MutaMorphosis. Challenging Arts and Sciences

International conference, Prague, Czech Republic, 8 – 10 November 2007

The conference will take place in the building of Municipal Library in the city centre of Prague. Address: Mariánské námestí 1, Praha 1

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 Capek’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.

Committees

We are proud to introduce members of the Honorary Panel:

Rudolf Arnheim
Herbert W. Franke
Ivan M. Havel
Vera Molnar
Frank Popper
Sonya Rapoport
Jasia Reichardt
Itsuo Sakane
Sonia Sheridan
Steina
Woody Vasulka

We are pleased to introduce members of the International Advisory Committee:

Lorella Abenavoli
Marc Battier
Nina Czegledy
Alain Depocas
Hans Diebner
Ricardo Dal Farra
Michele Emmer
Machiko Kusahara
Lubica Lacinova
Michael Punt
Nicolas Reeves

Members of the Steering Committee:

Alban Asselin
Louis Bec
Annick Bureaud
Don Foresta
Denisa Kera
Roger F. Malina (co-chair)
Louise Poissant
Pavel Sedlák (co-chair)
Pavel Smetana

Program

Wednesday, 7th of November
Address: Mariánské náméstí 2, Praha 1

14:00 – 19.00 Registration and optional coffee at cafeteria

Thursday, 8th of November

8:00 – 8.50 Registration and optional coffee at cafeteria

Room 1 (R1) Room 2 (R2)

9:00 Opening notes (R1): Mayor of Prague and Organisers

9:30 Opening plenary speech (R1): Louis Bec – We Are Extremophiles

10:05 – 12:00 Session 1 (R1)
Limits of Organic Life
Moderator: Alban Asselin

Bakke, Monika: Zoe-philia and the Predicament of
Anthropocentrism
Rogers, Kathleen: Bacteria, Geology and Blood
Smith, Brad: Ascribing Status to Life Forms
Roosth, Sophia: Zeroing Out Biological Time: Standardization and
Surprise in Synthetic Biology
Seaman, Bill: Neo-sentience: Positive Techno-evolution or
Extreme, Hostile Takeover Environment?

10:05 – 12:00 Session 2 (R2)
Exo-Botany
Moderator: Ghislaine Boddington

Xiao, Leon Yongliang: Extending Human Life with Digital Art Forms
Kuzmanovic, Maja / Gaffney, Nik: groWorld
Boland, Howard / Cinti, Laura: The Martian Rose

12:00 – 13:30 Lunch break

13:30 – 14:00 Plenary speech (R1):Stelarc – Alternate Anatomical Architectures: Extruded, Empty and Absent Bodies

14:05 – 15:30 Session 3 (R1)
Mutations and Metamorphoses
Moderator: Denisa Kera

van Rijsingen, Miriam: Prolific Encounters: towards a Philosophy
of Mutability
Willet, Jennifer / Bailey, Shawn: BIOTEKNICA:
A Mutation Model for Teratological Art
Valdes Claudia X. / Thurtle, Phillip: From Spiderman to Alba:
Transgenics in a Post-nuclear World
Zaretsky, Adam: On Mutaphobia

14:05 – 15:30 Session 4 (R2)
Extreme Bodies in Extreme Spaces
Moderator: Machiko Kusahara

Horakova, Jana: Performing Spaces for Cybernetics Organisms
Beloff, Laura: Wunderkammer: Wearables as an Artistic Strategy
Ryan, Susan Elizabeth: Dress for Stress: Wearable Technology and the
Social Body

15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break

16:00 – 16:30 Plenary speech (R1):
Victoria Vesna & James Gimzewski – Blue Morph: Surges of Nanocellular Transformations

16:35 – 18:00 Session 5 (R1)
Perspectives on Nano Art
Moderator: Jaroslav And?l

Punt, Michael: Between Thought and Matter: the Final Frontier
Thomas, Paul: Boundaryless Nanomorphologies
Stein, Suzanne / Goodman, Lizbeth: Foresighting for Meaningful
Innovation

