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
Exhibition
Edited
Reimagining sexual reproduction, fertility and the future. In the present…
The potentials of genome editing techniques have brought us predictions and critiques that couldn’t look any different: shiny, beautiful, perfect and disease-free prospects of life on the one hand, and a bleak, problematic, segregated, and battled future on the other. These are all projections that look at a maybe-not-so-distant future. But what about the present?
In the exhibition “edited”, four artists rethink the future by critically reflecting on the present. Focusing on themes revolving around sexual reproduction, fertility and sexual technologies, their artworks question unresolved issues in the present that we should address before launching ourselves into the future. Can we find interesting ways to draw attention to them and re-dress how they are currently treated through creative interventions?
In addition to raising awareness about sexism, sexual rigidity and the medicalization of the body, each of these artworks suggests ways in which we might address, redress, hack and reimagine gynecological practice, hormonal management, human enhancement and sexual and cultural identity through the arts.
Artists:
Andrew Carnie, UnFolding Sheets
Samira Daneshvar, The Armamentarium of (Counter) Creation
Byron Rich & Liz Flyntz, Epicurean Endocrinology, Cooking Sex
Adam Zaretsky, centiSperm, mutaFelch and biPolar Flowers
Location: The SciArt Cabinets Gallery,
Koffler Student Centre, 214 College Street (entrance from St George),
Toronto, Ontario, M5T 2Z9
Opening: Saturday, October 27, 16:00 pm
Curated by: ArtSci Salon – The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
The SciArt Cabinets Gallery is open
Mon-Fri 9:00 am-7:00pm
Sat-Sun 12:00-pm- 5:00pm
The Exhibition is curated by ArtSci Salon (Roberta Buiani)
thanks for the support of The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
Bios
Roberta Buiani 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 a Research Associate in the Centre for Feminist Research at York University (CFR). 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 that exceed the categories defined by traditional methods of classification. She received her PhD in Communication and Culture from York University
Andrew Carnie studied chemistry and painting at Warren Wilson College, North Carolina, then zoology and psychology at Durham University, before starting and finishing a degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London. Andrew then completed his Masters degree in the Painting School, at the Royal College of Art. He has continued as a practising artist ever since. In 2003 he was the Picker Fellow at Kingston University. His artistic practice often involves a meaningful interaction with scientists in different fields as an early stage in the development of his work. His interests lie in how we get a sense of ‘self’ through contemporary ideas in science and it’s imagery.
Samira Daneshvar is a lecturer at the School of Architecture, University of Miami. She holds a Master of Science from University of Michigan and Master of Architecture from University of Toronto. She joined the realm of architecture after five years of medical studies. Her research and design work is directed towards an interdisciplinary field of architecture and medical sciences.
Liz Flyntz is a curator, writer, and cook based in Brooklyn, NY. Her special area of focus is media and systems-based art. Currently, she’s researching the potential effects of food on sex hormone expression in humans. She is working with scientists, artists, holistic practitioners, and physicians to investigate the myriad ways that food culture and agricultural technology can alter the human endocrine system. Her writings on technology and art, media art history, and interviews with contemporary media artists have been published by Afterimage, The Creators Project, and Intercourse. She has a BA from Antioch College, an MFA in Media Study from SUNY Buffalo, and studied Media Art and Culture at the Bauhaus University. www.lizflyntz.net
Byron Rich is an artist, professor and lecturer born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His work exploring speculative design, biology futures and tactical media ecology has been widely shown and spoken about internationally. His work recently received an Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica. He pursued a degree in New-Media at The University of Calgary before finding himself in Buffalo, New York where he obtained an MFA in Emerging Practices at The University at Buffalo. He now teaches Electronic Art & Intermedia at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. www.byronrich.com
Dolores Steinman
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.
Adam Zaretsky, Ph.D. stages lively, hands-on bioart production labs based on topics such as: foreign species invasion (pure/impure), radical food science (edible/inedible), jazz bioinformatics (code/flesh), tissue culture (undead/semi-alive), transgenic design issues (traits/desires), interactive ethology (person/machine/non-human) and physiology (performance/stress). His art practice focuses on an array of legal, ethical, social and libidinal implications of biotechnological materials and methods with a focus on transgenic humans.
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