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ART AND BIOMEDICINE -- BEYOND THE BODY

An interdisciplinary one-day conference about creative visual practices 
at the frontiers of biomedicine, convened by the Medical Museion, 
University of Copenhagen, in partnership with The Schools of Visual 
Arts, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

Monday 3 September, 2007, 10 am - 5 pm
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
Kongens Nytorv 1
Copenhagen

Speakers and Programme:

10:00  Introduction

*Mikkel Bogh*, The Schools of Visual Arts, The Royal Danish Art Academy 
of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, and *Thomas Soderqvist*, Medical Museion, 
University of Copenhagen.

10:20   Session 1 (Chair, *Martha Fleming*, National Endowment for 
Science, Technology and the Arts).

*Ingeborg Reichle* (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and 
Humanities; www.kunstgeschichte.de/reichle): "Larger Than Life: The Use 
of Living Organisms in Contemporary Art".
Abstract: In the last two decades we have seen a number of artists who 
left the traditional artistic playground to work instead in scientific 
contexts, like the laboratories of molecular biologists. In my paper I 
will critically explore new art forms like "Transgenic Art" or "Bioart" 
and show how this new art forms both dramatically differs from artworks 
which explore art and genetics through the use of traditional media. The 
use of biological materials and living organisms by artists ranges from 
tissue engineering to stem-cell technologies and even transgenic 
animals, a phenomenon that raises ethical questions with regard to both 
scientific and artistic endeavours. Today artists create new "life 
forms", new transgenic bodies/organisms which are more or less 
"biofacts" rather than "natural" organisms, but with the production of 
new organisms through art, it seems that artists again challenge the 
reception of what is art and what is nature.

*Wolfgang Knapp* (Art in Context, University of the Arts, Berlin; 
(www.kunstimkontext.udk-berlin.de/lehrende/knapp/knapp.html): "Artists 
as Research Scientists; Science as Art? Interdisciplinary Approaches".
Abstract: Producing images is no longer uniquely the privilege of 
artists and media professionals.  More and more science-based images 
appear on the art market. Artists intensify their studies of scientific 
methods.  Local and international research centres contact artists more 
and more often, wanting to develop and present exhibitions on their 
professional scientific work to a public audience.  On both sides, are 
we seeing new professional sensitivities -- and irritations -- 
developing inside traditional academic working strategies?  Within this 
focus, I will discuss individual art practices and interdisciplinary 
collaboration between the arts and sciences such as biomedicine.

*Steve Kurtz* (SUNY Buffalo and Critical Art Ensemble; 
(www.critical-art.net): "Point of Intervention".
Abstract: This lecture is a brief overview of the points where applied 
life sciences, politics, economy, and cultural representations begin to 
intersect. On the one hand, it will examine the economic and political 
pressures that push life science research in one direction at the 
expense of another, and the rhetorics used to justify these trajectories 
of research. On the other hand, it will also consider the release of 
derivative products into the public sphere, and how the public is 
socialized to accept them. These two moments, in which the cultural 
context for research initiatives or biotechnological products is in the 
first stage of construction, are the points of intervention where 
cultural activists can have the greatest impact. This presentation will 
be illustrated by participatory science-theater projects by Critical Art 
Ensemble.

(During the lunch break the Critical Art Ensemble's film "Marching 
Plague" will be shown in the hall).

13:30  Session 2 (Chair, *Martha Fleming*, National Endowment for 
Science, Technology and the Arts).

*Richard Wingate* (MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, King's 
College, London; 
(www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/biomedical/mrc/index.php?page=http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/biomedical/mrc/Researcher.php?PersonID=19): 
"Exchange and (Sci)Art: What Art Tells Science About How Science Sees 
the Brain".
Abstract:  Over recent years Science-Art collaborations have progressed 
from being merely "art on the theme of science" to, at their best, a 
genuine exchange
of ideas between historically divergent disciplines. But what is the 
nature of this exchange from a scientist's point of view and is there a 
"utilitarian" value in such interactions for Science? From one 
perspective, art collaborations may seem to have role primarily in 
demystifying, beautifying or celebrating scientific achievement. 
However, the confrontation between these two disciplines - the friction 
between the ways of envisioning nature - is also a productive, useful 
and reflective venture for Science itself. It is a process that allows 
Science to examine its own assumptions about its relationship to a 
broader culture and how this
influences the way it observes, records and represents the world. A 
little short of a manifesto for Sci-Art and certainly not an in depth 
analysis of the process, I hope to at least give a perspective on my own 
experiences within this arena in understanding the representation of one 
of the most historically elusive and spectacular biological structures, 
the brain cell.