Friday, 9th of November

9:00 Optional coffee at caffeteria

Room 1 (R1) Room 2 (R2)

9:30 – 10:00 Plenary speech (R1): Roger F. Malina – Limits of Cognition: Artists in the Dark Universe

10:05 – 12:00 Session 6 (R1)
Inner & Outer Spaces
Moderator: Annick Bureaud

Krueger, Ted: Mediated Perception
Osaka, Takuro: Artistic Proposals on the Cultural Application of
JEM – 2009 ISS Art Experiment Program
Triscott, Nicola / La Frenais, Rob: The Arts Catalyst
Phillips, Mike: Normal to an Abnormal Degree
Tetsuro, Fukuhara: Space Dance in the Tube, Experience and
Expression

10:05 – 12:00 Session 7 (R2)
Creative Autonomy
Moderator: Don Foresta

Joyce, Michael: Poem as Written Word at Boundary Condition
Grond, Florian: From Reality to a Line and Back, a Little Theory of
Everything
Brown, Paul: The DrawBots
Goodman, Lizbeth / Duffy, Brian / Sudol, Jeremi / Price, Marc et al.:
TRUST: Robotics and Haptics for Extreme Interaction and Universal
Design
Goto, Suguru: Virtual Musical Instrument and RoboticMusic

12:00 – 13:30 Lunch break

13:30 – 14:00 Plenary speech (R1): Václav Cílek – Climate as the Last Wilderness

14:05 – 15:30 Session 8 (R1)
Art & Climate
Moderator: Nicola Triscott

Ferran, Bronac / Ratto, Matt: Artists and Scientists as
Extremophiles: Extreme Environments and Ecology
Santaella, Lucia / Garcia, Wagner: Cognitus: New Cognitive Tools
to Assess Environmental Risks in Amazonas
Chapple, Boo: Bodies of Water
Da Costa, Beatriz: PigeonBlog: Interspecies Co-production in the
Pursuit of Resistant Action

14:05 – 15:30 Session 9 (R2)
Limits of Adaptation
Moderator: Louise Poissant

Fischer, Hervé: Law of Divergence and Mythoanalysis of Limits
Schlacht, Irene: Art, Design and Human Metamorphosis in Extreme
Environments
Jorgensen, Jesper – Restricted Sensory Stimulation: A Challenge and a
Risk for Humans in Extreme Environments?
Chardronnet, Ewen: Dissemination and the Becoming-World of the
Laboratory

15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break

16:00 – 16:30 Plenary speech (R1): James Crutchfield & David Dunn – Insects, Trees, and Climate:
The Bioaocustic Ecology of Deforestation and Entomogenic Climate Change

16:35 – 18:00 Session 10 (R1)
Eco Sonifications
Moderator: Nicolas Reeves

Polli, Andrea: Sonic Interpretation and Experience of Extreme
Events and Environments
Harris, Yolande: Taking Soundings: a Sound-Artists Investigation
into Technologies of Coastal Navigation
Cusack, Peter: Sounds from Dangerous Places
Young, Michael / Adderley, W. Paul: Here Is Now and There Is
the Sound of the Land: Scientific and Sonic Perceptions of the
African Sahel
Diennet, Jacques / Calvet, David / Kronland, Richard / Voinier,
Thierry / Vallée, Claude: The COSMOPHONE: Playing with
PARTICLES, the COSMOS and SOUNDS

16:35 – 18:00 Session 11 (R2)
Visual Study of Culture, Nature & Universe
Moderator: Michael Punt

Blassnigg, Martha: Imaging the Extreme
Rossi, Michael Paul: Kitsch and the Meaning(s) of Life
Mayeri, Rachel: Primate Cinema
O’Neill, Rob: The Morphology Project: Art-Science Explorations of
Biological Shape Analysis and Evolution
Hessels, Scott: The Machines above us: an Overview of the ‘Celestial
Mechanics’ New Media Artwork

