Super Human: Revolution of the species.

This month I attended Super Human: Revolution of the species held in Melbourne and Re:live Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology. 

Both conferences presented an inspiring mixture of research projects that engage with topics that include sustainability, live arts and the technological arts of life, both organic and nonorganic,  Augmentation, Cognition and Nanoscale Interventions.

Super Human was spired by the 150th publication anniversary of The Origin of Species, Darwin’s evolutionary treatise, Super Human: Revolution of the Species turns the spotlight on collaborations between artists and scientists and the impact these investigations have on what it means to be human, now and into the future.

Some of the big question that the speakers addressed were -

• How do scientific and artistic bodies of knowledge intersect with human, social bodies? 
• Does art serve simply as a representational tool for the sciences or is there more to the picture than that?
• Does research into bodies and their systems offer an insight into aesthetic, or is confined to the purely functional? 
• How do the media arts change? 
• Through innovation, accident, discovery, mutation or crisis? 
• How did contemporary media arts come to look and sound like they do? 
• What options and potentialities and eccentricities in the history of media have been lost or overlooked or suppressed? 
• What hopes have been realised and which dashed? 
• What is the history of speculation on alternate histories, and how have they altered the course of media art history? 

As there where to many talks to blog, I will post a few of the works from artists I meet and talked to at the conference. 

Drawing Breath
by George Khut with John Tonkin
www.georgekhut.com 

George's art explores our experience of ourselves as physiologically embodied subjects –  our body as a fundamental aspect of who and how we are in the world –  and as a process through which we  become alive to the world inside and around us (the moves we make, the sounds we hear, the things we look at etc.).

Drawing Breath is the name of a series of breath-responsive works developed with artist and interaction designer John Tonkin. A belt worn around the participant’s chest translates breath-related changes in chest diameter to a computer that transforms these movements into a dense array of trailing 3D particles and breath-like noise textures.

You interact with the work by placing your hands onto a pair of wireless heart-rate sensors. These sensors measure moment-to-moment changes in heart rate that can be influenced by breathing and stress/relaxation responses. These changes in heart-rate interval are translated into colours, patterns and sound textures, that you can eventually learn to influence through a combination of breathing and sustained mental/emotional focus. George is also working on the - 

The Heart Library Project

 

The Heart Library Project is a traveling interactive art exhibition that invites you to spend some time observing and reflecting on interactions between your heart, nervous system and mental/emotional focus via sounds and visuals that respond to subtle changes in heart rhythm. The project was designed for presentation in health-care settings (i.e. hospitals), but recent exhibitions have also taken place in art galleries and science education centres. 

After your interaction with the biofeedback part of the work, you are invited to share your experience inside this work with other visitors, through the creation of a personalized experience-map and interview. Lines, textures, colours and words applied by the participant to a generic outline of a human body are used to describe aspects of their experience: sensations, memories, images and patterns of intensity. Participants can then describe how this map relates to their experience, by way of a short interview.

The resulting collection of experience-maps and interviews are displayed alongside the biofeedback artwork, transforming the exhibition into a public research studio, where visitors can explore the diversity of our lived experience of the body: the body as a centre for inspiration, strength, healing and delight.

text and images taken from the artists website.

Emotion Pods 
by Leah Heiss
http://www.elasticfield.com

The Emotion Pods are small interactive elements which investigate social behaviours. The devices all utilise electroluminescent cable which is activated by sensors. Some of the units illuminate when cradled in the hand while others slowly illuminate as darkness falls.

The Emotion Pods question how the adoption of new ways of connecting might impact upon our relationships with each other and our technologies.  Also by Leah -

The Diabetes Necklace

 The Diabetes Neckpiece is a wearable applicator device to apply Nanotechnology Victoria’s NanoMAPs to the skin. NanoMAPs are small (10 x 2mm) circular discs which have an array of micro needles on their surface. They allow for pain-free delivery of insulin to the body, replacing syringes. The Diabetes Rings work in conjunction with the Diabetes Neckpiece. The rings are designed to keep the nano engineered insulin patches against the skin once they have been applied. They are designed as discreet housings for therapeutics. Philosophically, they question how we might ‘enable’ our favourite jewellery/artefacts with functionality above and beyond the aesthetic

Micro'be
by Donna Franklin 
http://bioalloy.drobel.com.au

 The fashion that starts with a bottle of wine...

