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Toronto’s ArtSci Salon and its Kaleidoscopic Imaginations on Oct 27, 2020 – 7:30 pm (EDT)

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The ArtSci Salon is getting quite active these days. Here’s the latest from an Oct. 22, 2020 ArtSci Salon announcement (received via email), which can also be viewed on their Kaleidoscope event page,

Kaleidoscopic Imaginations

Performing togetherness in empty spaces

An experimental  collaboration between the ArtSci Salon, the Digital Dramaturgy Lab_squared/ DDL2 and Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, York University (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

7:30 pm [EDT]

Join our evening of live-streamed, multi-media  performances, following a kaleidoscopic dramaturgy of complexity discourses as inspired by computational complexity theory gatherings.

We are presenting installations, site-specific artistic interventions and media experiments, featuring networked audio and video, dance and performances as we repopulate spaces – The Fields Institute and surroundings – forced to lie empty due to the pandemic. Respecting physical distance and new sanitation and safety rules can be challenging, but it can also open up new ideas and opportunities.

NOTE: DDL2  contributions to this event are sourced or inspired by their recent kaleidoscopic performance “Rattling the the Curve – Paradoxical ECODATA performances of A/I (artistic intelligence), and facial recognition of humans and trees

Virtual space/live streaming concept and design: DDL2  Antje Budde, Karyn McCallum and Don Sinclair

Virtual space and streaming pilot: Don Sinclair

Here are specific programme details (from the announcement),

  1. Signing the Virus – Video (2 min.)
    Collaborators: DDL2 Antje Budde, Felipe Cervera, Grace Whiskin
  2. Niimi II – – Performance and outdoor video projection (15 min.)
    (Nimii means in Anishinaabemowin: s/he dances) Collaborators: DDL2 Candy Blair, Antje Budde, Jill Carter, Lars Crosby, Nina Czegledy, Dave Kemp
  3. Oracle Jane (Scene 2) – A partial playreading on the politics of AI (30 min.)
    Playwright: DDL2 Oracle Collaborators: DDL2 Antje Budde, Frans Robinow, George Bwannika Seremba, Amy Wong and AI ethics consultant Vicki Zhang
  4. Vriksha/Tree – Dance video and outdoor projection (8 min.)
    Collaborators: DDL2 Antje Budde, Lars Crosby, Astad Deboo, Dave Kemp, Amit Kumar
  5. Facial Recognition – Performing a Plate Camera from a Distance (3 min.)
    Collaborators: DDL2 Antje Budde, Jill Carter, Felipe Cervera, Nina Czegledy, Karyn McCallum, Lars Crosby, Martin Kulinna, Montgomery C. Martin, George Bwanika Seremba, Don Sinclair, Heike Sommer
  6. Cutting Edge – Growing Data (6 min.)
    DDL2 A performance by Antje Budde
  7. “void * ambience” – Architectural and instrumental acoustics, projection mapping Concept: Sensorium: The Centre for Digital Art and Technology, York University Collaborators: Michael Palumbo, Ilze Briede [Kavi], Debashis Sinha, Joel Ong

This performance is part of a series (from the announcement),

These three performances are part of Boundary-Crossings: Multiscalar Entanglements in Art, Science and Society, a public Outreach program supported by the Fiends [sic] Institute for Research in Mathematical Science. Boundary Crossings is a series exploring how the notion of boundaries can be transcended and dissolved in the arts and the humanities, the biological and the mathematical sciences, as well as human geography and political economy. Boundaries are used to establish delimitations among disciplines; to discriminate between the human and the non-human (body and technologies, body and bacteria); and to indicate physical and/or artificial boundaries, separating geographical areas and nation states. Our goal is to cross these boundaries by proposing new narratives to show how the distinctions, and the barriers that science, technology, society and the state have created can in fact be re-interpreted as porous and woven together.

This event is curated and produced by ArtSci Salon; Digital Dramaturgy Lab_squared/ DDL2; Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, York University; and Ryerson University; it is supported by The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences

…

Streaming Link 

Finally, the announcement includes biographical information about all of the ‘boundary-crossers’,

Candy Blair (Tkaron:to/Toronto)
Candy Blair/Otsίkh:èta (they/them) is a mixed First Nations/European,
2-spirit interdisciplinary visual and performing artist from Tio’tía:ke – where the group split (“Montreal”) in Québec.

While continuing their work as an artist they also finished their Creative Arts, Literature, and Languages program at Marianopolis College (cégep), their 1st year in the Theatre program at York University, and their 3rd year Acting Conservatory Program at the Centre For Indigenous Theatre in Tsí Tkaròn:to – Where the trees stand in water (Toronto”).

Some of Candy’s noteable performances are Jill Carter’s Encounters at the Edge of the Woods, exploring a range of issues with colonization; Ange Loft’s project Talking Treaties, discussing the treaties of the “Toronto” purchase; Cheri Maracle’s The Story of Six Nations, exploring Six Nation’s origin story through dance/combat choreography, and several other performances, exploring various topics around Indigenous language, land, and cultural restoration through various mediums such as dance,
modelling, painting, theatre, directing, song, etc. As an activist and soon to be entrepreneur, Candy also enjoys teaching workshops around promoting Indigenous resurgence such as Indigenous hand drumming, food sovereignty, beading, medicine knowledge, etc..

Working with their collectives like Weave and Mend, they were responsible for the design, land purification, and installation process of the four medicine plots and a community space with their 3 other members. Candy aspires to continue exploring ways of decolonization through healthy traditional practices from their mixed background and the arts in the hopes of eventually supporting Indigenous relations
worldwide.

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.

Roberta Buiani
Roberta Buiani (MA; PhD York University) is the 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 centres and galleries (the Free Gallery Toronto; Immigrant Movement
International, Queens, Myseum of Toronto), and science institutions (RPI; the Fields Institute). Her writing has appeared on Space and Culture, Cultural Studies and The Canadian Journal of Communication_among others. With the ArtSci Salon she has launched a series of experiments in “squatting academia”, by re-populating abandoned spaces and cabinets across university campuses with SciArt installations.

Currently, 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 [Toronto, Ontario, Canada].

Jill Carter (Tkaron:to/ Toronto)
Jill (Anishinaabe/Ashkenazi) is a theatre practitioner and researcher, currently cross appointed to the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies; the Transitional Year Programme; and Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto. She works with many members of Tkaron:to’s Indigenous theatre community to support the development of new works and to disseminate artistic objectives, process, and outcomes through community- driven research projects. Her scholarly research,
creative projects, and activism are built upon ongoing relationships with Indigenous Elders, Artists and Activists, positioning her as witness to, participant in, and disseminator of oral histories that speak to the application of Indigenous aesthetic principles and traditional knowledge systems to contemporary performance.The research questions she pursues revolve around the mechanics of story creation,
the processes of delivery and the manufacture of affect.

More recently, she has concentrated upon Indigenous pedagogical models for the rehearsal studio and the lecture hall; the application of Indigenous [insurgent] research methods within performance studies; the politics of land acknowledgements; and land – based dramaturgies/activations/interventions.

Jill also works as a researcher and tour guide with First Story Toronto; facilitates Land Acknowledgement, Devising, and Land-based Dramaturgy Workshops for theatre makers in this city; and performs with the Talking Treaties Collective (Jumblies Theatre, Toronto).

In September 2019, Jill directed Encounters at the Edge of the Woods. This was a devised show, featuring Indigenous and Settler voices, and it opened Hart House Theatre’s 100th season; it is the first instance of Indigenous presence on Hart House Theatre’s stage in its 100 years of existence as the cradle for Canadian theatre.

Nina Czegledy
(Toronto) 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, lead and participated in workshops, forums and festivals worldwide at international events.

Astad Deboo (Mumbai, India)
Astad Deboo is a contemporary dancer and choreographer who employs his
training in Indian classical dance forms of Kathak as well as Kathakali to create a dance form that is unique to him. He has become a pioneer of modern dance in India. Astad describes his style as “contemporary in vocabulary and traditional in restraints.” Throughout his long and illustrious career, he has worked with various prominent performers such as Pina Bausch, Alis on Becker Chase and Pink Floyd and performed in many parts of the world. He has been awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1996) and Padma Shri (2007), awarded by the Government of India. In January 2005 along with 12 young women with hearing impairment supported by the Astad Deboo Dance Foundation, he performed at the 20th Annual Deaf Olympics at Melbourne, Australia. Astad has a long record of working with disadvantaged youth.

Ilze Briede [Kavi]
Ilze Briede [artist name: Kavi] is a Latvian/Canadian artist and researcher with broad and diverse interests. Her artistic practice, a hybrid of video, image and object making, investigates the phenomenon of perception and the constraints and boundaries between the senses and knowing. Kavi is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Digital Media at York University with a research focus on computational creativity and generative art. She sees computer-generated systems and algorithms as a potentiality for co-creation and collaboration between human and machine. Kavi has previously worked and exhibited with Fashion Art Toronto, Kensington Market Art Fair, Toronto Burlesque Festival, Nuit Blanche, Sidewalk Toronto and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

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.