Saturday, 10th of November

9:00 Coffee

Room 1 (R1) Room 2 (R2)

9:30 – 10:00 Plenary speech (R1): Roy Ascott – Terror Incognito: Steps toward an Extremity of Mind

10:05 – 12:00 Session 12 (R1)
Mind Reloaded
Moderator: Marc Battier

Drayson, Hannah: Embarking upon the Colonization of
Transcendental Space; Gestalt Biometrics
Clark, Tim: Massive Multiplayer Online Games and Anthropic Bias:
The Role Game Creators, Possible ‘Life’ World Scenario’s, and the
Doomsday Argument
Doruff, Sher: Extreme Intervals and Sensory Fusions
Ingham, Karen: The Inverted Eye: a Transdisciplinary Gaze into
the Dysfunctional Mind
Klikova, Alice: Limits of Biohermeneutics

10:05 – 12:00 Session 13 (R2)
Bodies & Devices
Moderator: Louise Poissant

Kusahara, Machiko: Externalizing Our Body: Device Art and Its
Experimental Nature
Kriesche, Richard: Defragmentation
Daubner, Ernestine: Art, (bio)technologies & (dis)abilities: Challenges of
an Expanding Body/Mind
Donegan, Mick / Goodman, Lizbeth / Kennedy, Helen / Palmer-
Brown, Dominic / Zhang, Li: InterFACES: Affective Interactive Virtual
Learning Environments for People with Cognitive & Physical Disabilities

12:00 – 13:30 Lunch break

13:30 – 14:00 Plenary speech (R1): Albert-László Barabási – The Architecture of Complexity

14:05 – 15:30 Session 14 (R1)
Extending Memory, Expanding Life
Moderator: Paul Brown

Diebner, Hans H.: Cultural Evolution and the Internet – A Critical
Approach
Germen, Murat / Ayiter, Elif: Looking Aside: Collective Constructs,
Autarchic Assemblage
Endo, Takumi: Phonethica
Sau Bin, Yap: Mapping Art Spaces: An Artist’s Quest to Chart
History

14:05 – 15:30 Session 15 (R2)
Inside & Outside: from Perception to Immunity
Moderators: Luis Graca and Marta de Menezes

Lambert, Hervé-Pierre: Neuroesthetics, Neurological Disorders and
Creativity
Harrison, Dew / Rauch, Barbara: The Art of Creating Moments of
Stillness in a Volatile World
Novakovic, Gordana: Metropolis: an Extreme and Hostile Environment

15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break

16:00 – 18:00 Session 16 (R1)
Challenging Arts and Sciences

Moderator: Louise Poissant

Participants: Herbert W. Franke, Woody Vasulka, Don Foresta
and more guests

Room 3 (R3) / Limited number of seats

Thursday, 8th of November

16:35 – 17:30 Debate (R3)
Scientific Arts or Science Fiction?

Moderator: Hervé Fischer

Participants: Rachel Armstrong, Pierre Berger,Keiko Courdy,
Luc Delannoy, Louis-Philippe Demers, Hans Diebner, Juan
Eduardo Fleming, Dew Harrison, John Hoffmann, Jesper
Jorgensen, Michele Emmer, Lubica Lacinova, Ana Leonor
Madeira, Christine Malina-Maxwell, Marta de Menezes,
Christa Sommerer, Claude Vallee

17:35 – 18:30 Debate (R3)
Smart Materials in Architecture and Design

Moderators: Ghislaine Boddington & Armand Terruli

Friday, 9th of November

10:05 – 11:00 Debate (R3)
Artists in Science Labs

Moderator: Denisa Kera

Participants: Laura Beloff, Jay D. Bolter, Irène Hediger, Marta
de Menezes, Vicki Sowry, Adam Zaretsky

