Sustaining Life, Designing Life A two day symposium
Organised by
The Social Futures Institute, University of Teesside
& The AV Festival
Sponsored by Tees Valley Investment Fund
Friday 10 March – Saturday 11 March 2006, Middlesbrough, UK
The Social Futures Institute and the AV Festival is writing to announce a
two day symposium to be held at the University of Teesside, Middlesbrough,
on 10 – 11th March 2006. The second AV Festival http://www.avfest.co.uk
will take place in March 2006 and will explore and present new ways of
thinking about Life.
To contextualise the festival, this symposium will explore the theme of life
from a social, political, scientific, technological, artistic and ethical
perspective. With artists and scientists fabricating new life-forms and
ecologies, our understanding of what life is and where it can happen is
shifting, evolving and mutating. This symposium analyses the artistic,
ethical and social aspects of the robotics, nanotechnology, biotechnology
and information technology, as all of these areas merge to modify humankind.
The symposium will take place over two days:
Day One: Sustaining Life
On the first day of the symposium, we will ask, what is the impact of
technology on Sustaining Life? Designers, artists and scientists have made
claims about the way people’s lives can be sustained and enhanced through
the mediation of natural systems and digital technology. Increasingly,
people expect to be able to modify and improve their bodies through medical
intervention, diet and exercise. What are the consequences of a
technologised and consumerised food market on the population, in terms of
health and a changed pace of life? Technological and medical intervention
has affected notions of the perfect body and has led to the development of
industries devoted to body transformation though medical intervention,
cosmetics, diet and fitness. Ever increasing consumer demand is costly in
ecological terms. But what should we do? Is it possible to lower
expectations of comfort, consumption, convenience and culture? Or is it the
case that our high-speed culture is, in reality, uncomfortable, inconvenient
and devoid of culture?
Day Two: Designing Life
On the second day, we will explore the impact of a fast changing and
increasingly technologised society on people, economy and environment. We
ask what role does science and technology play in Designing Life?
Certainly, many people now immerse themselves in virtual and artificial
worlds through their use of the internet. Worlds within worlds have been
created as people connect with on-line communities, interactive environments
and games. At the same time, genetic engineering allows for the creation of
synthetic biological worlds, which are constructed in the laboratory. Life
is increasingly something which we can design, sculpt and evolve through our
interactions with science and technology. The symposium will interrogate
the boundaries of what is ‘natural’ and what is ‘synthetic’, aiming to
extend and rework these notions.
The Symposium Themes
These issues will be addressed by participants from the worlds of science,
business, government, academia, art and design. Our aim is to dig deep into
a set of key issues that asks what impact artists, designers and scientists
have on people, society, economy and the lived environment.
To achieve this we will focus on the theme Sustaining Life, Designing Life,
and within this broad theme we will stage six plenary sessions for
presentations and debate. These are:
• Transforming the body: is the body being transformed from something that
people are born and have to live with to a blank canvas for improvement,
decoration and celebration?
• Sustaining environment and ecology: what role can artists and designers
play in raising consciousness about environmental issues and designing
sustainable environments?
• Sustaining lives and the geopolitics of food production: what are the
impacts of modern methods of food production and consumption on life in the
richest and poorest countries of the world?
• Mimicking life: if artificial life mechanisms, robotics and cybernetic
systems can successfully mimic life, what are the consequences for humanity
and society?
• Life in the lab: now that biotechnology laboratories are becoming places
in which life is sculpted, is it time to relax ethical objections to the
limits of scientific interventions?
• Future of Life: Sociologists, scientists and political commentators
present scenarios of ways that life is evolving in new directions, what is
the role of artists in imagining and imaging the future of life.
Confirmed Speakers
Oron Catts, Tissue Culture and Art Project (Australia)
Gina Czernecki, Artist (Australia / UK)
Professor Robin Bunton, Social Futures Institute, University of Teesside (UK)
Amanda Drago, Choreographer, Dancer (UK)
Andy Gracie, Artist (Spain / UK)
Professor Eileen Green, Social Futures Institute, University of Teesside (UK)
Heath Bunting & Kayle Brandon, Artists (UK)
Brian Lee Dae Yung, Scientist (USA)
Dr Sally Jane Norman, Director, Culture Lab, University of Newcastle (UK)
Kira O'Reilly, Artist (UK)
Kate Rich, Artist (UK)
Kenneth Rinaldo, Inventor and Artist (USA)
Professor Gerda Roper, School of Arts and Media University of Teesside (UK)
Tom Shakespeare, Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre (PEALs) (UK)
Professor Carolyn Summerbell, School of Health and Social Care, University
of Teesside (UK)
Professor Graham Street, School of Science and Technology, University of
Teesside (UK)
About the Organisers
The Social Futures Institute
The Social Futures Institute brings together over 50 specialist researchers
concerned with the North East’s social and cultural well-being and economic
prosperity. The Institute provides the focal point for the University of
Teesside’s commitment to the future of the Tees Valley and the North East’s
social and economic regeneration. Researchers explore issues surrounding
community cohesion, social inclusion, cultural change, and are committed to
finding practical ways of getting people involved in neighbourhoods and
communities so they can make a difference and develop a positive environment
for change.
The AV Festival
The AV Festival is the UK's newest and largest international festival of
digital culture, electronic art and new media. It takes place in Newcastle
Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. It is organised by the Tyneside
Cinema, Middlesbrough Council, the University of Teesside and Sunderland
City Council.
The 2006 AV Festival will explore biotechnology, artificial life,
evolutionary computation, technologically mediated ecosystems,
philosophical investigations of boundaries of nature and virtual spaces as
social 'living' environments. Through a lively programme of exhibitions,
concerts and films it will probe digital and biological lifeforms and living
systems, asking what do these 'creations' look, sound and feel like? What is
it like to 'inhabit' these systems? Who are the demiurges of the artificial age?
The AV Festival is commissioning major new exhibitions from artists such as
Kenneth Rinaldo (USA), Andy Gracie (UK) and Anthony McCall (UK), new concert
pieces by Ryoji Ikeda (Japan), Carsten Nicolai (Germany), Suguru Goto
(Japan), and d-fuse (UK), and new moving image works by artists like Richard
Fenwick (UK), Marius Watz (Germany), Clare Davies (UK) and Gina Czarnecki
(UK/Australia). The festival will also present works by Oron Catts & Ionat
Zurr (Australia), Time’s Up (Austria) and many other artists.
Delegates of the symposium will receive free or discounted entry into a
range of special festival concerts, events, receptions and exhibitions.
Booking Details
The symposium runs over two days. Delegates may attend the whole symposium
or register on a daily basis. The early bird booking fee for the whole
symposium is £60.00 and £30 per day (including lunches, tea and coffee).
Early bird bookings must be received by Friday 10th February 2006. The full
registration fee for the whole symposium is £75.00 and £35.00 per day.
Concession rates will be available for students.
Booking forms will be available on the Social Futures Institute website in
early December 2005 <http://www.tees.ac.uk/socialfutures>. There will be no
accommodation available at the University, but we will assist delegates in
making bookings in local hotels.
Contact
If you would like more information on the symposium, please contact Tony
Chapman Tel: + 44 (0)1642 342321 or Catherine Iles, Tel. + 44 (0) 1642 384477
Email: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.tees.ac.uk/socialfutures
Address: Social Futures Institute, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough TS1
3BA, UK.
If you would like more information about the AV Festival, please contact
Honor Harger:
Tel: +44 (0)191 2328289, ext 112
Email: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.avfest.co.uk/
Address: c/-Tyneside Cinema, 10 Pilgrim St, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE16QG, UK
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