*Ben Fry* (MIT Media Lab, Boston; (http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry): 
"Computational Information Design and Genomic Cartography".
Abstract:  The ability to collect and store data continues to increase, 
but our ability to understand it remains unchanged. In an attempt to 
gain better understanding of data, fields such as information 
visualization, data mining and graphic design are employed, each solving 
an isolated part of the specific problem, but failing in a broader 
sense: there are too many unsolved problems in the visualization of 
complex data. As a solution, I propose that the individual fields be 
brought together as part of a single process that I call Computational 
Information Design. I'll be showing examples of work developed as part 
of my Ph.D. dissertation, and as a researcher at the Eli & Edythe Broad 
Institute of MIT & Harvard addressing the visualization of genetic data.

*Ken Arnold* (Wellcome Collection, Wellcome Trust, London; 
(www.wellcome.ac.uk/node6510.html): "Drawing on Science: Medicine, Art 
and Life at Wellcome Collection".
Abstract: My perspective on the intersections between art and 
biomedicine is inevitably based on my recent experience of overseeing 
the establishment of a new type of venue in the heart of London, where 
many views and perspectives from medicine, from art and from the rest of 
life are freely mixed. Wellcome Collection hosts a kaleidoscope of 
voices, but two of the loudest are inevitably art and biomedicine. This 
talk will explore our efforts to give each enough freedom to 'be 
themselves', but also our aspiration for the art and the science to work 
equally as evidence and as samples (specimens even). Confounding one of 
the deadening clichés of contemporary culture, these are galleries where 
art is as likely to engage the intellect as the emotions and where 
science can elicit as much wonder as explanatory understanding.

16:00  Keynote (Chair, *Martha Fleming*, National Endowment for Science, 
Technology and the Arts).

*James Elkins* (Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism of the 
Art Institute of Chicago; (http://www.jameselkins.com): "Some Languages 
of Medical Semiotics: Thinking of Non-art Images Discursively".
Abstract: This is a provisional survey of the ways that bioart can be 
incorporated into current discourses. I'll look, briefly, at the general 
problem of discourse at the border between art and science (using 
Eduardo Kac as an example), and then at a series of possibilities: (1) 
historians writing in science venues (Wieczorek, Kemp), (2) artists 
working with scientists (Frankel), and (3) the new field of image 
studies (Manghani, Simons). And last, I'll propose a way forward, paying 
attention to individual "languages" of image and object production, 
among which medical semiotics is arguably the most complex and 
epistemologically challenging.

The one-day conference is preceeded by a closed workshop on "Biomedicine 
and Aesthetics in a Museum Context", Thursday 30 August - Saturday 1 
September. See further: 
www.ku.dk/satsning/Biocampus/artandbiomedicine/workshop.htm

On Sunday 2 September sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard is presenting a new 
work which will focus on the problematic arising in the conference and 
workshop. Jacob Kirkegaard has turned his listening ear inwards - to his 
own ear - and by using specially developed listening equipment, he has 
captured the microactivity which the hair cells of the ear broadcasts. 
There will be three performances, at 6 pm, 8 pm and 10 pm. For further 
information, see 
www.ku.dk/satsning/Biocampus/artandbiomedicine/sound_event_english.htm

Organiser:
Medical Museion, a combined research unit and museum with extensive 
medical historical collections (www.museion.ku.dk and 
www.corporeality.net/museion), focusing on the material and iconographic 
culture of contemporary biomedicine.

Organising committee:
Martha Fleming ([log in to unmask]), Jan Eric Olsén 
([log in to unmask]) and Thomas Soderqvist ([log in to unmask]).

Sponsors:
The Novo Nordisk Foundation (http://www.novonordiskfonden.dk) and 
BioCampus at University of Copenhagen (http://www.ku.dk/satsning/biocampus).

For further details, see: 
www.ku.dk/satsning/biocampus/artandbiomedicine/index.asp

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