BRIEF:
On 24th January, 2011, at 630pm @UWScreative will be hosting an 'inspired by London 2012' event at the CCA in Glasgow, host city for ICSEMIS 2012. The event is FREE to attend and open to all. It will bring together a scientist, an artist and a philosopher (me) in conversation about the way in which athletes bodies and minds are being transformed by technology.
Today, elite sports find themselves in increasingly unchartered waters. More than ever before, athletes are using technology to optimize their biology for performance and many of their methods are not even tested for by the authorities. From genetic tests for sport performance to the use of superhuman prosthetic enhancements, this subject reaches parts that present-day anti-doping rules cannot reach. These technologies have changed elite sports, as we know them, but the next decade promises even more of an overhaul to what we think being good at sport means. As we approach the London 2012 Games, this debate will consider the ethical implications of new technology in sport, asking what distinguishes the cheat from the innovator. We will ask whether the debate about the ethics of athletic performance is all but over, as the winners' podium makes space for the transhuman athlete.
Going beyond the familiar debate about doping and anti-doping, this debate will consider how far biology has been pushed by technical systems and what Jacques Ellul called the technological society. It will include Dr Yannis Pitsiladis, who works with the World Anti-Doping Agency on genetic technologies and live artist Francesca Steele, who became a body builder as part of her most recent performance work. Along with Andy Miah, speakers will consider how we ought to regard the future of sport and how it will function in an era of transhuman enhancements.
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