Stephen Morris
Stephen Morris is Professor of experimental non-linear Physics in the faculty of Physics at the University of Toronto. He is the scientific Director of the ArtSci salon at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. He often collaborates with artists and has himself performed and produced art involving his own scientific instruments and experiments in non-linear physics and pattern formation

Michael Palumbo
Michael Palumbo (MA, BFA) is an electroacoustic music improviser, coder, and researcher. His PhD research spans distributed creativity and version control systems, and is expressed through “git show”, a distributed electroacoustic music composition and design experiment, and “Mischmasch”, a collaborative modular synthesizer in virtual reality. He studies with Dr. Doug Van Nort as a researcher in the Distributed
Performance and Sensorial Immersion Lab, and Dr. Graham Wakefield at the Alice Lab for Computational Worldmaking. His works have been presented internationally, including at ISEA, AES, NIME, Expo ’74, TIES, and the Network Music Festival. He performs regularly with a modular synthesizer, runs the Exit Points electroacoustic improvisation series, and is an enthusiastic gardener and yoga practitioner.

Joel Ong (PhD. Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS, University
of Washington)
Joel Ong is a media artist whose works connect scientific and artistic approaches to the environment, particularly with respect to sound and physical space.  Professor Ong’s work explores the way objects and spaces can function as repositories of ‘frozen sound’, and in elucidating these, he is interested in creating what systems theorist Jack Burnham (1968) refers to as “art (that) does not reside in material entities, but in relations between people and between people and the components of their environment”.

A serial collaborator, Professor Ong is invested in the broader scope of Art-Science collaborations and is engaged constantly in the discourses and processes that facilitate viewing these two polemical disciplines on similar ground.  His graduate interdisciplinary work in nanotechnology and sound was conducted at SymbioticA, the Center of Excellence for Biological Arts at the University of Western Australia and supervised by BioArt pioneers and TCA (The Tissue Culture and Art Project) artists Dr Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts.

George Bwanika Seremba
George Bwanika Seremba,is an actor, playwright and scholar. He was born
in Uganda. George holds an M. Phil, and a Ph.D. in Theatre Studies, from Trinity
College Dublin. In 1980, having barely survived a botched execution by the Military Intelligence, he fled into exile, resettling in Canada (1983). He has performed in numerous plays including in his own, “Come Good Rain”, which was awarded a Dora award (1993). In addition, he published a number of edited play collections including “Beyond the pale: dramatic writing from First Nations writers & writers of colour” co-edited by Yvette Nolan, Betty Quan, George Bwanika Seremba. (1996).

George was nominated for the Irish Times’ Best Actor award in Dublin’s Calypso Theatre’s for his role in Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold and the boys”. In addition to theatre he performed in several movies and on television. His doctoral thesis (2008) entitled “Robert Serumaga and the Golden Age of Uganda’s Theatre (1968-1978): (Solipsism, Activism, Innovation)” will be published as a monograph by CSP (U.K) in 2021.

Don Sinclair (Toronto)
Don is Associate Professor in the Department of Computational Arts at York University. His creative research areas include interactive performance, projections for dance, sound art, web and data art, cycling art, sustainability, and choral singing most often using code and programming. Don is particularly interested in processes of artistic creation that integrate digital creative coding-based practices with performance in dance and theatre. As well, he is an enthusiastic cyclist.

Debashis Sinha
Driven by a deep commitment to the primacy of sound in creative expression, Debashis Sinha has realized projects in radiophonic art, music, sound art, audiovisual performance, theatre, dance, and music across Canada and internationally. Sound design and composition credits include numerous works for Peggy Baker Dance Projects and productions with Canada’s premiere theatre companies including The Stratford Festival, Soulpepper, Volcano Theatre, Young People’s Theatre, Project Humanity, The Theatre Centre, Nightwood Theatre, Why Not Theatre, MTC Warehouse and Necessary Angel. His live sound practice on the concert stage has led to appearances at MUTEK Montreal, MUTEK Japan, the Guelph Jazz Festival, the Banff Centre, The Music Gallery, and other venues. Sinha teaches sound design at York University and the National Theatre School, and is currently working on a multi-part audio/performance work incorporating machine learning and AI funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Vicki (Jingjing) Zhang (Toronto)
Vicki Zhang is a faculty member at University of Toronto’s statistics department. She is the author of Uncalculated Risks (Canadian Scholar’s Press, 2014). She is also a playwright, whose plays have been produced or stage read in various festivals and venues in Canada including Toronto’s New Ideas Festival, Winnipeg’s FemFest, Hamilton Fringe Festival, Ergo Pink Fest, InspiraTO festival, Toronto’s Festival of Original Theatre (FOOT), Asper Center for Theatre and Film, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO), and the Canadian Play Thing. She has also written essays and short fiction for Rookie Magazine and Thread.

If you can’t attend this Oct. 27, 2020 event, there’s still the Oct. 29, 2020 Boundary-Crossings event: Beauty Kit (see my Oct. 12, 2020 posting for more).

As for Kaleidoscopic Imaginations, you can access the Streaming Link On Oct. 27, 2020 at 7:30 pm EDT (4 pm PDT).

Two online events: Wednesday, May 20, 2020 and Saturday, May 23, 2020

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My reference point for date and time is almost always Pacific Time (PT). Depending on which time zone you live in, the day and date I’ve listed here may be incorrect. For anyone who has difficulty figuring out which day and time the event will take place where they live, a search for ‘time zone converter’ on one of the search engines should prove helpful.

May 20, 2020 at 7:30 pm (UK time): Complicité’s The Encounter

I received this May 19, 2020 announcement from The Space via email,

Over 80,000 people have watched Complicité’s award-winning production of The Encounter online and now the recording has been made available again – for one week only – in this revival, supported by The Space. You can watch online via the website or YouTube channel [from15 May until 22 May 2020.].

🎧 Enjoy the binaural sound – Make sure you wear headphones in order to experience the show’s impressive binaural sound design – any headphone will work, but playing out of computer speakers will not give the same effect. 

Join in a live Q&A – 20 May [2020] – A live discussion event and public Q&A will take place on Wednesday 20 May at 7:30pm (11:30 am PT) with Simon McBurney and guests including filmmaker Takumã Kuikuro (via a link to the Xingu region of the Amazon). Register to join the discussion.

Here’s a little more about the video performance from The Space’s Complicité invites you to The Encounter webpage,

In The Encounter, Director-performer Simon McBurney brings Petru Popescu’s book Amazon Beaming to life on stage.

The show follows the journey of Loren McIntyre, a photographer who got lost in Brazil’s remote Javari Valley in 1969.

It uses live and recorded 3D sound, video projections and loop pedals to recreate the intense atmosphere of the rainforest.

…

In the first live-streamed production ever to use 3D sound, viewers got the chance to experience the atmosphere of one of the strangest and most beautiful places on Earth – all through their headphones.

…

Complicité is a UK-based touring theatre company known for its imaginative original productions and adaptations of classic books and plays, and its groundbreaking use of technology. The Encounter is directed and performed by Simon McBurney, co-director is Kirsty Housley.

…

The Encounter is a little over two hours long.

Saturday, May 23, 2020 from 12 pm – 1:30 pm ET: Pandemic Encounters ::: being [together] in the deep third space

This May 19, 2020 announcement was received via email from the ArtSci Salon, one of the participants in this ‘encounter’, Note: I have made some changes to the formatting,

LEONARDO/ISAST and The Third Space Network announce the first Global LASER: Pandemic Encounters ::: being [together] in the deep third space on Saturday, May 23, 12-1:30pm EDT. This online performance installation is a creation of pioneering telematic artist Paul Sermon in collaboration with Randall Packer, Gregory Kuhn and the Third Space Network. (Locate your time zone)

Pandemic Encounters explores the implications of the migratory transition to the virtual space we are all experiencing. Even when we return to the so-called normal, we will be changed: when social interaction, human engagement, and being together will have undergone a radical transformation. In this new work, Paul Sermon performs as a live chroma-figure in a deep third space audio-visual networked environment, encountering pandemic spaces & action-performers from around the world – artists, musicians, dancers, media practitioners & scientists  – a collective response to a global pandemic that has triggered an unfolding metamorphosis of the human condition.

action-performers: Annie Abrahams (France), Clarissa Ribeiro (Brazil), Roberta Buiani (Canada), Andrew Denton (New Zealand), Bhavani Esapathi (UK), Tania Fraga (Brazil), Satinder Gill (US), Birgitta Hosea (UK), Charles Lane (US), Ng Wen Lei (Singapore), Marilene Oliver (Canada), Serena Pang (Singapore), Daniel Pinheiro (Portugal), Olga Remneva (Russia), Toni Sant (UK), Rejane Spitz (Brazil), Atau Tanaka (UK)

For more information: https://thirdspacenetwork.com/pandemic-encounters/

REGISTER & SAVE YOUR SPOT

Here’s more about the presentation partners,

The Third Space Network, created by Randall Packer, is an artist-driven Internet platform for staging creative dialogue, live performance and uncategorizable activisms: social empowerment through the act of becoming our own broadcast media.

Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST) is a nonprofit organization that serves the global network of distinguished scholars, artists, scientists, researchers and thinkers through our programs, which focus on interdisciplinary work, creative output and innovation.

Global LASER is a new series of networked events that bring together artists, scientists, and technologists in the creation of experimental forms of live Internet performance and creative dialogue.

