres).

In any event, congratulations to M. Luminet.

Toronto’s (Canada) ArtSci Salon offers: Naturalized Encounters (a series of international, networked meals known as “Follow the Spread” starting Sunday, October 3, 2021

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My September 26, 2021 Art/Sci Salon notice (received via email) provides these details,

Naturalization = The ecological phenomenon in which a species, taxon, or population of exotic (as opposed to native) origin integrates into a given ecosystem, becoming capable of reproducing and growing in it, and proceeds to disseminate spontaneously. In some instances, the presence of a species in a given ecosystem is so ancient that it cannot be presupposed whether it is native or introduced
How does adaptation through naturalization occur? What happens to the native population? How does coexistence happen?

Our first event will revolve around the Solanum Melongena, a plant species in the nightshade family Solanaceae commonly known as the eggplant. This plant (and the many different names it goes by Aubergine, Melanzana, Brinjal, Berenjena, باذنجان, vânătă, 茄子,بادمجان) uncertain origins, grown worldwide for its edible fruit. Eggplants exist in many shapes, sizes and colors.

Our event will be a harvest potluck, with dialogues, storytelling, and exchanges about and beyond food. Our guests will engage in creative interventions to reflect on the many ways food, and food mobility affects all sentient beings, both humans and non-humans; peoples and civilizations; individuals’ health and collective traditions. Food is nourishment, care, medicine, and art. Food is political. Food is ultimately about our survival.

This is the first of a series of networked meals titled “FOLLOW THE SPREAD,” which will be staged around the world and across time zones throughout Fall 2021-Spring 2022 in Canada (October 3, Spring 2022), Norway (October 7), the Netherlands and Taiwan (Spring 2022).

Join us online to meet 10 Canadian artists and scholars as they launch the series in Toronto and engage in a nourishing and inspiring feast

…

Amira Alamary
TBA

Antje Budde
Antje Budde is a conceptual, queer-feminist, interdisciplinary experimental scholar-artist and an Associate Professor of Theatre Studies, Cultural Communication and Modern Chinese Studies at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto. Antje has created multi-disciplinary artistic works in Germany, China and Canada and works tri-lingually in German, English and Mandarin. She is the founder of a number of queerly feminist performing art projects including most recently the (DDL)2 or (Digital Dramaturgy Lab)Squared – a platform for experimental explorations of digital culture, creative labor, integration of arts and science, and technology in performance. She is interested in the intersections of natural sciences, the arts, engineering and computer science.

Charmaine Lurch
Charmaine Lurch is a multidisciplinary artist whose painting, sculpture, and social engagement reveal the intricacies and complexities of the relationships between us and our environments. Her sculptures, installations, and interventions produce enchantment as she skillfully contends with what is visible and present in conjunction with what remains unsaid or unnoticed. Lurch applies her experience in community arts and education to create inviting entry points into overwhelmingly complex and urgent racial, ecological, and historical reckonings.

Lurch’s work contends with both spatiality and temporality, enchanting her subject matter with multiple possibilities for engagement. This can be seen in the interplay between light, wire, and space in her intricate wire sculptures of bees and pollen grains, and in what scholar Tiffany Lethabo King refers to as the “open edgelessness” of Sycorax. A sensuous dynamism belies the everyday tasks reflected in her charcoal-on-parchment series Being, Belonging and Grace. Lurch’s particular evocations and explorations of space and time invite an analysis of their own, and her work has been engaged with by academics. These include King, who chose Sycorax Gesture, a charcoal illustration for the cover of her book The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies, in which King discusses Lurch’s work in depth. Scholar Katherine McKittrick both inserted and engaged with Lurch’s work in her latest notable book, Dear Science & Other Stories.

Dave Kemp
Dave Kemp is a visual artist whose practice looks at the intersections and interactions between art, science and technology: particularly at how these fields shape our perception and understanding of the world. His artworks have been exhibited widely at venues such as at the McIntosh Gallery, The Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Art Gallery of Mississauga, The Ontario Science Centre, York Quay Gallery, Interaccess, Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, and as part of the Switch video festival in Nenagh, Ireland. His works are also included in the permanent collections of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre and the Canada Council Art Bank.

