Chapter2

Theme: Artificial Life, AI, Art and Altered Nature - Synthesis New Lives

Organizers: Aiiiii Art Center, Computational Media and Arts, HKUST(GZ), Chronus Art Center

Date: 16:00（GMT+8）, August 28, 2022

Curators: Ziwei Wu, Xi Li, Xin Bi, Jiamin Cao

Speakers: Guy Ben-Ary, Ku Kuang-Yi, Lo Yu-Chun

Coordinator: Saisai Liu

Guy Ben-Ary

cellF, Installation view, Sydney, 2016

©️ Guy Ben-Ary 

Theme

Modern biotechnology could be applied to multiple disciplines as a productive, effective and creative approach and tool, for example, re-coding the DNA sequence, growing life with tissue culture, and discovering novel organisms with machine learning, etc.

However, ethical controversies have always accompanied its development. The body, in many discourses and applications of synthetic biology, seems to be considered as a reductive object in terms of its medical-anatomical values. It’s isolated, controllable, and enframed in human centric prospects.

Grounded in an artistic context, many researchers aim to create works that initiate public attention and discussion about the opportunities, challenges, and changes that biotechnology presents.

Practitioners and researchers intend to explore the approach of combining computational techniques with biological materials in artworks, and investigate the ethical and moral issues in the interdisciplinary context of art and technology.The dynamics between local culture, technology, and the natural environment will also be explored.

The panel discussion will focus on the biotechnology in art. Two groups of speakers (Guy Ben-Ary, KU Kuang-Yi & LO Yu-Chun) are invited as artistic practitioners and researchers to share their thoughts on synthetic biology, wetware and artificial life in the field of Life Sciences based on the conception of their artworks.

Future Museum of Holy Pig, 2020

KU Kuang-Yi, LO Yu Chun, TIEN Zong-Yuan

Coutesy of the artists

Speakers

｜Guy Ben-Ary｜

Guy Ben-Ary, is a Perth based artist and researcher. He currently works at SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia. Recognised internationally as a major artist and innovator working across science and media arts, Guy specialises in biotechnological artwork, which aims to enrich our understanding of what it means to be alive. Guy’s work has been shown across the globe at prestigious venues and festivals from the Beijing National Art Museum to San Paulo Biennale to the Moscow Biennale. His work can also be seen in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His work Bricolage won an award of excellence in the Japan media arts festival, cellF & Silent Barrage were awarded an Honorary Mention in Prix Ars Electronica (2017, 2009) and Silent Barrage also won first prize at VIDA, a significant international competition for Art and Artificial Life. Interested in how art has the potential to initiate public debate on the challenges arising from the existence of these liminal lives, Ben-Ary creates artworks designed to problematise current and emergent bio-technologies’ influence on the shifting forces that govern and determine life, death and sentience.

Topic：The emergence of in-vitro intelligence driven surrogate performers

Abstract：

A near-future ‘post-corporeal’ connection between body, instrument, space and time is now possible - where creative production tools cease to be divorced from the biological body, instead creator and creation are one in the same. The complexities and nuances that these ‘prepared’ living entities can embody will give rise to a new kind of performative entity, an entity physically removed from the human but linked through lab-based processes in which biopsied material grown outside of the donor’s body (in vitro) control a creative, hybridised entity or specifically, in-vitro intelligence driven Surrogate Performers…

 Guy Ben-Ary

cellF performing with defunensemble, Helsinki, 2019

©️ Guy Ben-Ary

｜Ku Kuang-Yi｜

Ku Kuang-Yi was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, and has been based in the Netherlands since 2016. He is doing his PhD research at Sheffield Hallam University, UK and the research topic is the interdisciplinary practice between art, design and bioscience. He has graduated with triple master degrees with social design from Design Academy Eindhoven, dentistry from National Yang-Ming University and communication design from Shih Chien University. He is a former dentist, bio-artist and speculative designer. He also co-founded TW BioArt (Taiwan bioart community) to stimulate the fields of BioArt and Science+Art in Taiwan. His works often deal with human body, sexuality, interspecies interaction and medical technology, aiming to investigate the relationships among technology, individual and environment.

Future Museum of Holy Pig, 2020

KU Kuang-Yi, LO Yu Chun, TIEN Zong-Yuan

 Coutesy of the artists

｜ Lo Yu-Chun ｜

Lo Yu-Chun was born in northern Taiwan, and has been based in the Netherlands since 2015. She has graduated with a bachelor degree in Man & Communication department from Design Academy Eindhoven in 2020. Yu-Chun Lo has broad interests in many different topics. Many of her works focus on how people’s behavior is influenced by the inner world like; thinking, emotions, ideology and culture..., and aim to get a deeper understanding of what is the essence of being a human.

Future Museum of Holy Pig, 2020

KU Kuang-Yi, LO Yu Chun, TIEN Zong-Yuan

Coutesy of the artists

Topic：Future Museum of Holy Pig

Abstract：

This project seeks to set up a museum to introduce and demonstrate future holy pig culture in Taiwan. Artists posit a science fiction scenario in which, after the year 2020, there will exist numerous parallel worlds. Owing to different outcomes to the African swine fever outbreak, the holy pig culture in each of these parallel worlds will evolve into different faith narratives. The project tends to evoke reflection and exploration on how religiousness can be practiced by means of different technologies, if technology and science will become a help or a hindrance, and from these cases what insights we may glean into handed-down myths and taboos -- even a relationship between people, pigs and supernatural beings.

Zoom Registry

*The conference will be held on Zoom.

For better experience, please scan the QR code to register.

Attendance is free. Registration is compulsory. Zoom links will be provided before the start of the conference.

Streaming Platforms

Bilibili：艾厂人工智能艺术中心

YouTube：aai x Aiiiii Art Center

Curators / Ziwei Wu, Sissi Li, Xin Bi, Jiamin Cao

Coordinator / Saisai Liu

Media / Euphy, Ruiqi Luo

Graphic Design / Tong Xingxing

Assistant manager / Xin Zhang

Established in 2013, Chronus Art Center (CAC) is China’s first nonprofit art organization dedicated to the presentation, research / creation and scholarship of media art. CAC with its exhibitions, residency-oriented fellowships, lectures and workshop programs and through its archiving and publishing initiatives, creates a multifaceted and vibrant platform for the discourse, production and dissemination of media art in a global context. CAC is positioned to advance artistic innovation and cultural awareness by critically engaging with media technologies that are transforming and reshaping contemporary experiences. 

www.chronusartcenter.org

The Computational Media and Arts (CMA) Thrust of Information Hub comprises both art and technology, focusing on art creation and visual communication with advanced emerging technologies.

As an interdisciplinary program for computational and radical creativity, CMA brings together visionaries with backgrounds in art, design, science, and engineering to think critically, reach beyond convention and make innovation. Faculty and students work together across disciplines like art with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), AI-generated art, information art and design, and data visualization. Art creation and visual communication are carried out in the exchange and collision of art and tech with social impact for the public to understand and enrich their lives, environment, and communities.