GMU:Art and Biomedia

Lecturer: Theresa Schubert
Project Module (Master)
Date: Thursdays 9:15-12:30
additional lectures Thursdays 19-20:30 (bi-weekly)
Consultations: Wednesdays/Thursdays by appointment
Venue: Marienstraße 7b, Projektraum (Room 204)
Credits: 18 ECTS
Bison-Portal

Art and Biomedia: agencies of being(s)

In the 1960s cybernetician Stafford Beer brought up the idea that there should be a completely new way to the construction of computing elements: finding some material with the appropriate liveliness rather than laboriously engineering dead matter. Since always observations of and in nature have inspired artists. In recent years more and more artists – often with a background in media and technology – have turned to the biological side and included living matter in search for new modes of expression and a shift to nonhuman viewpoints: the autonomy and unpredictability of organisms, a processual approach of observation and revealing, ideas of interspecies-collaboration.

This course focuses on the convergence of bioart and media art. We discuss relevant theories and philosophies. Presentations of artistic projects from the fields of bioart, media art and art+science collaborations will form the basis for the mediation of concepts. Between dirt, dust and data, fluids, cells and organic life, the creation from a non-human perspective is the aim of the project.

What happens at the intersection of art, biology and new media technologies? What are the unique features of living materials and how can they be included in an artistic context? How can ideas based on research and processes of experimentation be translated into sensual experiences?

With a focus on sensory experiences students should develop installations, interfaces, performances, objects, or video works that can be exhibited (exhibition space in Berlin is available). The project is aimed at graduate students and offers both a structured work process as well as self-directed, individual project work and a space for conceptual discussion and idea translation.

EVALUATION

• regular attendance to classes and active participation through short presentations is mandatory
• development of an individul research project / exhibitable artwork
• documentation of your project on the GMU Wiki

LITERATURE

ELECTRONIC

• Ascott, Roy (1997): Introduction to Consciousness Reframed. In: Leonardo Electronic Almanac vol.5 no.6 (storage)
• Banks, David (2011): A Brief Summary of Actor Network Theory. Cyborgology. https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/12/02/a-brief-summary-of-actor-network-theory
• Karen Barad: Posthumanist Performativity: https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/sv/sai/SOSANT4400/v14/pensumliste/barad_posthumanist-performativity.pdf
  
• Bennett, Jane (2010): Vibrant matter. A political ecology of things. http://film.ncu.edu.tw/word/Vibrant-Matter.pdf
• Stafford beer: Designing Freedom: http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/cybernetics/beer/book.pdf
• Thomas Dreher: Kybernetik und die Pioniere der Computerkunst: http://dreher.netzliteratur.net/4_Medienkunst_Kybernetik.html
• D. López del Rincón (2012): Rematerialized Tendencies in Media Art? FROM SILICON TO CARBON-BASED ART. In: Sociology and Technoscience. https://www.academia.edu/23515810/Rematerialized_Tendencies_in_Media_Art
• Ferrando, Francesca (2012): Towards A Posthumanist Methodology. A Statement. In: Frame. Journal For Literary Studies (25.1), S. 9–18. ON Akademia or research Gate
• Andy Pickering: The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer's Cybernetic Informatics: https://www.asis.org/History/02-pickering.pdf
• Jasia Reichardt: Cybernetic Serendipity: The Computer and the Arts: http://cyberneticserendipity.com/cybernetic_serendipity.pdf
• Thacker, Eugene (2004): Biomedia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. http://www.gbv.de/dms/hbz/toc/ht014270903.pdf

BIBLIOTHEK / SEMESTERAPPARAT

• Karen Barad: Agentieller Realismus ISBN 978-3518260456
• Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman ISBN 978-0745641584
• Dunne, Anthony; Raby, Fiona: Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, ans Social Dreaming, ISBN 978-0262019842
• George Gessert: Green Light. Toward an art of evolution. ISBN 978-0262014144
• Haraway, Donna: Staying with the trouble : making kin in the Chthulucene. ISBN 9780822362142
• Haraway, Donna Jeanne (Hg.) (1991): Simians, cyborgs, and women. The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. ISBN 1853431397
• Hauser, Jens (Hg.) (2008): Sk-interfaces. Exploding borders : creating membranes in art, technology and society. Liverpool: FACT; Liverpool University Press. 1846311497
• Landwehr, Kuni: Home Made Bio Electronic Arts: Do-it yourself: Microscopes, Sensors, Sonifications ISBN 978-3856165673 (Introduction)
• Ingeborg Reichle: Art in the Age of Technoscience: Genetic Engineering, Robotics, and Artificial Life in Contemporary Art ISBN 978-3211781609
• Meyers, W. (2015): Bio art. London. ISBN 0500239320
• William Myers: Bio Design, ISBN 978-0-87070-952-4
• Andrew Pickering: The Cybernetic Brain ISBN 978-0226667904
• Salter, Chris (2015): Alien agency. Experimental encounters with art in the making. The MIT Press. (not in library?)
• Schubert, Theresa; Adamatzky A: Experiencing the unconventional: science in art. ISBN 9814656852
• Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt, The mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. ISBN 9780691162751
• Translife : International Triennal of New Media Art. National Art Museum of China. ISBN 9781846317460

LINKS

https://www.uni-weimar.de/kunst-und-gestaltung/wiki/GMU:Bioart_Linkliste

Online archives / Prizes

• http://www.badaward.nl/artists-scientists
• http://archive.aec.at/prix/ (hybrid art / interactive art)
• https://vida.fundaciontelefonica.com/en/projects/vida-16/ (until 2014)

Online Journals / Blogs

• http://www.clotmag.com/ (artist interviews/reviews)
• http://www.antennae.org.uk/ (theory, artist presentations)

Online documentaries

• Cybernetic Serendipity, interview with the curator Jasia Reichardt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8TJx8n9UsA

STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

18.10. Fungi and uncertainty, mycorrizhal fungi, WWW (Tamara)
25.10. Plant interactions (artworks by Sommerer & Mignonneau, Tim Knowles, Interspecifics, +1) (> Laura G.)
01.11 Rebecca Horn (bodylandscapes, body extensions 1960s, kinetic objects)
15.11. Haraway (cyborg > Chtulucene) (>F)
22.11. Ralf Baecker (Analog Computing), Guy Ben-Ary (neural synth)
06.12. Dataisnature: http://www.dataisnature.com (introduction to blog and the author/artist Paul Prudence)
13.12.
20.12.

STUDENT WORKS

• Laura Giraldo

CLASSES

11 Oktober: Overview, Intro Biomedia Art
18 Oktober: Walk 'n' Talk - Forest AND evening lecture
25 Oktober: materials & agencies
1 November: Bioart / Art and Science AND evening lecture
8 November: Vegetal Otherness, Protoyping Tools with GUEST Spela Petric AND evening lecture
15 November: From (Bio)Cybernetics to... New Materialism AND evening lecture
22 November: Nonhuman Intelligence, Analogue Computing
29 November: Analogue Neural Networks with GUEST Wolfgang Spahn
6 Dezember: Posthuman art and design AND evening lecture (planning for transmediale)
13 Dezember: Mid-term presentations
20 Dezember: Posthuman art and design II AND evening lecture
10 Januar: materials & agencies II
17 Januar: software <> wetware AND evening lecture
24 Januar: nature driven
31 Januar: Final presentations AND evening lecture