Because I love the poster image for this event,

[downloaded from https://thirdspacenetwork.com/pandemic-encounters/]

FACTT 2020: Festival of Art and Science Exhibition, March 9th – March 12th, 2020 in Toronto plus some ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Arts) 2020 news

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The FACTT 2020: FESTIVAL ART AND SCIENCE EXHIBITION is the third time (I believe) that the ArtSci Salon in Toronto has hosted this event. Marta de Menezes and a FACTT festival were mentioned for the first time here in a January 10, 2018 posting titled: CRISPR/Cas9 as a tool for artists (Art/sci Salon January 2018 events in Toronto, Canada) and an event in Winnipeg, Canada.

Here’s more from the March 3, 2020 ArtSci Salon announcements (received via email),

Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technologies, ArtSci Salon, Cultivamos Cultura and Arte Institute present:

FACTT 2020: FESTIVAL ART AND SCIENCE Exhibition 
Monday, March 9th – Thursday, March 12th, 2020
11:00am-4:00pm
Gales Gallery (Accolade West Room 105) 
York University 

Exhibition Opening: March 9th from 6:00-7:30pm

Subway Stop, York University. 
Exit on the left – Accolade West is the building on the left

Don’t miss the 2020 Festival of Art and Science Exhibition – (Be)-Coming An Exhibition of Experimental Contemporary Art, co-sponsored by Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, ArtSci Salon, Arte Institute and Cultivamos Cultura. The exhibition features the work of invited artists from Portugal and North America, and AMPD students [I believe they are referring to students at York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design]. The exhibition is curated by Marta DeMenezes [sic], Roberta Buiani and Joel Ong.

All are welcome to attend the exhibition opening which will take place on March 9th from 6:00-7:30pm in the Gales Gallery at York University. 

More soon at http://facebook.com/artscisalon and/or
http://twitter.com/ArtSci_Salon

About FACTT 2020

FACTT 2020 – (BE) COMING An Exhibition of Experimental Contemporary Art is about the impermanence of becoming permanent. A transformation is an extreme, radical change. The unavoidability of changes is a constant process we have throughout our lives. We may not always be aware of it, and often just spend so much energy avoiding this “law of nature” that we forget it exists and thrives for stability. (BE) COMING is an exhibition about change, the impossibility of not changing, the perpetual impermanence and the process of becoming. As we become aware of the need to change in our world, in our planet and our lives, it feels necessary to remember that life is a dynamic process. Life is a consistent process of transformation and adaptation. Art, more than any other human endeavour, is a reflection of this aspect of life and therefore the best way to remember the process of being something different, something else, something more, or something less, while becoming ourselves. 

****ETA March 11, 2020: CANCELLED. The Marta De Menezes talk has been cancelled****

According to the March 3, 2020 announcement, there’s another event associated with FACTT 2020; artist Marta De Menezes is being featured in a talk,

Sensorium Winter Lunchtime Seminar Series featuring: Marta De Menezes [sic]

Wednesday, March 11th, 2020
11:30am-12:30pm
The Sensorium Research Loft  [York University}
4th Floor GCFA, Room M333
RSVP to sensinfo@yorku.ca

Our second Sensorium Winter Lunchtime Seminar Series event of March will feature pioneering bio-artist Marta De Menezes [sic] who explores the use of biology and biotechnology as new art media and in conducting her practice in research laboratories that are her art studio.

Here are links for each of the sponsors: ArtSci Salon, Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology, Arte Institute, and Cultivamos Cultura.

ISEA 2020

The 26th annual International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA): Why Sentience? is being held from May 19 – 24, 2020 in Montreal, Canada and organizers have sen,t via email, a March 3, 2020 announcement,

DISCOVER THE PRELIMINARY PROGRAMMING!

Below is the list of accepted authors* from the call for submissions to ISEA2020. *Speakers are confirmed upon registration

PRELIMINARY PROGRAMMING HERE

REGISTRATION

ISEA2020, from May 19 to 24, 2020, will bring together in Montreal the scientific, academic and artistic work based on research and creative practices that explore new technologies. Don’t miss it!

EARLY-BIRD RATE ENDS ON MARCH 16, 2020!

REGISTER HERE

Major events of Printemps numérique [Montreal Digital Spring; this organization is one of the ISEA 2020 partners]

MTL connect: Montreal Digital week

ISEA2020

#intersections series

Youth QC 2030

Keynote speakers, workshops, special sessions, performances, and screenings are still to come.

I hope this Covid 19 situation is resolved soon. In the last paragraph of my March 2, 2020 posting I offered some information about articles along with links for more information about the virus.

*****ETA March 5, 2020: The ISEA 2020 keynote speakers were announced on March 5, 2020. Here they are (from the ISEA 2020 Keynote Speakers page):

THIERRY BARDINI

Professor in the Communication department at Université de Montréal
Agronomist (ENSA Montpellier, 1986) and sociologist (Ph.D. Paris X Nanterre, 1991), Thierry Bardini is full professor in the department of communication at the Université de Montréal, where he has been teaching since 1993. From 1990 to 1993, he was a visiting scholar and adjunct professor at the Annenberg School for communication at the University of Southern California, under the supervision of Everett M. Rogers. His research interests concern the contemporary cyberculture, from the production and uses of information and communication technologies to molecular biology. He is the author of Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution and the Genesis of Personal Computing (Stanford University Press, 2000), Junkware  (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and Journey to the End of the Species (in collaboration with Dominique Lestel, Éditions Dis Voir, Paris, 2011). Thierry Bardini is currently working on his first research-creation project, Toward the Fourth Nature, with Beatriz Herrera and François-Joseph Lapointe.

Web Site : Université de Montréal

JOLENE RICKARD

Visual historian, artist and curator

Jolene Rickard, Ph.D. is a visual historian, artist and curator interested in the intersection of Indigenous knowledge and contemporary art, materiality, and ecocriticism with an emphasis on Hodinöhsö:ni aesthetics. A selection of publications includes: Diversifying Sovereignty and the Reception of Indigenous Art, Art Journal 76, no. 2 (2017), Aesthetics, Violence and Indigeneity, Public 27, no. 54 (Winter 2016), The Emergence of Global Indigenous Art, Sakahán, National Gallery of Canada (2013), and Visualizing Sovereignty in the Time of Biometric Sensors, The South Atlantic Quarterly: (2011). Recent exhibitions include the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, 2019-2021, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Art For a New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950’s to Now,  2018-2020. Jolene is a 2020 Fulbright Research Scholar at McMaster University, ON, an Associate Professor in the departments of History of Art and Art, and the former Director of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program 2008-2020 (AIISP) at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Jolene is from the Tuscarora Nation (Turtle Clan), Hodinöhsö:ni Confederacy.

Web Site: Cornell University

RAMON AMARO

Lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Dr. Ramon Amaro, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. Previously he was Research Fellow in Digital Culture at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam and visiting tutor in Media Theory at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, NL (KABK). Ramon completed his PhD in Philosophy at Goldsmiths, while holding a Masters degree in Sociological Research from the University of Essex and a BSe in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has worked as Assistant Editor for the SAGE open access journal Big Data & Society; quality design engineer for General Motors; and programmes manager for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). His research interests include machine learning, the philosophies of mathematics and engineering, critical Black thought, and philosophies of being.

Web Site : sambarhino.com and Twitter : https://twitter.com/sambarhino

I will try to keep up with the news from ISEA 2020: Why Sentience?

September 2019’s science’ish’ events in Toronto and Vancouver (Canada)

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There are movies, plays, a multimedia installation experience all in Vancouver, and the ‘CHAOSMOSIS mAchInesexhibition/performance/discussion/panel/in-situ experiments/art/ science/ techne/ philosophy’ event in Toronto. But first, there’s a a Vancouver talk about engaging scientists in the upcoming federal election. .

Science in the Age of Misinformation (and the upcoming federal election) in Vancouver

Dr. Katie Gibbs, co-founder and executive director of Evidence for Democracy, will be giving a talk today (Sept. 4, 2019) at the University of British Columbia (UBC; Vancouver). From the Eventbrite webpage for Science in the Age of Misinformation,

Science in the Age of Misinformation, with Katie Gibbs, Evidence for Democracy
In the lead up to the federal election, it is more important than ever to understand the role that researchers play in shaping policy. Join us in this special Policy in Practice event with Dr. Katie Gibbs, Executive Director of Evidence for Democracy, Canada’s leading, national, non-partisan, and not-for-profit organization promoting science and the transparent use of evidence in government decision making. A Musqueam land acknowledgement, welcome remarks and moderation of this event will be provided by MPPGA students Joshua Tafel, and Chengkun Lv.

Wednesday, September 4, 2019
12:30 pm – 1:50 pm (Doors will open at noon)
Liu Institute for Global Issues – xʷθəθiqətəm (Place of Many Trees), 1st floor
Pizza will be provided starting at noon on first come, first serve basis. Please RSVP.

What role do researchers play in a political environment that is increasingly polarized and influenced by misinformation? Dr. Katie Gibbs, Executive Director of Evidence for Democracy, will give an overview of the current state of science integrity and science policy in Canada highlighting progress made over the past four years and what this means in a context of growing anti-expert movements in Canada and around the world. Dr. Gibbs will share concrete ways for researchers to engage heading into a critical federal election [emphasis mine], and how they can have lasting policy impact.

Bio: Katie Gibbs is a scientist, organizer and advocate for science and evidence-based policies. While completing her Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa in Biology, she was one of the lead organizers of the ‘Death of Evidence’—one of the largest science rallies in Canadian history. Katie co-founded Evidence for Democracy, Canada’s leading, national, non-partisan, and not-for-profit organization promoting science and the transparent use of evidence in government decision making. Her ongoing success in advocating for the restoration of public science in Canada has made Katie a go-to resource for national and international media outlets including Science, The Guardian and the Globe and Mail.