11:05 – 12:00 Debate (R3)
Challenging Anthropocentrism

Moderator: Louis-Philippe Demers

Participants: Rachel Armstrong, Monika Bakke, Tim Clark,
Hervé Fischer, Jana Horaková, Ted Krueger, Stelarc

14:05 – 15:00 Debate (R3)
The MutaMorphosis of Meaning: Uses and
Abuses in Extreme and Hostile Environments

Moderator: Timothy A. Jackson

Participants:
Roy Ascott, Paul Brown, Keiko Courdy, Andrea Polli and
Eddie Shanken

16:35 – 17:30 Debate (R3)

Open Polar Art/Science Research Infrastructure
Perspectives

Moderator: Marko Peljhan

Participants: Keiko Courdy

17:35 – 18:30 Debate (R3)

Victim’s Symptom

Moderator: Ana Peraica

Participants: Peter Cusack, Susan Elisabeth Ryan

Saturday, 10th of November

10:05 – 12:00 Debate (R3)
Art & Science & Media Art Education: A
Discourse on Initiatives

Moderators: Nina Czegledy & Victoria Vesna

Participants: Du?an Barok, Michele Emmer, Judit Hersko,
Maja Kuzmanovic, Frieder Nake, Maciej Ozog, Adam
Somlai-Fischer Szabolcs, Guy Van Belle, Milo?
Vojt?chovský

14:05 – 15:00 Debate (R3)
Synaesthesia

Moderator: Roger F. Malina

Participants: Rachel Armstrong, Elif Ayiter, Boo Chapple,
Keiko Courdy, Sher Doruff, Nik Gaffney, Joanna Hoffman,
Maja Kuzmanovic

Enter3
3rd international festival

08.11. – 11.11.2007
(05.11.2007 – 07.01.2008)

Praha

EXHIBITIONS – PERFORMANCES – SCREENINGS – CONFERENCE

Artistic experiments with new technologies at the borders with science

http://enter3.org

Under the auspices of Dr. Pavel Bém, Mayor of Prague, and of the UN Information Center in Prague

Main organiser: CIANT – International Centre for Art and New Technologies

Info / Press centre / Tickets

Open 8 – 10 November, 2007, 8:30 AM – 7:00 PM at Municipal Library, Mariánské námestí 2, Praha 1.

PROGRAM FACTS

EXHIBITIONS

08.11.2007 – 07.01.2008
POINT-LINE UNIVERSE
Frank J. Malina (1912-1981)
First retrospective exhibition of a renowned pioneer of kinetic art
Curator: Vít Havránek
Museum Kampa (U Sovových mlýn? 2, Praha 1) 10:00 – 18:00
Opening reception: 07.11.2007 19:00

05. – 09.11.2007
TRANSGENESIS: ARTISTS IN LABS
Mixing the heterogeneous genes of artistic and scientific creativity
Exhibiting artists: Linda ?ihá?ová / Gabriela Jurkovi?ová / Martin Kermes / Pavel Kop?iva / Marta de Menezes / Martin Pouzar / Pavel Sterec / Lucie Svobodová / SYNTFAM (Andreas Schlegel, Vladimir Todorovic) / Petr ?ourek
Curators: Denisa Kera, Petra Vargová
Akademie v?d ?R Academy of Sciences (Národní 3, Praha 1) 10:00 – 19:00
Opening reception 05.11.2007 18:00

05. – 09.11.2007
WEB 2.0 GENERATION
Connecting innovation, business and art
Exhibiting artists: Jonah Brucker-Cohen & Mike Bennett / Thomas Gläser & Jens Franke / Salvatore Iaconesi / Kurt Margenau / Pash* / Jan Pfeiffer / PILEUS (Sho Hashimoto & Takashi Matsumoto) / PLEIX / Angie Waller
Curators: Denisa Kera, Mahir Mustafa Yavuz, Radka Peterová
Akademie v?d ?R Academy of Sciences (Národní 3, Praha 1) 10:00 – 19:00
Opening reception: 05.11.2007 18:00

