AHRC ICT Methods Network Expert Seminar: Human Enhancement Technologies: The
Role of Art and Design
Tuesday 12 February 2008
Goethe-Institut,
50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road
London SW7 2PH
There are limited places available for this Expert Seminar. If you are
interested in participating please contact organizers Sandra Kemp
([log in to unmask]) or Michael Burton ([log in to unmask]).
What types of research tools and methodologies and what models of
multi-disciplinary engagement might facilitate well-informed ‘upstream’
public participation in scientific and technological advance at the
intersection of biology, art, design and the public sphere?
This workshop aims to explore the potential of the arts, and in particular
design, as primary tools for critical reflection and engaged debate on the
social and ethical implications of the current rapidly emerging
bio-technologies through the exploration, production and display of both
artworks and hypothetical products as an innovative and accessible way of
generating public engagement concerning the impact of biotechnology. Through
a series of presentations and discussions, the seminar will explore the role
of the arts and design in shaping the ‘enhanced’ future human body, with
respect to the growing potential for enhanced physical, cognitive and
emotional identities through biotechnological intervention. As well as
considering the ways in which they might shape future aesthetic
considerations, the project will also examine how the arts and design
address issues of urgent public concern regarding the social and ethical
implications of these new technologies.
Schedule
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9.30 – 9.45: Coffee
9.45 – 10.00: Welcome and Introduction
Professor Anthony Dunne and Professor Sandra Kemp
10.00 – 11.00: A Case for Human Enhancement
Presentation (20-30 Minutes): Dr Andy Miah, Reader in New Media and
Bioethics, University of the West of Scotland
Discussion
11.00 – 12.00: Human Enhancement and Communication
Presentation (20-30 Minutes): Dr Jon Turney, Course Leader, MSc in Creative
Non-fiction, Imperial College
Discussion
12.00 – 1.00: Design Approaches to Human Enhancement and Biotechnology
Presentation (20-30 Minutes): Professor Anthony Dunne, Head of Design
Interactions, Royal College of Art.
Discussion
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch
2.00 – 3.00: Case Study 1: Symbiotica
Presentation (20-30 Minutes): Oron Catts, Co-director, Tissue Culture and
Art project, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western
Australia
Discussion
3.00 – 4.00: BioArt Approaches to Human Enhancement and Biotechnology
Presentation (20-30 Minutes): Jens Hauser, Curator
Discussion
4.00 – 5.00: Human Enhancement Technologies, Art and Identity
Presentation (20-30 Minutes): Professor Sandra Kemp, Director of Research,
Royal College of Art,
Discussion
5.00 – 5.30: Human Enhancement Technologies in Film and Cinema
Film Presentation (10 Minutes): Noam Toran and Onkar Kular, Royal College of Art
Discussion
5.30 – 6.00 Conclusions
Speakers' Biographies
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Oron Catts
Born in Finland, Oron Catts currently lives and works in Western Australia.
Oron is a tissue engineering artist and co-founder and Artistic Director of
SymbioticA, the Art & Science Collaborative Research Laboratory, School of
Anatomy and Human Biology, UWA. SymbioticA is an artistic laboratory
dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences. It is the
first research laboratory of its kind, in that it enables artists to engage
in wet biology practices in a biological science department.
Oron also founded the Tissue Culture & Art Project/TC&A (1996). He was
Research Fellow at the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication Laboratory,
Harvard Medical School (2000-2001). Oron trained in product design and
specialized in the future interaction of design and biological derived
technologies.
Jens Hauser
Originally from Germany, Jens Hauser is a Paris based independent curator,
writer and artist. Author of documentary films, radio art and sound
environments shown at international festivals and museums. Jens has a
background in media and film theory, psychology and scientific journalism
(Münster, Bochum, Tours). Since 1992 he has been a regular contributor to
the European Culture Television arte, and the cultural programmess of the
German broadcasting stations WDR, NDR, SWR, Deutschlandfunk,
Deutschlandradio and ZDF. Jens has published widely and has given papers
about the interaction of film culture, art and video games, and on
contemporary music.
In 2003 Jens curated L'Art Biotech – the first festival of biotechnological
art at the National Arts and Culture Centre Le Lieu Unique, Nantes/France.
Currently involved in two long-term film projects about bioart. His
forthcoming curated exhibitions deal with the paradigm of ‘skin as a
technological interface’.
Andy Miah
Andy Miah is a reader in New Media & Bioethics at the University of the West
of Scotland and Fellow in Visions of Utopia and Dystopia, Institute for
Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Andy’s research is informed by an interest
in applied philosophy, technology, and culture and he writes broadly about
emerging technological cultures, particularly the development of human
enhancement technologies. This includes the implications of pervasive
wireless connectivity and the convergence of technological systems and the
modification of biological matter through nanotechnology and gene transfer.