Dolores Steinman
Dolores Steinman is a trained pediatrician who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. She is very active in several Art/Science communities locally and internationally.

Elaine Whittaker
Elaine Whittaker is a Canadian visual artist working at the intersection of art, science, medicine, and ecology. She considers biology as contemporary art practice and as the basis for her installations, sculptures, paintings, drawings, and digital images. Whittaker has exhibited in art and science galleries and museums in Canada, France, Italy, UK, Ireland, Latvia, China, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, and the U.S. Artwork created as Artist-in-Residence with the Pelling Laboratory for Augmented Biology (University of Ottawa) was exhibited in La Fabrique du Vivant at the Pompidou Centre, Paris  in 2019.  She was one of the first Artists-in-Residence with the Ontario Science Centre in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto. Her work has also been featured in art, literary, and medical magazines, and books, including Bio Art: Altered Realities by William Myers (2015).

Elizabeth Littlejohn
Elizabeth Littlejohn is a communications professor, human rights activist, photojournalist, and documentary film-maker. She has written for Rabble.ca for the past thirteen years on social movements, sustainable urban planning, and climate change. As a running gun social movement videographer, she has filmed internationally. Her articles, photojournalism, and videos have documented Occupy, Idle No More, and climate change movements, and her photographs have been printed in NOW Magazine, the Toronto Star, and Our Times.

Recently Elizabeth Littlejohn has completed ‘The City Island’, a feature-length documentary she directed about the razing of homes on the Toronto Islands and the islanders’ stewardship of the park system, with the support of the Canada Council. Currently, Elizabeth is developing the Toronto Island Puzzle Tour, an augmented-reality smartphone application with five locales depicting hidden history of the Toronto Island, and funded by the City of Toronto’s Artworx Grant.

Gita Hashemi
Gita Hashemi works in visual and performance art, digital and net art, and language-based art including live embodied writing, and in publishing. Her transdisciplinary, multi-platform and often site-responsive projects explore historical, trans-border and marginalized narratives and their traces in contemporary contexts. She has received numerous project grants from Canadian arts councils, and won awards from Toronto Community Foundation, Baddeck International New Media Festival, American Ad Federation, and Ontario Association of Art Galleries among others. Hashemi is an Ontario Heritage Trust’s Doris McCarthy Artist in Residence in 2021 with a land-based project. Her work has been exhibited at many international venues including SIGGRAPH, Los Angeles; Center for Book Arts, New York; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Plug-In, Basel; Casoria Museum of Contemporary Art, Naples; Al Kahf Art Gallery, Bethlehem; Red House Centre for Culture, Sofia; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Yucatan, Merida; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; Worth Ryder Gallery, Berkeley; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Santa Fe, Argentina; Museum of Movements, Malmo; and JolibaZWO, Berlin among others. In Canada her work has been presented at A Space Gallery, York Quay Gallery, YYZ, MAI, and Carlton University Art Gallery. She has exhibited in numerous festivals including Electroshock, France; VI Salon y coloquio internacional de art digital, Havana; New Media Art Festival, Bangkok; Biennale of Electronic Art, Perth; and New Music and Art Festival, Bowling Green and others.

Nina Czegledy
Toronto based artist, curator, educator, works internationally on collaborative art, science & technology projects. The changing perception of the human body and its environment, as well as paradigm shifts in the arts, inform her projects. She has exhibited and published widely, won awards for her artwork and has initiated, led and participated in workshops, forums and festivals worldwide at international events.

Roberta Buiani
Artistic Director of the ArtSci Salon at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences (Toronto). Her artistic work has travelled to art festivals (Transmediale; Hemispheric Institute Encuentro; Brazil), community centers and galleries (the Free Gallery Toronto; Immigrant Movement International, Queens, Museum of Toronto), and scientific institutions (RPI; the Fields Institute). She is a research associate at the Centre for Feminist Research and a Scholar in Residence at Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, at York University.

Tune in on Oct 3 [2021] at 10:30 AM EDT; 4:30 PM CET; 10:30 PM CST [Note: For those of us on the West Coast, that will 7:30 am PDT]

To view the video on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021, just go to the ‘Naturalized Encounters’ webpage on the ArtSci Salon website and scroll down.