09. – 27.11.2007
I, RESIDENT
Exhibiting artists: Teresa Almeida / Eduard Bala? – Urtica / Laura Beloff (ve spolupráci s Erichem Bergerem a Martinem Pichlmairem) / Thomas Cimolai (ve spolupráci s Alexisem Chazardem) / Takumi Endo / Antony Hall / ?t?pán Kleník / Stéphane Kyles / Joerg Piringer
Curators: Pavel Sedlák, Pavel Smetana
French Institute (?t?pánská 35, Praha 1) 10:00 – 19:00
Opening reception: 08.11.2007 19:00

08. – 11.11.2007
UNSAFE DISTANCE
Exhibiting artists: Paul Adderley & Michael Young / Shawn Bailey & Jennifer Willet / Howard Boland & Laura Cinti (c-lab) / Peter Cusack / Beatriz da Costa & Cina Hazegh & Kevin Ponto / Louis-Philippe Demers & Garry Stewart / Florian Grond & Claudia Robles / Antony Hall / Boo Chapple / Ewen Chardronnet & Spectral Investigations Collective (SIC) & RIXC Media Collective / Karen Ingham / Martin Kermes / Pavel Kop?iva, Kuda.org, Radim Labuda, Luká? Machalický, Rachel Mayeri, Gordana Novakovic, Rob O’Neill, Andrea Polli, STELARC, Pavel Sterec & Ale? ?ermák & Jan Trejbal / Paul Thomas & Kevin Raxworthy
Curator: Pavel Sedlák
Stone Bell House (Starom?stské námestí 13, Praha 1) 10:00 – 21:00

08. – 25.11.2007
BLUE MORPH
Connecting art and nanoscience
Exhibiting artist and scientist: Victoria Vesna & James Gimzewski
Galerie CIANT (K?í?kovského 18, Praha 3) 16:00 – 21:00 (WE-SU)

11. – 18.11.2007
ON VAMPYROTEUTHIS INFERNALIS
Homage to Vilém Flusser
Curator: Louis Bec
Goethe Institut (Masarykovo náb?e?í 32, Praha 1) 10:00 – 18:00
Opening reception: 10.11.2007 19:00

28.11.2007 – 30.12.2007
ZOOSYSTEMATICIAN
Hypothetical organisms
Exhibiting artist: Louis Bec
Galerie CIANT (K?í?kovského 18, Praha 3) 16:00 – 21:00 (WE-SU)

PERFORMANCES

10.11.2007
21:00 (31 min.)
SAFE DISTANCE REVISITED
Joachim Montessuis
Audiovisual performance mixing live a found footage from the board of a NATO fighter plane before it crashed.
French Institute (?t?pánská 35, Praha 1)

09.-11.11.2007
18:00 (180 min.)
RECREATION OF BZ REACTION
Antony Hall
Stone Bell House (Starom?stské námestí 13, Praha 1)

SCREENINGS

French Institute (?t?pánská 35, Praha 1)

09.11.2007 17:00 / 10.11.2007 17:00 / 11.11.2007 17:00
THE BEST OF PEPINIERES I, II, III
Video-clips surveying artistic residencies (25 min.)

09.11.2007 19:00 / 10.11.2007 17:30 / 11.11.2007 19:00
DANGEROUS LIASONS
Leiden University Embryology Arts Honors Class
Documentary film from transgenic lab (83 min.)

09.11.2007 17:30 / 11.11.2007 at 17:30
MACHINIMA FILMS
Films created inside of computer games (60 min.)
Curator: Friedrich Kirschner

09.11.2007 21:00
SYNKEN
Music film by Transforma & Chrise Douglase aka O.S.T (51 min.)
Presented by XMAG & Shitkatapult

10.11.2007 19:00
SOFT SCIENCE
Video-curiosities by artists and scientists (63 min.)
Curator: Rachel Mayeri

Website: http://www.mutamorphosis.org/