Andy’s work draws from literature in a range of areas, including law,
philosophy, art & design, cultural studies, sociology and a range of
sciences. He has published over 80, solo-authored academic articles in
refereed journals, books, e-zines, and national media press on the subjects
of cyberculture, medicine, technology, and the Olympics. Recent publications
include the Public Understanding of Science, Journal of Medical Ethics,
CTHEORY, Culture Machine and Research in Philosophy, Technology. Also
writing for leading newspapers, including The Observer, Le Monde, and the
Times Higher Education Supplement.
Andy is also Associate Editor for the BEP journal Studies in Ethics, Law and
Technology, and an Editorial Board Member for 'Genomics, Society & Policy
and Health Care Analysis’ (Springer) .
Jon Turney
Jon Turney is a science writer, editor and reviewer of many years' standing,
during which he has worked as a science reporter, features editor, (briefly)
a civil servant, an academic and a publisher. Jon currently spends part of
his time as science consultant for Penguin Press, for whom he occasionally
edits UK-authored popular books.
Jon’s main focus aside from that is writing his own books, and leading the
MSc in Creative Non-fiction Writing at Imperial College. Besides this he
writes and edits on assignment, especially around life science, science and
society and policy issues.
Jon’s latest book is the Rough Guide to Genetics (with Jess Buxton),
published in 2007 and is currently working on the next called The Rough
Guide to the Future, due in 2009
Anthony Dunne
Anthony Dunne is a partner in the design practice Dunne & Raby. He studied
Industrial Design at the RCA before working at Sony Design in Tokyo. On
returning to London he completed a PhD in Computer Related Design at the
RCA. He was a founding member of the CRD Research Studio where he worked as
a Senior Research Fellow. He also taught in Design Products where he jointly
led Platform 3 between 1998 - 2004.
His work with Fiona Raby uses design as a medium to stimulate discussion and
debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural
and ethical implications of emerging technologies.
Their projects have been exhibited and published internationally and is in
the permanent collection of MoMA and the Victoria & Albert Museum. In 2005
they curated PopNoir at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
He is currently working on BioLand, a fictitious shopping centre and
laboratory devoted to meeting birth, death and marriage needs in a
genetically modified world.
Sandra Kemp
Sandra Kemp’s research has always explored the connections between
individual identity and philosophical, cultural and aesthetic concerns. Her
recent work investigated multiple readings of the face as a 3D barcode of
identity and the impact of advances in science and technology on both
appearance and identity. Her exhibition, Future Face, was at the London
Science Museum from 2005-6 and toured South-East Asia in 2006-7. Her current
research continues her investigation of the cultural centrality of the human
image and its extraordinary expressive repertoire through an exploration of
the issues relating to human enhancement. How will new, complex
relationships between biology, ethics and technology, challenge received
notions of identity and self- perception?
Sandra Kemp is Director of Research at the Royal College of Art. She
studied at Oxford University, and has held Senior Research posts at the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington and the Victoria and Albert Museum,
London. She is currently leading the RCA in its international research
development in Europe, the USA and South East Asia. She is a panel member of
RAE2008.
Onkar Singh Kular
Onkar Singh Kular, born 1974 in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, studied
Product and Furniture Design at Kingston University before going on to the
Royal College of Art to complete a masters in Design Products. Onkar uses
design as a medium to engage with a broad range of social and cultural
issues, from the quest for domestic perfection to baking super functional
bread. His work has been exhibited internationally in London, Tokyo,
Jerusalem, Rotterdam and Barnsley and is sold and distributed by Droog
Design in Holland and Trico in Tokyo.
He is currently a research fellow in the Design Interactions department at
the RCA working with the Tussauds Group. Onkar also teaches Product Design
at Kingston University and Architecture at the London Metropolitan University.
Noam Toran
Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Noam Toran studied fine art and combined
commissions with set designs for theatre and film before receiving an MA in
design at the Royal College of Art in London. Noam creates films and
installations which use the language of products and their distinctive
position in culture as a means with which to investigate anomalies in human
behaviour; anomalies which specifically reflect a retaliation against
imposed social conformity. Often the products are developed for individuals
as vehicles for self-expression and a celebration of uniqueness based on
personal “quirks”, desires and fantasies. The work serves to simultaneously
expand upon the conflict between citizens, corporations and popular culture
and to question the role of objects (and their designers) as protagonists
of conventionality. In almost all his work there is a darkly humorous
conflict: What types of identity do we project onto objects? How and why do
we subvert objects in order for them to achieve more complex functionality?
What does this reveal about the human condition and the systems that
organize society? His recent work has been exhibited in London, Tokyo,
Stockholm, Berlin, Paris and Jerusalem and has been published
internationally. He currently teaches at the Royal College of Art.
For more information please contact Michael Burton on 07947 354 284 or
email: [log in to unmask]
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