TOXICITY Project of Video Pool Media Arts Centre In partnership with INCUBATOR: Hybrid Laboratory at the Intersection of Art, Science and Ecology Co-presented by Plug In ICA December 6, 2013, - February 8, 2014 Plug In ICA, Unit 1 – 460 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba http://www.toxicitywinnipeg.com/
The idea of “Toxicity”, theoretically and practically, entrenches itself into the standard phenomenological understanding of the co-constitution of society and technology. The cultural deciphering of toxicity reconstructs not only the current environmental situation, but also socio-political contexts by looking into modes of contemporary cultural and technological production, the extraction of minerals,toxic waste, local and international policies, economy, finances, community-based responses and the thematics of production, consumption and disposal. The project considers the changes that Toxicity causes in the cultural, socio-political, psychological (in the sense of Guattari’s Planetary Psychopathology) and ecological landscape relating to art and technology by looking into Info-Pathologies and the methods and manners of the “infiltration” of technologies into facets of ordinary life, thereby challenging the inherited taxonomies. “Toxicity” also connects to biopolitical conflicts in the real and virtual worlds involving: energy control and the choice of fuel material and alternative energy sources; the thematic of entropy; the inheritance and programmability of life; the causes and consequences of environmental changes; the question of environmental sustainability; micro and macro ecology; GM products, life, death and appearance. The dualities of power and right, sovereignty and law, are inextricably bound to contemporary biopolitical discourses. In Foucault’s own words: “For capitalist society it is the biological that is important before everything else; the biological, the somatic, the corporeal. The body is a biopolitical reality, medicine is a biopolitical strategy.” TOXICITY 2013 is the inaugural exhibition, conference and workshop of a series of international exhibitions and symposiums surrounding the notion of toxicities in the contemporary world. This premier exhibition, co-curated by Dr. Melentie Pandilovski (Director of Video Pool, Winnipeg) and Dr. Jennifer Willet (Director, INCUBATOR Lab, The University of Windsor) will highlight the growing Canadian biotech arts community within an international context. To that end, TOXICITY presents artworks by emerging and established Canadian and international artists utilizing biological media to explore real and perceived toxic byproducts and outcomes affiliated with biotechnology, biosecurity, biomedicine, and biopolitics. The works in the exhibition convey the stories of the artists’ approaches to biotech and include research into: biopolitical conflicts in the real and virtual worlds involving NGOs, governments and corporations; energy control and the choice of fuel material and alternative energy sources; the causes and consequences of environmental change; the topic of environmental sustainability; micro- and macro-ecology; life, GM products, death and appearance. With these themes in mind, the artists selected present an array of approaches, from the humorous and playful to the deadly serious, exploring the ways we think about the origins of life, the scale and dimensions of living matter and the nature of nourishment, death, fashion and appearance. The following artists have been curated for the exhibition: Trish Adams (Brisbane, Australia), Alana Bartol (Windsor), CAE (Buffalo, USA), Joe Davis (Cambridge, MA, USA), Tangny Duff (Montreal), Aganetha Dyck (Winnipeg), Ted Heibert (Seattle, USA), Natalie Jeremijenko (NY, USA), David Khang (Vancouver), Andrew E Pelling (Ottawa), Niki Sperou (Adelaide, Australia) Reva Stone (Winnipeg), Amanda White (Toronto), Elaine Whittaker (Toronto), Jennifer Willet (Windsor) with Jeanette Groenendaal and Zoot Derks (Amsterdam, Holland). In addition to the exhibition, the works are further contextualized for Canadian audiences through 'Zones of Inhibition: Biotech/Art Workshop' a hands-on bioart workshop held by the Australian artist Niki Sperou December 5 -8, 2013. Zones of Inhibition: Biotech/Art Workshop; A 4 day practical and theoretical workshop offering the phenomenological experience of working with live media. Artists will work responsibly with readily available materials and domestic appliances in order to produce biotech projects. The aim is to create access to the processes of science and to bring them into the public domain. Discourse between areas of specialization is important in order to promote critical thinking. 'Toxic Life and Engineered Death' is a one-day symposium (December 9, 2013) that connects artists involved in the TOXICITY project with Canadian and international scholars and the general public in a discussion of the discourses of the arts/sciences interface. The symposium offers a chance for the participants and the audience to consider changes in the cultural, socio-political and ecological landscape through the lens of art and culture. Topics of presentations will include: ethical relationships to “partial life,” the biopolitical and cultural implications of biotechnology, the homologies between ecological and information “poisoning,” challenges to inherited taxonomies of culture, science, art and philosophy and the infiltration of biotechnology into the fabric of everyday life. Keynotes: Steve Kurtz (Buffalo, USA) Joe Davis ( Cambridge, MA, USA), Natalie Jeremijenko (NY, USA), Speakers: Ted Heibert (Seattle, USA), Melentie Pandilovski (Winnipeg), Andrew E Pelling (Ottawa), Niki Sperou (Adelaide, Australia), Jennifer Willet (Windsor). http://www.toxicitywinnipeg.com/ -- Dr. Melentie Pandilovski Director Video Pool Suite 221 100 Arthur Street Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada R3B 1H3 204-949-9134 ex 41 www.videopool.org [email protected] ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
