[spectre] Engineering Life: Virtual Futures Salon debate in London, 25.04.16

[Joanna Zylinska]

Engineering Life | Virtual Futures Salon

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 at 18:30 - London, United Kingdom
Event information and tickets:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/engineering-life-virtual-futures-salon-tickets-24663336704

Life is being altered and designed by artists, scientists and 
technologists. Through applying engineering principles to living 
systems, biology has become a new material for creativity. But these 
practices and manipulations now challenge our understanding of life and 
what it means to be alive. There are various ways in which life is being 
engineered: Techniques such as tissue culture allow for the growth of 
cells and organism in an artificial environments. Meanwhile synthetic 
biology allows for designers to programme material, creating new 
organisms that might be used for radical purposes such as in 
architecture, conducting electricity or emitting light. In addition, 
platforms such as CRISPR/Cas9 provide an increasingly inexpensive and 
versatile way to make changes to the genome.

Many of these biotechnologies have captured the imagination of the 
public and have led to assertions that we might soon be able to build or 
grow replacement organs. As such new emphasis has been placed on 
definitions of ‘life’ that emerges through the lens of science, which 
requires us to questions what might be done to life through the use of 
these new technologies. What does it mean to be able to build with life? 
What are the philosophical and ethical issues that arise from these new 
approaches? What boundaries are crossed between science and design when 
we engage with these forms of manipulation? What are the implications of 
presenting living-art in this context? Where are the new boundaries 
between life and non-life? How are these technologies changing our 
understanding what it means to be alive and living?

This panel discussion will explore who gets to use life as material and 
to what end.

Panelists

Oron Catts, Director of SymbioticA, The University of Western Australia 
(@OronCatts)
An artist, researcher and curator whose pioneering work with the Tissue 
Culture and Art Project which he established in 1996 is considered a 
leading biological art project. In 2000 he co-founded SymbioticA, an 
artistic research centre housed within the School of Anatomy, Physiology 
and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia. Under Catts’ 
leadership SymbioticA has gone on to win the Prix Ars Electronica Golden 
Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) the WA Premier Science Award (2008) and became 
a Centre for Excellence in 2008. In 2009 Catts was recognised by Thames 
& Hudson’s “60 Innovators Shaping our Creative Future” book in the 
category “Beyond Design”, and by Icon Magazine (UK) as one of the top 20 
Designers, “making the future and transforming the way we work”.

Lucy McRae, Body Architect (@LucyMcRae)
Lucy McRae is a Body Architect exploring the relationship between the 
body, technology and the grey areas of synthetic and organic materials. 
She invents playful, imaginary worlds steered by complex scientific 
challenges to create portals of possibility that provoke the way people 
embody the future.

Edward Perello, Chief Business Officer & Founder, Desktop Genetics 
(@EdwardPerello)
A molecular biologist passionate about synthetic biology and its impact 
on the world, Edward looks to build a world where biology is widely, and 
responsibly, used as technology. At Desktop Genetics, he leads the user 
outreach, content and experience testing strategies. He is a 2015 SynBio 
LEAP fellow and has formerly worked with the European Union on science 
policy and VERTIC on arms control.

Prof. Joanna Zylinska, Professor of New Media and Communications at 
Goldsmiths (@MediaComGold)
A writer, lecturer, artist and curator, working in the areas of new 
technologies and new media, ethics, photography and art. She is 
Professor of New Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of 
London. The author of five books - most recently, Minimal Ethics for the 
Anthropocene (Open Humanities Press, 2014; e-version freely available), 
Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process (with Sarah Kember; 
MIT Press, 2012) and Bioethics in the Age of New Media (MIT Press, 2009) 
- she is also the editor of The Cyborg Experiments: the Extensions of 
the Body in the Media Age, a collection of essays on the work of 
performance artists Stelarc and Orlan (Continuum, 2002) and co-editor of 
Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the 
Holocaust (University of Nebraska Press, 2007). Her translation of 
Stanislaw Lem's major philosophical treatise, Summa Technologiae, came 
out from the University of Minnesota's Electronic Mediations series in 2013.

Luke Robert Mason, Director of Virtual Futures (Moderator) 
(@LukeRobertMason)

Plus, a special performance from Virtual Futures' Near-Future Fiction 
Author in Residence:
Stephen Oram, Near-Future Fiction Author (@OramStephen)

About the Venue
The Lights of Soho, London’s newest art gallery and member’s lounge, is 
now open, operating as a cultural hub for Soho’s creative community and 
the global home of creative neon and light art formats.
Find out more: http://lightsofsoho.com

Follow the Debate
Follow the debate on Twitter here:
#VFSalon
@VirtualFutures

More Information
Virtual Futures is a Community Interest Company (CIC). Tickets sales 
help to cover costs of speaker travel, filming and documentation.
Discount Codes
100% Discount available for Lights of Soho Members & Press.
Contact info at virtualfutures.co.uk for Codes.

When
     Monday, 25 April 2016 from 18:30 to 21:00 (BST) -
Where
     Lights of Soho - 35 Brewer Street, London W1F 0RX, United Kingdom

Event information and tickets:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/engineering-life-virtual-futures-salon-tickets-24663336704

-- 
Professor Joanna Zylinska
Department of Media and Communications
Goldsmiths, University of London

http://www.joannazylinska.net

NEW BOOK, Photomediations: A Reader, available open access:
http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/photomediations/