Katie has also been involved in international efforts to increase evidence-based decision-making and advises science integrity movements in other countries and is a member of the Open Government Partnership Multi-stakeholder Forum.

Disclaimer: Please note that by registering via Eventbrite, your information will be stored on the Eventbrite server, which is located outside Canada. If you do not wish to use this service, please email Joelle.Lee@ubc.ca directly to register. Thank you.

Location
Liu Institute for Global Issues – Place of Many Trees
6476 NW Marine Drive
Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z2

Sadly I was not able to post the information about Dr. Gibbs’s more informal talk last night (Sept. 3, 2019) which was a special event with Café Scientifique but I do have a link to a website encouraging anyone who wants to help get science on the 2019 federal election agenda, Vote Science. P.S. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to post this in a more timely fashion.

Transmissions; a multimedia installation in Vancouver, September 6 -28, 2019

Here’s a description for the multimedia installation, Transmissions, in the August 28, 2019 Georgia Straight article by Janet Smith,

Lisa Jackson is a filmmaker, but she’s never allowed that job description to limit what she creates or where and how she screens her works.

The Anishinaabe artist’s breakout piece was last year’s haunting virtual-reality animation Biidaaban: First Light. In its eerie world, one that won a Canadian Screen Award, nature has overtaken a near-empty, future Toronto, with trees growing through cracks in the sidewalks, vines enveloping skyscrapers, and people commuting by canoe.

…

All that and more has brought her here, to Transmissions, a 6,000-square-foot, immersive film installation that invites visitors to wander through windy coastal forests, by hauntingly empty glass towers, into soundscapes of ancient languages, and more.

Through the labyrinthine multimedia work at SFU [Simon Fraser University] Woodward’s, Jackson asks big questions—about Earth’s future, about humanity’s relationship to it, and about time and Indigeneity.

Simultaneously, she mashes up not just disciplines like film and sculpture, but concepts of science, storytelling, and linguistics [emphasis mine].

…

“The tag lines I’m working with now are ‘the roots of meaning’ and ‘knitting the world together’,” she explains. “In western society, we tend to hive things off into ‘That’s culture. That’s science.’ But from an Indigenous point of view, it’s all connected.”

Transmissions is split into three parts, with what Jackson describes as a beginning, a middle, and an end. Like Biidaaban, it’s also visually stunning: the artist admits she’s playing with Hollywood spectacle.

Without giving too much away—a big part of the appeal of Jackson’s work is the sense of surprise—Vancouver audiences will first enter a 48-foot-long, six-foot-wide tunnel, surrounded by projections that morph from empty urban streets to a forest and a river. Further engulfing them is a soundscape that features strong winds, while black mirrors along the floor skew perspective and play with what’s above and below ground.

“You feel out of time and space,” says Jackson, who wants to challenge western society’s linear notions of minutes and hours. “I want the audience to have a physical response and an emotional response. To me, that gets closer to the Indigenous understanding. Because the Eurocentric way is more rational, where the intellectual is put ahead of everything else.”

Viewers then enter a room, where the highly collaborative Jackson has worked with artist Alan Storey, who’s helped create Plexiglas towers that look like the ghost high-rises of an abandoned city. (Storey has also designed other components of the installation.) As audience members wander through them on foot, projections make their shadows dance on the structures. Like Biidaaban, the section hints at a postapocalyptic or posthuman world. Jackson operates in an emerging realm of Indigenous futurism.

…

The words “science, storytelling, and linguistics” were emphasized due to a minor problem I have with terminology. Linguistics is defined as the scientific study of language combining elements from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. I wish either Jackson or Smith had discussed the scientific element of Transmissions at more length and perhaps reconnected linguistics to science along with the physics of time and space, as well as, storytelling, film, and sculpture. It would have been helpful since it’s my understanding, Transmissions is designed to showcase all of those connections and more in ways that may not be obvious to everyone. On the plus side, perhaps the tour, which is part of this installation experience includes that information.

I have a bit .more detail (including logistics for the tours) from the SFU Events webpage for Transmissions,

Transmissions
September 6 – September 28, 2019

The Roots of Meaning
World Premiere
September 6 – 28, 2019

Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre
SFU Woodward’s, 149 West Hastings
Tuesday to Friday, 1pm to 7pm
Saturday and Sunday, 1pm to 5pm
FREE

In partnership with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs and produced by Electric Company Theatre and Violator Films.

TRANSMISSIONS is a three-part, 6000 square foot multimedia installation by award-winning Anishinaabe filmmaker and artist Lisa Jackson. It extends her investigation into the connections between land, language, and people, most recently with her virtual reality work Biidaaban: First Light.

Projections, sculpture, and film combine to create urban and natural landscapes that are eerie and beautiful, familiar and foreign, concrete and magical. Past and future collide in a visceral and thought-provoking journey that questions our current moment and opens up the complexity of thought systems embedded in Indigenous languages. Radically different from European languages, they embody sets of relationships to the land, to each other, and to time itself.

Transmissions invites us to untether from our day-to-day world and imagine a possible future. It provides a platform to activate and cross-pollinate knowledge systems, from science to storytelling, ecology to linguistics, art to commerce. To begin conversations, to listen deeply, to engage varied perspectives and expertise, to knit the world together and find our place within the circle of all our relations.

…

Produced in association with McMaster University Socrates Project, Moving Images Distribution and Cobalt Connects Creativity.

….

Admission:  Free Public Tours
Tuesday through Sunday
Reservations accepted from 1pm to 3pm.  Reservations are booked in 15 minute increments.  Individuals and groups up to 10 welcome.
Please email: sfuw@sfu.ca for more information or to book groups of 10 or more.

Her Story: Canadian Women Scientists (short film subjects); Sept. 13 – 14, 2019

Curiosity Collider, producer of art/science events in Vancouver, is presenting a film series featuring Canadian women scientists, according to an August 27 ,2019 press release (received via email),

“Her Story: Canadian Women Scientists,” a film series dedicated to sharing the stories of Canadian women scientists, will premiere on September 13th and 14th at the Annex theatre. Four pairs of local filmmakers and Canadian women scientists collaborated to create 5-6 minute videos; for each film in the series, a scientist tells her own story, interwoven with the story of an inspiring Canadian women scientist who came before her in her field of study.

Produced by Vancouver-based non-profit organization Curiosity Collider, this project was developed to address the lack of storytelling videos showcasing remarkable women scientists and their work available via popular online platforms. “Her Story reveals the lives of women working in science,” said Larissa Blokhuis, curator for Her Story. “This project acts as a beacon to girls and women who want to see themselves in the scientific community. The intergenerational nature of the project highlights the fact that women have always worked in and contributed to science.

This sentiment was reflected by Samantha Baglot as well, a PhD student in neuroscience who collaborated with filmmaker/science cartoonist Armin Mortazavi in Her Story. “It is empowering to share stories of previous Canadian female scientists… it is empowering for myself as a current female scientist to learn about other stories of success, and gain perspective of how these women fought through various hardships and inequality.”

When asked why seeing better representation of women in scientific work is important, artist/filmmaker Michael Markowsky shared his thoughts. “It’s important for women — and their male allies — to question and push back against these perceived social norms, and to occupy space which rightfully belongs to them.” In fact, his wife just gave birth to their first child, a daughter; “It’s personally very important to me that she has strong female role models to look up to.” His film will feature collaborating scientist Jade Shiller, and Kathleen Conlan – who was named one of Canada’s greatest explorers by Canadian Geographic in 2015.

Other participating filmmakers and collaborating scientists include: Leslie Kennah (Filmmaker), Kimberly Girling (scientist, Research and Policy Director at Evidence for Democracy), Lucas Kavanagh and Jesse Lupini (Filmmakers, Avocado Video), and Jessica Pilarczyk (SFU Assistant Professor, Department of Earth Sciences).

This film series is supported by Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science and Technology (WWEST) and Eng.Cite. The venue for the events is provided by Vancouver Civic Theatres.

Event Information

Screening events will be hosted at Annex (823 Seymour St, Vancouver) on September 13th and 14th [2019]. Events will also include a talkback with filmmakers and collab scientists on the 13th, and a panel discussion on representations of women in science and culture on the 14th. Visit http://bit.ly/HerStoryTickets2019 for tickets ($14.99-19.99) and http://bit.ly/HerStoryWomenScientists for project information.

I have a film collage,

Courtesy: Curiosity Collider

I looks like they’re presenting films with a diversity of styles. You can find out more about Curiosity Collider and its various programmes and events here.

Vancouver Fringe Festival September 5 – 16, 2019

I found two plays in this year’s fringe festival programme that feature science in one way or another. Not having seen either play I make no guarantees as to content. First up is,

AI Love You
Exit Productions
London, UK
Playwright: Melanie Anne Ball
exitproductionsltd.com

Adam and April are a regular 20-something couple, very nearly blissfully generic, aside from one important detail: one of the pair is an “artificially intelligent companion.” Their joyful veneer has begun to crack and they need YOU to decide the future of their relationship. Is the freedom of a robot or the will of a human more important?
For AI Love You: 

***** “Magnificent, complex and beautifully addictive.” —Spy in the Stalls 
**** “Emotionally charged, deeply moving piece … I was left with goosebumps.” —West End Wilma 
**** —London City Nights 
Past shows: 
***** “The perfect show.” —Theatre Box

Intellectual / Intimate / Shocking / 14+ / 75 minutes

…

The first show is on Friday, September 6, 2019 at 5 pm. There are another five showings being presented. You can get tickets and more information here.

