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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