MutaMorphosis Conference in Prague. MutaMorphosis Challenging Arts and Sciences
International conference, Prague, Czech Republic, 8 - 10 November 2007 Organised by CIANT - International Centre for Art and New Technologies in Prague in collaboration with Leonardo, Hexagram - Institute for Research/Creation in Media Arts and Technologies and Pépinieres européenes pour jeunes artistes. The conference is part of Leonardo Organisation 40th anniversary celebrations. Prague, the city of Renaissance alchemists seeking for artificial life, of Golem, of Čapek`s robot as well as of the first ever interactive film Kinoautomat will host an outstanding international conference MutaMorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences. The conference will present lecturers from all over the world, including Japan, Brazil and Australia. The themes of the conference include Limits of Organic Life, Extreme Bodies in Extreme Spaces, Perspectives on Nano Art, Eco Sonifications, Art & Climate and others. "More than 80 presentations of artists, interdisciplinary researchers, scientists and creative technologists will focus on the growing interest within the worlds of arts and sciences in extreme and hostile environments", says Roger F. Malina, conference co-chair. To mention two conference highlights, there will be a keynote lecture about the architecture of complexity by Albert-László Barabási, who is recognised for the introduction of the scale-free network concept and popularization of network theory, and a lecture by Roy Ascott, pioneering cyber artist who published in 1967 in the first volume of the Leonardo Journal. Among the invited speakers there are Stelarc, one of the world-famous artists using technology to extend capabilities of human body, nano artist Victoria Vesna who will be speaking with nano scientist James Gimzewski, the author of 2005 most downloaded paper in Nature on a pocket sized nuclear fusion device, or artist-scientist duo James Crutchfield & David Dunn who will focus on exploration of bioacoustic ecology of deforestation. In addition, MutaMorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences conference will take place in the framework of art festival ENTER which will feature number of experimental performances, screenings and exhibitions. Among the exhibitions there will be the first retrospective of Frank J. Malina (1912 - 1981) who was an American aeronautical engineer and painter as well as initiator of the Leonardo Journal. He constructed the first rocket to break the 50-mile altitude mark, becoming the first sounding rocket to reach space, while his kinetic paintings embed an ambitious attempt to explore territories of art-science collaboration. "The ENTER festival will present works of more than 60 artists from all over the world exploring important issues of today such as environment, safety, or human/non-human identity", explains Pavel Sedlák, festival curator. Selected quotes from the conference abstracts: We are obsessed with discovering and surveying unknown environments, with the vertigo produced by limitless expanses, willing to explore outer space and ready to set out and conquer infinitesimal nanometric worlds. -- Louis Bec, We Are Extremophiles The augmented body becomes an extended operational system, operating beyond the boundaries of its skin and beyond the local space that it inhabits. Altering the architecture of the body adjusts its awareness. -- Stelarc, Alternate Anatomical Architectures: Extruded, Empty and Absent Bodies Industry animals, transgenic insects, semi-humans and genetically modified plants may be foreign species brought forth from technology but are they seductive enough for us to want to live with them for generations to come? --- Adam Zaretsky, On Mutaphobia At any given moment, there can be 30,000 manmade objects in the sky above us: planes, helicopters, satellites, weather balloons, space debris, and other diverse technologies. They watch, they guide, they protect, they communicate, they transport, they predict, they look out into the stars. In less than 100 years, the deep blue has become a complex web of machinery and an emergent system of technology. -- Scott Hessels, The Machines above us: an Overview of the 'Celestial Mechanics' New Media Artwork http://mutamorphosis.org A project of CIANT - International Centre for Art and New Technologies in Prague. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