The second play is this,

Red Glimmer
Dusty Foot Productions
Vancouver, Canada
Written & Directed by Patricia Trinh

Abstract Sci-Fi dramedy. An interdimensional science experiment! Woman involuntarily takes an all inclusive internal trip after falling into a deep depression. A scientist is hired to navigate her neurological pathways from inside her mind – tackling the fact that humans cannot physically re-experience somatosensory sensation, like pain. What if that were the case for traumatic emotional pain? A creepy little girl is heard running by. What happens next?

Weird / Poetic / Intellectual / LGBTQ+ / Multicultural / 14+ / Sexual Content / 50 minutes

This show is created by an underrepresented Artist.
Written, directed, and produced by local theatre Artist Patricia Trinh, a Queer, Asian-Canadian female.

The first showing is tonight, September 5, 2019 at 8:30 pm. There are another six showings being presented. You can get tickets and more information here.

CHAOSMOSIS mAchInes exhibition/performance/discussion/panel/in-situ experiments/art/ science/ techne/ philosophy, 28 September, 2019 in Toronto

An Art/Sci Salon September 2, 2019 announcement (received via email), Note: I have made some formatting changes,

CHAOSMOSIS mAchInes

28 September, 2019 
7pm-11pm.
Helen-Gardiner-Phelan Theatre, 2nd floor
University of Toronto. 79 St. George St.

A playful co-presentation by the Topological Media Lab (Concordia U-Montreal) and The Digital Dramaturgy Labsquared (U of T-Toronto). This event is part of our collaboration with DDLsquared lab, the Topological Lab and the Leonardo LASER network


7pm-9.30pm, Installation-performances, 
9.30pm-11pm, Reception and cash bar, Front and Long Room, Ground floor


Description:
From responsive sculptures to atmosphere-creating machines; from sensorial machines to affective autonomous robots, Chaosmosis mAchInes is an eclectic series of installations and performances reflecting on today’s complex symbiotic relations between humans, machines and the environment.


This will be the first encounter between Montreal-based Topological Media Lab (Concordia University) and the Toronto-based Digital Dramaturgy Labsquared (U of T) to co-present current process-based and experimental works. Both labs have a history of notorious playfulness, conceptual abysmal depth, human-machine interplays, Art&Science speculations (what if?), collaborative messes, and a knack for A/I as in Artistic Intelligence.


Thanks to  Nina Czegledy (Laser series, Leonardo network) for inspiring the event and for initiating the collaboration


Visit our Facebook event page 
Register through Evenbrite


Supported by


Main sponsor: Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, U of T
Sponsors: Computational Arts Program (York U.), Cognitive Science Program (U of T), Knowledge Media Design Institute (U of T), Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST), Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC), The Centre for Comparative Literature (U of T)
A collaboration between
Laser events, Leonardo networks – Science Artist, Nina Czegledy
ArtsSci Salon – Artistic Director, Roberta Buiani
Digital Dramaturgy Labsquared – Creative Research Director, Antje Budde
Topological Media Lab – Artistic-Research Co-directors, Michael Montanaro | Navid Navab


Project presentations will include:
Topological Media Lab
tangibleFlux φ plenumorphic ∴ chaosmosis
SPIEL
On Air
The Sound That Severs Now from Now
Cloud Chamber (2018) | Caustic Scenography, Responsive Cloud Formation
Liquid Light
Robots: Machine Menagerie
Phaze
Phase
Passing Light
Info projects
Digital Dramaturgy Labsquared
Btw Lf & Dth – interFACING disappearance
Info project

This is a very active September.

ETA September 4, 2019 at 1607 hours PDT: That last comment is even truer than I knew when I published earlier. I missed a Vancouver event, Maker Faire Vancouver will be hosted at Science World on Saturday, September 14. Here’s a little more about it from a Sept. 3, 2019 at Science World at Telus Science World blog posting,

Earlier last month [August 2019?], surgeons at St Paul’s Hospital performed an ankle replacement for a Cloverdale resident using a 3D printed bone. The first procedure of its kind in Western Canada, it saved the patient all of his ten toes — something doctors had originally decided to amputate due to the severity of the motorcycle accident.

Maker Faire Vancouver Co-producer, John Biehler, may not be using his 3D printer for medical breakthroughs, but he does see a subtle connection between his home 3D printer and the Health Canada-approved bone.

“I got into 3D printing to make fun stuff and gadgets,” John says of the box-sized machine that started as a hobby and turned into a side business. “But the fact that the very same technology can have life-changing and life-saving applications is amazing.”

When John showed up to Maker Faire Vancouver seven years ago, opportunities to access this hobby were limited. Armed with a 3D printer he had just finished assembling the night before, John was hoping to meet others in the community with similar interests to build, experiment and create. Much like the increase in accessibility to these portable machines has changed over the years—with universities, libraries and makerspaces making them readily available alongside CNC Machines, laser cutters and more — John says the excitement around crafting and tinkering has skyrocketed as well.

“The kind of technology that inspires people to print a bone or spinal insert all starts at ground zero in places like a Maker Faire where people get exposed to STEAM,” John says …

…

… From 3D printing enthusiasts like John to knitters, metal artists and roboticists, this full one-day event [Maker Faire Vancouver on Saturday, September 14, 2019] will facilitate cross-pollination between hobbyists, small businesses, artists and tinkerers. Described as part science fair, part county fair and part something entirely new, Maker Faire Vancouver hopes to facilitate discovery and what John calls “pure joy moments.”

Hopefully that’s it.

Fields Centre for Quantitative Analysis and Modelling (CQAM) and ArtSci Salon: call for mathematical artworks

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Currently, the deadline is July 26, 2019. For information about the call, there’s a July 6, 2019 ArtSci Salon announcement (received via email) about the call). Note: Both the Art/Sci Salon and CQAM are located in Toronto, Ontario but this is not limited to Canadian artists as far as I can tell,

Please, see this quick call!! this is for existing artworks: do you have
any math-related digital work/photography/drawing/ in high res? please
consider submitting!!!

…

Call for Artworks
Fields CQAM – ArtSci Salon
deadline: July 26, 2019

The Fields Centre for Quantitative Analysis and Modeling and ArtSci
Salon are looking for Mathematically related, Mathematically inspired,
or Mathematically informed artworks to feature on a limited series of
cards and small prints.

Fields CQAM (CQAM https://www.cqam.ca/ … is a research centre
comprised of 11 labs pairing leading researchers and industry from
across Ontario, simultaneously training a new pool of quantitative
scientists while enabling rapid translation of innovations from idea to
implementation. Mathematical modeling data analytics and visualization,
geometry processing and fabrication, health analytics, and human machine
interaction are only a few of the diverse research fields the centre is
engaged in. Please, check their website …for more information.

The artwork will be printed on cards. A limited number of bigger prints
will be distributed to volunteers who have made an outstanding
contribution to Fields CQAM. The selected artist will receive an
honorarium of $300 – $500 [CAD].

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

– Artworks can engage with a variety of topics in mathematics. For
instance, they can complement themes explored by CQAM labs.

– Acceptable formats are: Black & White or Color digitally generated
artworks (like visualizations, or digitally produced illustrations);
reproductions of paintings and other canvas-based work; photographic
work; drawings and other illustrations etc. Artworks must be high res
(see below)

– Size can vary (5X7in, 4X6in, 5x5in, 3×3 etc., keep in mind that the
artwork must fit a rectangular or squared-shaped – card).

TECHNICAL INSTRUCTIONS

Please, send the following material tracy.barber@cqam.ca via WeTransfer
(use free version) https://wetransfer.com/ …

– 1 high res (300dpi) image

– a short bio

– a short description of the artwork

The deadline to propose your artwork is July 26, 2019

For more information please contact Tracy Barber (CQAM)
tracy.barber@cqam.ca

Or Roberta Buiani (ArtSci Salon) rbuiani@gmail.com

I’m guessing this art/sci call for artworks is being handled exclusively by the Art/Sci Salon folks since there doesn’t seem to be any additional information about it on the CQAM website.

A biotech talk: Re – [Generating, Creating, Interpreting] on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 5:30 pm in Toronto, Ontario (Canada)

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[downloaded from https://artscisalon.com/re-generating-creating-interpreting-tuesday-april-30-530-pm-ocadu/]

This image is intriguing as it’s being used to illustrate an ArtSci Salon April 30, 2019 event about biotechnology (from the Re – [Generating, Creating, Interpreting] event webpage),

Re – [Generating, Creating, Interpreting]

Conversations about Life

We live in strange times. We mourn for the countless lives we are losing to extinction, famine, severe weather and disease; we celebrate the possibility that science may assist us in preserving what we have and in regenerating what is no more. We aspire to re-create long gone species and proceed to create new one. Biotechnologies both terrify and invigorate us. We are torn between creating risk free futures and taking exciting Promethean risks. We claim that biotech can create a more democratic society; yet, we are increasingly racist, sexist and classist.