The Micro‘be’ project investigates the practical and cultural biosynthesis of microbiology – to explore forms of futuristic dress-making and textile technologies. Instead of lifeless weaving machines producing the textile, living microbes will ferment a garment. It smells like red wine and feels like sludge when wet, but the cotton-like cellulose dress fits snugly as a second skin. The material is very delicate, comprising micro-fibrils of cellulose. The colouration of the fabric will depend on the wine used, red wine - red fabric, white wine or beer - a translucent material. A fermented garment will not only rupture the meaning of traditional interactions with body and clothing; but will also examine the practicalities and cultural implications of commercialisation. This project redefines the production of woven materials. By combining art and science knowledge and with a little inventiveness, the ultimate goal will be to produce a bacterial fermented seamless garment that forms without a single stitch.

Another living art piece by Donna is  Fibre Reactive. Fungi, a material that has traditionally been used to dye cloth for centuries, is living in symbiosis with a dress. The living garment is encrusted with growing funghi. The project aims to raise questions about the commodification of living entities, the implications of manipulating living organisms and the production of biological art.

I will be blogging in the next couple of months more projects that are pushing the creative boundaries in material design.

The Electric Retina
by Jill Scott
http://www.jillscott.org

I'm facinated by Jill's work. On her blog she regards "the body" as "the society" and both are interfaces with players and interactive communities, who live not only in the evolving zones of physical reality but also in high-tech-spheres. Her works involve the construction of interactive media and electronic sculptures based on studies she has conducted in neuroscience.

The Electric Retina combines retinal research and interactive media art with metaphorical associations about visual perception. The work, a media- sculpture based on the study of photoreceptors and their neural behaviour, enables viewers to gain a greater understanding of how our visual and cognitive reactions are affected by genetics, disease and degeneration.

E-skin
http://www.e-skin.ch

Jill is also work on "E-skin" which is a set of wearable interfaces, which constitute our past and present http://www.e-skin.ch attempts to electronically simulate the perceptive modalities of the human skin: pressure, temperature, vibration and propioception. These four modalities constitute our biggest human organ, constantly detecting and reacting to environmental realities. The interfaces explore the cross-modal potentials of tactile and acoustic feedback, the enhanced orientation of cognitive mapping and the need to embody the interaction in the digital environment.

The Synthetic Kingdom
A Natural History of the Synthetic Future 
by Daisy Ginsbury

http://www.daisyginsberg.com 

BIOELECTRONICS: LUNCHTIMER
Using a synthetic oscillator called a REPRESILLATOR, these living timers are programmed to express the pink protein DsRed2 at lunchtime.

CMYK PLAQUE

Full set extracted from a 34-year-old man with poor dental hygiene. Replacing artificial colours, modified E. coli self-organise into dot-shaped biofilms used in pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs.

POLLUTION-SENSING LUNG TUMOR

Terminal pathology from female smoker, 64 years of age. Analysis identified a novel species of silicon fabricator containing DNA from Japanese carbon monoxide detectors (manufacturer’s DNA tag intact). A double disease: her lungs grew carbon monoxide-sensing crystals in response to the presence of pollutants in her lungs.

How will we classify what is natural or unnatural when life is built from scratch? 

Synthetic Biology is turning to the living kingdoms for its materials library. No more petrochemicals: instead, pick a feature from an existing organism, locate its DNA code and insert it into a biological chassis. From DIY hacked bacteria to entirely artificial, corporate life-forms, engineered life will compute, produce energy, clean up pollution, make self-healing materials, kill pathogens and even do the housework. Manufacturers will transcend biomimicry, engineering bacteria to secrete keratin for sustainable vacuum cleaner casings; synthesise biodegradable gaskets from abalone shell proteins and fill photocopier toner cartridges with photosensitive E. coli.

Meanwhile, we’ll have to add an extra branch to the Tree of Life. The Synthetic Kingdom is part of our new nature.

Biotech promises us control over the natural world, but living machines need controlling. Biology doesn’t respect boundaries or patents. And in simplifying life to its molecular interactions, might we accidentally degrade our sense of self? Are promises of sustainability and unparalleled good health seductive enough to accept such compromise?