Of all the radioactive elements discovered at the end of the 19th century, it was radium that became the focus of both public fascination and entrepreneurial zeal
Category Archive: body
How society archives human DNA in the form of slivers of umbilical cord, dental samples and sperm, DNA of animals already extinct in the wild, plant seeds, vast quantities of digital data…
Theresa Schubert multiplied cells from a biopsy of her thigh muscles in a serum produced by utilising her own blood, to artificially grow a piece of in-vitro meat. Which she proceeded to eat during a live performance
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Artists offer new insights about genetic engineering by bringing it out of the lab and into public places to challenge viewers’ understandings about the human condition, the material of our bodies and the consequences of biotechnology
The B-Hind devices demonstrates all the tensions inherent to an Internet of Things that inhabit the body without being noticed
The exhibition draws on a historically informed anthropocentric worldview toward a systemic conception of humanity as part of the evolutionary process
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Matthieu Gafsou has spent 4 years researching transhumanism, a movement looking towards science and technology to drastically improve human cognitive, mental and physical performances
Moving from medical field to personal enhancement, from non-invasive methods to implanted devices, neurotechnology has the potential to radically change our brain and bodies, raising a series of dilemmas and concerns…
Lynn Hershman Leeson‘s work exposes why we need to have a better understanding of the potentials of gene editing and how they are being exploited by companies motivated mostly by profit
People affected by the disorder believe that they or part of their body parts are dead, dying or don’t exist at all
An interview with Margherita Pevere who used DNA storage technique to preserve a woman’s intimate experience from her youth into foreign life
The book challenges the normal understanding of modern architecture by proposing that it was shaped by the dominant medical obsession of its time: tuberculosis and its primary diagnostic tool, the X-ray
The Center for Technological Pain is a mock company that offers DIY and open source solutions to all sorts of physical ailments caused by our insouciant use of smartphones and laptops
Heikkilä uses painting to address the necessity to acknowledge the importance of nonhuman life and our symbiotic relationship to it
What will happen to our sensory apparatus in 50 years, when the mechanisms for how we communicate and sense our surroundings become obsolete, prompted by the advancement of sensors that will enable brain-to-brain communication?
The project revolves around the idea of sending humans to one of the points in space where gravity is absent. Frozen bodies would float until their weak gravities make them assemble into a blob: in this way, a new ‘human’ planet is extra-terraformed
Basse Stittgen uses blood discarded from slaughterhouses as a biomaterial that he dries, heat-presses and then turns into egg holders, records and other domestic objects
The exhibition not only presents artifacts and information about tattoos in Japan, Pacific Ocean and in the South East of Asia through history but it also makes them dialogue with bikers, Russian and Italian criminals, the skin-heads, the Hollywood movies and Delvoye’s tattooed pigs
The exhibition “John Walter: CAPSID” at HOME in Manchester mixes animation, paintings, textile craft, humour and pop culture to investigate the complexities of virology and the spread of deadly infection
An installation of 3Dp printed babies, by Pinar Yoldas, considers the societal impact of a gene editing tool that might in the future allow some of us to tweak human DNA and ‘play god’ with future generations of children
The book documents creative strategies by artists, fashion designers and other media users to become virtually faceless for aesthetic, fetishist or resistance purposes
A free magazine explores artworks that takes the form of food made out of human tissues, a suicide machine or a performance that makes you sick. Yes please!
The interactive installation invites “deep listening” within the body but also offers us an opportunity to reflect on how anthropocentric geological changes might be recorded, experienced and how they can be reproduced for other people in order to help them attune themselves to a future marked by man-made geological changes
Maja Smrekar has spent the past few years investigating human/dog/wolf co-evolution, co-habitation as well as the possibility to create a hybrid of the human and the dog species
What are the consequences of owning someone else’s DNA data? How does this influence the spatial privacy of the biological owner and his family members?
Breath (BRH) explores how the body can perform the computational process of mining crypto-currencies by converting lung exhalation into a computer’s hashing rate. The velocity of human exhalation determines the hashing rate of a small micro computer that is mining on the XMR (monero) blockchain
Do artists using biotechnological materials and scientific processes have the same obligations, rights and responsibilities as scientists? Or should they enjoy more liberties and particular prerogatives?
Beat to the Balance introduces participants to a ritualistic sauna practice which consists of whisking bodies with branch bundle of different tree species. The goal is to open energy flow and make more perceptible the interdependence between tree communities and humans
Work it, feel it! is dedicated to the work of the future and the future of work. The exhibition focuses on the demands placed on the human body and its possibilities to act, as seen against the backdrop of an increasingly automated workplace. What are the mechanisms of discipline and control that have been applied to the mind, and above all to the body, to make it an efficient production tool and a pillar of consumerism?
Momentum 9, The Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art, opened a few days ago in Moss, Norway. Its focus is Alienation, a pertinent theme for a time characterized by deep social and economic inequalities, new forms of rabid colonialism, atmospheric turmoil, transhumanism, closing borders and relentless questioning of democracy
Can art help us understand the ethical complexities of emerging (bio)technologies? Are artists able to uncover our hidden desires and demystify the promises emerging technologies represent? Are living artworks allowed and is art allowed to alter life?
This year the theme, Senses & Sensors, explored perception: how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. How we absorb and comprehend what we see, and how rapidly progressing technological advances expand and augment our perceptions
An art/science research instrument,offering participants the possibility to listen in on the electro-chemical messages transmitted by their bodies, in exchange for donating their personal biodata to scientific research
Prepare for a future in which the only way of making a living is to ‘lend your lung’ to filter heavily polluted air. Clean Air International Inc. is looking for suppliers for its first Organic Clean Air (TM) retail store
How do you taste to the small organisms that consume parts of you everyday, and every last bit of you when you die? How can humans manipulate our bodies, diet & emotions to change our own flavour?
This year, many of the work are exploring data. I got a bit tired of big data a couple of years ago but being at the festival reminded me that, once in the hands of artists, the most austere data can adopt a provocative, critical and sometimes also totally absurd tinge
Over the past seven years, Atoui has researched the relationships between sound, vibrations, instruments and the body, starting with how the deaf perceive sound. He challenges, expands and revises our established and conventional ways of experiencing sound
Tarek Atoui and Council filled an abandoned swimming pool in Bergen with new instruments, historical artefacts, performances, social moments, ideas and of course sounds that challenge our understanding of the sound experience
Session 5. The Extended Body: Biomedicine, Micromatter & the Transhuman was the most eclectic and unpredictable one. It investigated issues as diverse as the use of forensic methodologies in art, the presence of human cells outside of the body and the possible role of bacteria in creativity
Japanese Tattoos explains the imagery featured in Japanese tattoos so that readers can avoid getting ink they don’t understand or, worse, that they’ll regret. This photo-heavy book will also trace the history of Japanese tattooing, putting the iconography and kanji symbols in their proper context so readers will be better informed as to what they mean and have a deeper understanding of irezumi