What’s at stake? How can life unfold from here? How do we reinterpret and re-imagine it? Join us for a series of brief presentations and a following juicy discussion. There will be refreshments. …And juice

With:

Joana Magalhães
Institute of Biomedical Research, A Coruña (INIBIC)

Polona Tratnik
Research Institute for Humanities, Alma Mater Europaea, Ljubljana

Roberta Buiani
Centre for Feminist Research, York University, Toronto

Moderated by:

Dolores Steinman
Biomedical Simulation Lab (BSL)

Tuesday, April 30
5.30 pm
OCADU (Ontario College of Art and Design University)
DF Salon, Room 701K  (7th floor)
205 Richmond St W

RSVP  https://www.facebook.com/events/811144362603498/

For the curious, here are the bios (also from the Re – [Generating, Creating, Interpreting] event webpage),

Roberta Buiani (PhD Communication and Culture, YorkU) is an interdisciplinary artist, media scholar and curator based in Toronto. She is the co-founder of the ArtSci Salon at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences (Toronto) and co-organizer of LASER Toronto. Her recent SSHRC-funded research creation project draws on feminist technoscience and on collaborative encounters across the sciences and the arts to investigate emerging life forms exceeding the categories defined by traditional methods of classification. Her artistic work has travelled to art festivals (Transmediale; Hemispheric Institute Encuentro; Brazil), community centres and galleries (the Free Gallery Toronto; Immigrant Movement International, Queens, Myseum of Toronto), and science institutions (RPI; the Fields Institute). Her writing has appeared on Space and Culture, Cultural Studies and The Canadian Journal of Communication among others. With the ArtSci Salon she has launched a series of experiments in “squatting academia”, by re-populating abandoned spaces and cabinets across university campuses with SciArt installations. Currently, she is a research associate at the Centre for Feminist Research at York University. ArtSci Salon website: https://artscisalon.com Personal http://atomarborea.net

Joana Magalhães holds a B.Sc. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of A Coruña, Spain, working in the field of regenerative medicine strategies for osteoarthritis. Previous positions include a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Spanish Networking Biomedical Center and a Marie Curie PhD Fellowship at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research. In parallel with her scientific career, she develops STEAM-for-health media strategies from a gender perspective that received several national and international awards (Science on Stage 2017 for Radio, Press and TV or SCI-DOC Festival Mention of honour Women in Science Category 2018). Currently, she is Correspondent for “Women in Science” at Efervesciencia Radio Program. Moreover, she was a scientist-in-residence at Fundación Luis Seoane and Artesacía Theatrical Company for “TRANSCÉNICA” – I Transmedia Creators Meeting (2015). She is the Spanish Representative at the Young Scientist Forum – European Society of Biomaterials and Board Member of the Association of Women in Science and Technology (AMIT) – Galician Node. http://jomagellan.tumblr.com

Dolores Steinman Biomedical Simulation Lab, University of Toronto.

Dr. Steinman’s involvement with the Biomedical Simulation Laboratory (BSL), at the University of Toronto, is based on her experience as an MD (Romania) and PhD in Cell Biology (Canada) that led her to contribute in situating the BSL’s “patient-specific” computer-based simulations in the socio-historical, ethical and aesthetic context of medical imaging and imagery.

Polona Tratnik, Ph.D., is Dean of Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Faculty and Research Institute for Humanities, Ljubljana [Slovenia], where she is a Professor and Head of Research as well. She also teaches courses at the Faculty for Media and Communication at Singidunum University in Serbia, at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Ljubljana, at the Faculty of Education of the University of Maribor and at the Faculty for Design of the University of Primorska. She used to be the Head of the Department for Cultural Studies at the Faculty for Humanities of the University of Primorska. In 2012 she was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar, as well as a Guest Professor at the University of California Santa Cruz. She was a Guest Professor also at the Capital Normal University Bejing (China), at the Faculty for Art and Design Helsinki TAIK (Finland), and at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México(Mexico City). She is president of the Slovenian Society of Aesthetics (since 2011) and an Executive Committee Member of the International Association of Aesthetics. She has authored seven monographs and one proceeding as single author, including the Hacer-vivir más allá del cuerpo y del medio (Mexico City: Herder, 2013), Art as Intervention(Sophia, 2017) and Conquest of Body. Biopower with Biotechnology (Springer, 2017). Polona Tratnik is a pioneer bio artist exhibiting worldwide at shows such as Ars Electronica festival and BEAP festival in Perth .http://www.polona-tratnik.si

It should be a stimulating discussion although I am curious as to about omission from this list: “… biotech can create a more democratic society; yet, we are increasingly racist, sexist and classist. ” What about age or, more specifically, ageism? Maybe next time, eh?

A Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) March 26, 2019 talk on Shifting the plastic landscape: bio-plastics, circular economy and sustainable material management and Superorganism ciy and Evolution in Toronto

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I recently received three email announcements that might be of interest to people looking for science and/or art/science events.Of course, they are taking place thousands of kilometers apart.

March 26, 2019 Café Scientifique event in Vancouver

Café Scientifique sent out a March 7, 2019 email announcement about,

Our next café will happen on TUESDAY, MARCH 26TH at 7:30PM in the back
room at YAGGER’S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the
evening will be DR. LOVE-ESE CHILE, founder of Grey to Green Sustainable
Solutions.

SHIFTING THE PLASTIC LANDSCAPE: BIO-PLASTICS, CIRCULAR ECONOMY AND
SUSTAINABLE MATERIAL MANAGEMENT

Growing public and scientific opinion are driving businesses and
policy-makers to change the way plastics circulate through our
communities. Moving away from a linear supply chain that allows a
multitude of plastic to seep out into the environment, this talk will
discuss new ideas and technology being implemented to move plastics into
a circular supply loop.

Dr. Love-Ese Chile is a sustainable plastic researcher based in
Vancouver, BC. Arriving from New Zealand, Ese completed her doctoral
thesis on biodegradable plastics at the University of British Columbia
in 2017. During her studies, Ese became a vocal supporter of
sustainability, green chemistry and community-driven science. In 2018,
Dr. Chile started a research consulting company, Grey to Green
Sustainable Solutions, that works with local businesses, not-for-profit
groups and policy-makers to increase understanding of the sustainable
plastic supply chain and develop new technologies that will allow
plastics to transition into a circular economy.

We hope to see you there!

I love her name and I couldn’t find too much information other than her LinkedIn page and her page on Research Gate. Her first name reminds of flower names and her last name does not signify her country of origin, which is New Zealand. Enjoy!

Superorganism city on March 27 and 28, 2019 in Toronto

Toronto’s Art/Sci Salon’s email announcement was also received on March 7, 2019 ( Note: The formatting has been changed),

Superorganism city

A LECTURE, A WORKSHOP AND A COLLECTIVE EXPERIMENT EXPLORING ART, BIOLOGY AND URBANIS

We are pleased to invite you to a series of events featuring interdisciplinary artist Heather Barnett and Physarum polycephalum: during her visit, Barnett will present her recent research, will conduct a workshop, and will explore the city of Toronto, inspired by the nonhuman perspective of this organism, also known as slime mould.

…


The slime mould (Physarum polycephalum) is a bright yellow amoeba that possesses primitive intelligence, problem solving skills and memory. It is highly efficient at forming networks between given points and has been used to map the worlds’ transport networks, migration routes and desire paths. Most notably, in 2010 it accurately replicated the Tokyo suburban rail network. The slime mould is also quite beautiful, the branching patterns reminiscent of forms seen at varying scales within nature, from blood vessels to tree branches, from river deltas to lightning flashes. It can learn about its environment, remember where it’s been and navigate through complex territories – all without any sensory organs and not a single neuron to its name.

Join us to these events:
 
RESEARCH TALK
March 27 2:00-3:00 PM 
Sensorium (YORK U) *
 
WORKSHOP (by invitation)
March 28 1:00-4:00 PM
Wilson Hall (UofT) *
 
COLLECTIVE EXPERIMENT
March 30 1:00-5:00 PM
Wilson Hall (UofT)  

*  Sensorium Research Loft
Level 4
Joan & Martin Goldfarb
Centre for Fine Arts
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
https://sensorium.ampd.yorku.ca/research-loft/

**  Wilson Hall
Student Lounge
(2nd floor)
University of Toronto
40 Willcocks street
Toronto, ON
M5S 1C6

Biography:
Heather Barnett’s art practice engages with natural phenomena and complex systems. Working with live organisms, imaging technologies and playful pedagogies, her work explores how we observe, influence and understand the world around us. Recent work centres around nonhuman intelligence, collective behaviour and knowledge systems, including The Physarum Experiments, an ongoing ‘collaboration’ with an intelligent slime mould; Animal Collectives collaborative research with SHOAL Group at Swansea University; and a series of publicly sited collective interdisciplinary bio/social experiments, including Crowd Control and Nodes and Networks.

This event has been possible thanks to the support of the School of Cities and New College (UofT), and is a collaboration between ArtSci Salon, Sensorium, the Research Centre for Creative inquiry and Experimentation, the Departments of Computational Art and Visual Art & Art History at York University
 
Research for this event was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
 
ArtSci Salon is an interdisciplinary program hosted by the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. LASER – Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous is a project of Leonardo® /ISAST

For anyone who’d like to see the poster in its original format, go here. I don’t believe you have to register for either of the two public events.

