[rohrpost] Plastic Pollution and Ecosystem of Excess A Talk by Ingeborg Reichle & Pinar Yoldas at Genspace, Brooklyn NY, April 19, 2014

[Ingeborg Reichle]

Plastic Pollution and Ecosystem of Excess
A Talk by Ingeborg Reichle & Pinar Yoldas

When: Saturday, April 19 2014, 8pm
Doors open at 7:30pm

Where: Genspace, The MEx Building
33 Flatbush Avenue,
Brooklyn NY 11217

Genspace Talks on 2nd Floor!


"If life started today in our plastic debris filled oceans, what
kinds of life forms would emerge out of this contemporary primordial
ooze?"(Pinar Yoldas)

Artist-researcher, Pinar Yoldas joins art historian, writer,
curator, Dr. Ingeborg Reichle to discuss Life and Art in the plastic
sphere.

Environmental activist and discoverer of the "Trash Vortex" Captain
Charles Moore boldly claims that “the ocean has turned into a
plastic soup.” The ancient ocean, the primordial soup, gave birth to
the very first organic molecules and was brimming with prehistoric
living organisms. That was four billion years ago. Today the
composition of oceans is undergoing a dramatic change where
synthetic molecules are taking over. Anthropogenic waste has filled
our oceans in less than two decades. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
- a truly 'sublime' kinetic sculpture built by all the nations
around the Pacific Ocean through many years of mindless,
unsustainable consumption. It is a garbage vortex made up of several
million tons of plastic waste in the North Pacific about the size of
Central Europe, an inspiration and birthplace for Yoldas' species of
excess.

Joining us, Dr. Reichle, will discuss her research with plastic
pollution in the Arts and introduce artists and activists who's work
center around polluted oceans with plastics, non-degradable
materials and plastics that are consumed by live organisms and
become part of our food chain. Dr. Reichle will discuss Yolda's
artwork "An Ecosystem of Excess", currently on display at the The
Ernst Schering Foundation, Berlin, following a presentation by the
artist.

"Yoldas creates a post-human ecosystem of speculative organisms and
their imagined environment. From primordial soup to plastic soup.
Yoldas's work introduces pelagic insects, marine reptilia, fish and
birds endowed with organs to sense and metabolize plastics as a new
Linnean order of post-human life forms. Inspired by the
groundbreaking findings of new bacteria that burrows into pelagic
plastics, her work envisions life forms of greater complexity, which
can thrive in man-made extreme environments, and turn the toxic
surplus of our capitalistic desire into eggs, vibrations and
joy. Starting from excessive anthropocentrism she suggests life
without mankind."

Dr. Ingeborg Reichle, is an art historian and cultural theorist
writing on, contemporary art, new technologies and new media, with a
focus on, biotechnology and artificial life. 2005–2011 she held a
research position at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and
Humanities in Berlin. She currently teaches at the Hermann von
Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Techniques at Humboldt-University
Berlin. In 2004 she received her Ph.D. from Humboldt-University
Berlin. Her dissertation on „Art in the Age of Technoscience: Gentic
Engineering, Robotics, and Artificial Life in Contemporary Art“ was
published in English in 2009 with Springer. She completed her
habilitation in 2013 with the thesis „Bilderwissen – Wissensbilder.
Zur Gegenwart der Epistemologie der Bilder“ at Humboldt-University
Berlin. She has given talks at a number of institutions, such as the
School of Visual Arts in New York, the Department of Biology of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, the
Life-Science Lab of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg,
and the Tembusu College of the National University of Singapore.
Currently she is a Visiting Research Fellow at Instituto de
Investigaciones Estéticas der Universidad National Autonoma Mexico
(UNAM) in Mexico City.


Pinar Yoldas is a cross-disciplinary artist and researcher. Her work
investigates social and cultural systems in regards to biological and
ecological systems. Lately she has been designing mutations, tumors
and neoplasmic organs to rethink the body and its sexuality
transformed by the mostly urban habitats of techno-capitalist
consumerism. Pinar Yoldas received her MFA from University of
California Los Angeles. Currently she is pursuing her PhD in the
Art, Art History and Visual Studies department at Duke University.
Her research interests include bio-art, art-neuroscience
interactions and eco-feminism. Prior to her education in the States,
she has received a Bachelors of Architecture from Middle East
Technical University, a Master of Arts from Istanbul Bilgi
University and a Master of Science from Istanbul Technical
University. She holds a bronze medal in organic chemistry in
national science olympics and had her first solo painting exhibition
when she was five.

>>
http://genspace.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=3734c324839c706a50b52473a&id=d7cfedc9f4&e=a04e399405
(<http://genspace.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3734c324839c706a50b52473a&id=2d561dfe6b&e=a04e399405>)

------------------------------------------------------------

Genspace is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting culture,
innovation and education in molecular biology for both children and
adults. We work inside and outside of traditional settings,
providing a safe, supportive environment for training and mentoring
in biotechnology. In the summer of 2010, we built the first-ever
community laboratory, a facility where we design workshops, train
students and innovate new technologies. As a membership-based
community lab, we offer New Yorkers the opportunity to work
on their own projects in a safe, Biosafety level 1 facility.




-- www.kunstgeschichte.de/reichle