Evolution – Exhibition and Panel Discussion on March 29, 2019 in Toronto

On March 9, 2019 I received another Art/Sci Salon email announcement (Note: The formatting has been changed),

Evolution – Exhibition and Panel Discussion March 29, 2019
What is nature and the evolution of living beings is an inevitable issue. While searching for the answer to this and other questions around Nature and its variations, we find what we are and how we stand among all organisms and in the world. Charles Darwin offered the world a simple scientific explanation for the diversity of life on Earth: evolution by natural selection. Countless scientists have found that Darwin’s work is fundamental to their own.

Contemporary scientists can now answer questions about the natural world in ways Darwin never could. New tools and technologies, such as DNA analyses, can reveal unexpected relationships between seemingly dissimilar groups.

This event consists of an exhibition (part of FACTT-TO) and a panel discussion. Together, they interrogate the meaning, the relevance and the implications of evolution from different vantage points, including perspectives from a range of scientific disciplines, technological approaches, and artistic practices. We wish to reflect on the condition of co-habitation and co-existence of human and non-humans in this world (and beyond?) and pose questions about transformation; forced or elective mutation and survival; agency and decision making; conservation and intervention.
 
Text by Marta de Menezes and Roberta Buiani

Join us March 29 for the opening and tour of FACTT, followed by a panel discussion

5:00 pm Opening Tour

Meet us in Sidney Smith (University of Toronto), 100 St George street (enter from Huron street)

Stop#1 – Sidney Smith Commons (Huron Street side)

Stop#2 – McLennan Physics Labs (60 St. George street)

Artists: André Sier; Elaine Whittaker; Felipe Shibuya & Pedro Cruz; Gunes-Helene Isitan; Jenifer Wightman; Jennifer Willet; Jude Abu-Zaineh; Kathy High; Maria Francisca Abreu-Afonso; Maria Manuela Lopez; Nicole Clouston; Nigel Helyer; Suzanne Anker; Tarah Roda; Tosca Teràn

6:00-8:00 pm Panel Discussion

The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
Rm 23

Guests:

Marta DeMenezes – Artistic Director, Ectopia; Director, Cultivamos Cultura

Gary Smith – Artist and landscape architect, Visiting Artist at Santa Clara University

Boris Steipe – Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Department of Molecular Genetics

Jenifer Wightman – Research Associate (Cornell) and Lecturer (New School/Parsons)

Biographies

Marta DeMenezes is a Portuguese artist (b. Lisbon, 1975) with a degree in Fine Arts by the University in Lisbon, and a MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture by the University of Oxford. She has been exploring the interaction between Art and Biology, working in research laboratories demonstrating that new biological technologies, DNA, proteins and live organisms can be used as an art medium. Her work has been presented internationally in exhibitions, articles and lectures. She is since 2005 artistic director of Ectopia – Experimental Art Laboratory and from 2009 director of Cultivamos Cultura – Association. http://martademenezes.com

Gary Smith lectures frequently at botanical gardens, art museums, and professional conferences. In his work he examines the basic patterns in nature, finding ways they form a visual vocabulary for human cultural expression. Formerly an Associate Professor of Landscape Design at the University of Delaware, Smith has also served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas. In 2012, Smith was the Nadine Carter Russell Chair in the School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University. He is currently Visiting Artist in the Department of Art and Art History at Santa Clara University, in Santa Clara, California. www.wgarysmithdesign.com

Boris Steipe is Director of the Specialist Program in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Department of Molecular Genetics. He is interested in recurring patterns in molecular structure: the computational methods of pattern discovery, their characterization regarding features, context and distribution, their association with function in proteins, and their utility for protein engineering and design. http://biochemistry.utoronto.ca/person/boris-steipe/
Trained as a Toxicologist,

Jenifer Wightman is a research scientist specializing in greenhouse gas inventories and life cycle analysis of agriculture, forestry, waste, and bioenergy systems at Cornell University, funded by DoE, USDA, NYS DA&M, and NYSERDA. Her art practice began in 2002 and employs scientific tropes to incite curiosity of biological phenomena and inform an ecological rationality. Her art has been commissioned by NYC parks, featured at the Lincoln Center, BAM, and Imagine Science Festival, and is held in collections such as the Morgan Library, Library of Congress, Gutenberg Museum, Bodmer Museum, and the Danish Royal Library http://www.audiblewink.com/

ArtSci Salon thanks the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, Art and Science and the Physics Department at the University of Toronto for their support.
ArtSci Salon is an interdisciplinary program hosted by the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. LASER – Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous is a project of Leonardo® /ISAST [International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology ]

You can signup for the ‘Evolution’ event here.

This ‘Evolution’ event is part of the 2019 FACTT festival; there was also a 2018 FACCT festival in Toronto. I have a bit more about FACTT and last year’s event in a January 29, 2018 posting (scroll down to Toronto) and a brief reference to it in a January 10, 2018 posting (scroll down to Do CRISPR monsters dream of synthetic futures?).

Paint to Programming: exploring the role of algorithms in SciArt; a Dec. 4, 2018 ArtSci Salon event in Toronto, Canada

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Here’s the latest from a November 20, 2018 ArtSci Salon announcement received via email,

Paint to Programming: exploring the role of algorithms in SciArt

Description

What is the role of programming in artwork creation? is programming preliminary a Medium to be hidden to an audience more interested in the interface rather than in its algorithmic content ? or is it both medium and content, revealing the inner working, the politics, and the tactical/strategic uses of code and algorithmic complexity in a culture increasingly withdrawn from its crucial implications?

Thanks to a collaboration between Art the Science and ArtSci Salon, this event is meant to initiate a conversation to understand the many uses of algorithms in artistic and scientific research, from ways to solve problems in fluid mechanics by drawing inspiration from the dripping technique of Jackson Pollock, to exploring and making visible the complex dynamics of the blockchain, to using algorithms to process and display data for science communication.

Join ArtSci Salon and Art the Science at Fields for an evening of presentation and discussion with:

Julia Krolik : Exploring algorithms in SciArt
Owen Fernley: Creative coding
Sarah Friend: Software as a medium
Bernardo Palacios Muñiz: Modern painting: A fluid mechanics perspective

Moderator: Roberta Buiani

December 4th | 6pm-8pm

The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
222 College Street | Room 230
Toronto ON | M5T 3J1
Please, RSVP here 

Bios

Julia Krolik is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Art the Science, an organization dedicated to uniting and empowering artists and scientists to collectively advance scientific knowledge. As an exhibiting artist, focusing on science, art and new media, Julia has created works for CBC, the Ontario Science Centre, the Toronto Urban Film Festival and the Scotia Bank Photography Festival. 

Owen Fernley is an engineer and experimentalist. He has experience programming computational engines in Fortran and C and is currently building front-end web tools in javascript to aid in exploration geology.He co-created Decomposing Pianos, an experimental music collective focusing on projects related to art, science, experimental music and new media. 

Sarah Friend is an artist and software engineer working at a large blockchain development studio. When not doing that, she creates games and other interactive experiences. Her practice investigates murky dichotomies – like those between privacy and transparency, centralization and decentralization, and the environment and technology – with playfulness and absurdist humour.

Bernardo Palacios Muñiz is a mechanical engineer and a researcher from Mexico City. His thesis at UNAM “Descifrando a Pollock: Arte y Mecánica de Fluidos” explored the technique inplemented by Jackson POllock through the perspective of fluid mechanics

Like so many of the events from the ArtSci salon, this is very timely. On a somewhat related note, there’s an art/AI emergence mentioned in my August 31, 2018 posting (scroll down about 70% of the way to this subhead ‘Artworks generated by an AI system are to be sold at Christie’s auction house’).

I’ve also mentioned ArtSci Salon’s presentation partner, Art the Science, in an October 23, 2017 posting. Amongst other programmes, they advertise and promote artist  residencies. I notice that their events are held exclusively in Ontario and the descriptions for participants in their 2018 online gallery exhibit feature a preponderance of Ontario-based artists. I’m sure they’d like to get more participation from across the country but that takes extra time and effort and volunteer organizations such as this one don’t have much of either to spare. Their three year life (they were founded in 2015) is quite an accomplishment.

As for a more national art/sci or sciart network, maybe it’s time to organize something, eh?

ArtSci Salon visits the Society for Literature, Science & the Arts 2018 Meeting in Toronto (Canada) while Vancouver’s Curiosity Collider provides a November 2018 update

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I have two art/sci (or sciart) announcements, one concerns an event and the other is a news update.

Toronto’s ArtSci Salon and the Society of Literature, Science & the Arts (SLSA) 2018 Meeting

How could I not have stumbled across SLSA until now? Better late than never but the 2018 meeting/conference in Toronto, Canada is the 32nd of this annual event. (sigh)

Getting on to the important points, the ArtSci Salon is hosting a special roundtable as part of the conference (from a November 14, 2018 announcement received via email),

ArtSci Salon has organized a special roundtable at the annual SLSA
(Society for Science Literature and the Arts) which will take place in
Toronto this week.

The roundtable is public and will be held at OCADU [Ontario College of Art and Design University] in the gallery on 49 McCaul Street.

Re-locating the rational: on the re-making of categories through art and science (or: the artist is out of mind!)

A roundtable and a mobile/pop-up exhibition organized by ArtSci Salon

The world always exceeds our conception of it (Shotwell, 2016)

Coinciding with this year’s SLSA “Out of Mind” conference in Toronto, ArtSci Salon is proposing a panel/roundtable on “out-of-mindedness” as a way to re-think categories, and to disrupt the disciplinary and methodological status quo through which we normally see science and the humanities unfolding in academic contexts. We plan to do it through a pop-up exhibition featuring the works of local artists and members of SLSA.

What to do when the sciences and the humanities loose [sic] their ability to fully grasp, and sometimes even speak of, phenomena that have inevitably become too complex, too diffuse to be simplified through a model or a formula, or to be seized and summarized by one discipline?

This initiative is not designed to propose a set of new categories, but to pose a series of open questions, highlighting the necessity to conduct collaborative research between artistic practices and scientific research. We interpret the idea of “out of mind” as a strategy. In fact, using the arts as our preferred mode of expression, we believe that we ought to step out of the traditional mind configurations and fixed wiring in order to seize new ways to come to term with the multiplicities characterizing current environmental transformations. These occurrences have proved to be connected with nature, culture, and society in too many intricate ways, to the extent that neither science, nor technological methods are able to fully comprehend them.

Roundtable Participants:

Roberta Buiani (Chair)

Erika Biddles

Jenifer Wightman

Stephanie Rothenberg

Adam Zaretsky

Kathy High

Dolores Steinman

Here’s the poster:

One more logistical detail,

[T]he roundtable will be at 10:30-12:00 noon [Friday, November 16, 2018] followed by a small tour of the mobile pop-up exhibition[.]

For the curious, here’s the SLSA website and the SLSA 2018 [Meeting]—Out of Your Mind website. Unexpectedly, the University of Toronto is not one of the conference hosts, instead we have the University of Waterloo [Waterloo, Ontario] and York University [Toronto, Ontario] as joint hosts with OCAD University—Canada’s oldest art and design institution—partnering with the Rochester Institute of Technology (New York state, US).

Vancouver’s Curiosity Collider

Coincidentally on the same day I received the ArtSci Salon event information, I received a November 14, 2018 update for Vancouver’s art/sci (or sciart) organization, Curiosity Collider. From the update received via email,

Collider Update

Next events (save-the-date), call for submissions, and other art+science in town

Collisions Festival:
Meet Up & Hang Out

Are you an artist working in the sci/art genre? A scientist interested in collaborating with artists? Or one who wears both hats?

In the fall of 2019, the Curiosity Collider will be hosting our inaugural Sci-Art festival The Collisions Festival; the first theme will be Invasive Systems. The call for submission will be open in spring, 2019. The theme is meant to be broad in scope and not limited to any specific scientific subject/discipline; participants are encouraged to suggest various interpretation of the theme.

We would like to invite all artists and scientists who are interested in participating or potentially submitting a proposal to join us at this meet up event, chat about possible collaborations, and learn more about projects and details on “collaborative work” proposals we are looking for.

RSVP now so we know how many to expect.. This is a casual drop in event; feel free to stay, or just stop by and say hi!

Notice that RSVP? Taken with the next announcement, something becomes evident,

Join the Collider Team!

Are you passionate about art and science? Want to be part of the awesome Curiosity Collider team to help create new ways to experience science? 

We are now inviting applications for the following positions:

Read more on our volunteer page. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions!

In the old days a ‘development director’ was a ‘fundraiser’. That RSVP? Likely, they’re trying to establish the size of their potential audience so they can get government grants. Audience size is important to corporate or ‘other’ funders but if you want a government grant you need numbers.

Getting back to the update, this is a grouping of Curiosity Collider’s latest hits,

#ColliderCafe: Art. Science. Cadence.

Did you miss our most recent Collider Cafe event? You can now chek out the talks by Singer-songwriter Devon More, Biologists Wayne Maddison and David Maddison, as well as Integrated Media Artist Victoria Gibson on our YouTube Channel.

Check out the talks now.

Et al 3: Collaboration Process for Quantum Futures

Nerd Nite, Science Slam, and Curiosity Collider joined forces for the 3rd edition of Et al: the ultimate bar science night event. During the event, Quantum Physicist James Day and our Creative Managing Director Char Hoyt gave attendees an overview of the collaboration process that made Night shift: Quantum Futures, an event curated by CC and hosted at the Museum of Anthropology, possible.

Missed the show? Watch the presentation on our YouTube channel now.

While they don’t seem to have any details, there is a date for the next Collider Cafe,

Save the Date:
Next Collider Cafe

Our next Collider Cafe will be on Wednesday, January 23 at Cafe Deux Soleils. #ColliderCafe is a space for artists, scientists, makers, and anyone interested in art+science. Meet. Discover. Connect. Create.

Are you curious? Join us to explore how art and science intersect in the exploration of curiosity.

Finally, a miscellaneous listing of related events being held in Vancouver, mostly, this November,

Looking for more art+science in town?

  • November 17 (Victoria) Science Writers and Communicators of Canada is hosting a workshop on science writing in an age of reconciliation: What science writers can learn from indigenous community members about better representation and relationships. Only a few spots left! Register now.
  • November 15-18 CC friend Dzee Louise will open her studio during the East Side Cultural Crawl! Drop by at studio #5 just at the top of the stairs of the William Clark Building at 1310 William Street (on the corner of Clark).
  • November 21 Natural History (Paleoart) Illustrator Julius Csotonyi will present a public lecture at the Vancouver Public Library (Kits branch) on the mutually beneficial affair between science and art.
  • November 21 Our friends at Nerd Nite Vancouver is hosting another awesome event next week, including a presentation by artist Michael Markowsky who will talk about how he ends up “Painting on the Moon”. Get your tickets now!
  • Until December 15 Vancouver Biennale’s CURIOUS IMAGININGS continues…check out the exhibition that will “challenge us to explore the social impacts of emerging biotechnology and our ethical limits in an age where genetic engineering and digital technologies are already pushing the boundaries of humanity.”

For more Vancouver art+science events, visit the Curiosity Collider events calendar. Let us know about your art+science events by emailing info@curiositycollider.org.

I did write a preview (June 18, 2018) for the last event on the list, Curious Imaginings, which included some of the latest science on xenotransplantation and chimeras (i.e., examples of  emerging biotechnology). That’s all folks!

All about gene editing, sexual reproduction, and the arts (an October 27, 2018 ArtSci Salon event in Toronto, Canada)

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This ArtSci Salon event is part of the third world congress, GeNeDis (Genetics, Geriatrics, and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research). GeNeDis 2018 was organized by The Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Human Electrophysiology, Department of Informatics of the Ionian University (Corfu Greece) in cooperation with the Fields Institute (for Research in Mathematical Sciences) at the University of Toronto (Ontario, Canada) and Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo Ontario).

The ArtSci Salon will be presenting (from the ArtSci Salon GeNeDis event page) Note: Read carefully as this is a multi-pronged event,

GeNeDis Panel and Exhibition – Gene Editing, sexual reproduction and the arts: Oct 27, 2018

ArtSci salon is proud to present an event to explore the entangled issues of sex and sexual fantasy, sexual reproduction and sexual regulation, fertility and sexual technologies. We invited artists and scholars to address these themes using their preferred approach: the result is a thought provoking series which interrogates and imagines these issues through human/non-human sexual fantasies, interrogates them by means of modified gynaecological instruments, rewrites potential scenarios as enhanced and/or elderly humans, or offers unexpected ways to hack sex right here, right now.

Our goal is not just to imagine how media, technological enhancement, gene editing and medical treatments will transform our idea of sex and our sexuality as human beings and as part of the wide non-human world that surrounds us. It is also to think of how creative/critical initiatives may facilitate a sustained dialogue to help us cope with unresolved issues in the present. Interdisciplinary so!

The event will be accompanied by an exhibition on display Oct 18-Nov.8 in the Koffler Students Centre Cabinets, University of Toronto

Panel discussion

Gene editing, sexual reproduction and the arts: the present, the future and the imagined

ArtSci Salon will participate in the scientific conference GeNeDis (Genetics, Geriatrics, and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research) with a special panel addressing the topic of gene editing and sexual reproduction from a sciart perspective. The discussion will be preceded by the official opening of an exhibition illustrating how present issues in gynaecology and sexual regulation, hormonal management, human enhancement and sexual and cultural identity may be addressed, redressed, hacked and reimagined through the arts.

The Panel will be followed by a reception

Chair: Roberta Buiani, ArtSci Salon, Fields Institute
Speakers: Byron Rich, Samira Daneshvar, Adam Zaretsky & Dolores Steinman.

Saturday, Oct 27,
18:00-19:30

Lennox Hall
77 Adelaide Street W.

please, RSVP here 

For a little more detail about the event, you can check an Oct. 19, 2018 news item in Clot magazine,

On October 27th [2018], interdisciplinary group ArtSci Salon will present a panel discussion addressing the topic of gene editing and sexual reproduction from a sciart perspective. Preceding the discussion will be the official opening of an exhibition featuring the work of four of the speakers; a show that reimagines issues relating to gynaecology, sexual regulation, hormonal management and cultural identity through the arts.

During the conversation itself, the panel will focus on the current status of genome editing, presenting a nuanced alternative to sensationalist media narratives that often frame genome editing as a set of dichotomized future predictions, either utopian or dystopian. Stepping back into the present, the speakers will rethink the implications of genome editing through a creative lens, exploring the intersection of scientific and artistic interventions as they relate to human enhancement. Both panel and exhibition will approach these topics with an emphasis on their social implications, exploring in particular issues relating to sexual reproduction, fertility and sexual technologies – simultaneously raising awareness of sexual politics and the medicalization of the body.

…

The news item goes on to briefly describe the panelists.