Interpretive panels for sui generis
Archive for March, 2007
"Dance Meets Genetics"
As part of the Penny Stamps Lecture Series at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange will perform excerpts from Ferocious Beauty: Genome on April 5th at 5pm in the Michigan Theatre, Ann Arbor, MI.
Liz Lerman, founder and artistic director of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, recently completed a four-year collaboration between scientists and choreographers culminating in Ferocious Beauty: Genome, a multi media dance/theater work that explores the human implications of discoveries in genetic science. Created with geneticists from organizations including The Institute for Genomic Research, Wesleyan University, Stanford University, Princeton University and Howard University, Ferocious Beauty has toured from Connecticut to California, deepening dialogue between science and the arts. Lerman will be joined by two dancers who will perform excerpts from Ferocious Beauty: Genome.
more…
http://www.art-design.umich.edu/ev_lectures.php?aud=e&menucat=ne#lerman
http://www.danceexchange.org/performance/ferociousbeautygenome.html#ff
Lamar Dodd School of Art :: The Art of Science exhibit presents collaboration, scale in context
An exhibit at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel on March 21-31 answers this question. The exhibit, The Art of Science: Nanostructures Un-Structured, shows the work of Zhao and Pan with input from artist Michael Oliveri in a collaboration that demonstrates the interdisciplinary collaboration happening at UGA. With science, engineering and art faculty working in proximity to each other, unlikely synergies are given voice, often with dynamic outcomes.(more…)
MFA thesis exhibition, reception and presentation
The exhibition of Sui generis continues this week in the Windows Room (3rd floor) at Palmer Commons (hours: 7:30 am-11pm Mon-Sat). The exhibition is open to the public now through April 13th, 2007.
A reception will be held on Friday, March 30th from 5-6:30 p.m. at the above location. Gabriel Harp will be on hand to discuss the work.
A presentation entitled, “Network Entrepreneurship in Biology, Art, & Design” will take place on April 2nd, 2007 from 5-6:30 p.m. in the Art & Architecture Auditorium.
About the work:
Sui generis is a large-scale tectonic, systems-based installation designed to take into account related conceptual attributes of a chapel, scientific laboratory, carnival, and children’s nursery. Sui generis offers a cognitive retreat, a place for reflection, and a chance to come into close physical proximity with other organisms and ourselves. A rules-based activity based on the concept of asexual reproduction continues through the duration of the exhibition. A selection from Lewis Carrol’s Through the Looking Glass often used to explain and ideate contemporary theories about the evolution of sex and recombination accompanies the artwork.
In order to experience the installation, visitors will be invited to raise their heads through one of the two holes in the floor underneath. When inhabiting the interior, the two viewers will be confronted not only with the shadowscape, but also with each other. As the architecture is elusive in its source, it invites diverse interpretations–a carnival sideshow, a Zen garden, a Victorian greenhouse, a virus, or perhaps even a flower awaiting pollination.
The title Sui generis indicates an idea, an entity or a reality that cannot be included in a wider concept. In intellectual property law, exclusive rights are granted for the creation and development of plant breeds, databases and traditional knowledge (among others) to reflect that the subject matter is a product of the intellect.
For more background, explore a database of terms and concepts associated with the design of Sui generis as well as documentation of the construction process.
About the Artist:
In his work, Gabriel Harp recombines visual art and life science (epistemology) through the processes of critical design and network entrepreneurship. Often working at the interfaces of evolutionary biology, bioinformatics, education, and visual culture, his work investigates the roles of metaphors in education, science and policy and the primacy of visual signals in the discourse surrounding genomics and biotechnology. Collaborating with Zack Denfeld and others, Gabriel is currently developing a visual map of patent claims on the human genome.
my audience…?
I think there is a tendency to look at a place like Palmer Commons with its austere and modernist architecture and assume that there is little activity or social interaction taking place. For some, this might even be a reason to question why I placed my installation there (Sui generis). I can offer at least a few reasons in the form of groups using same space. 
UM – LEO Bargaining
Bronze Elegance Information Meeting & Practices (student group fashion show practices)
Exhibit Museum (schoolchildren lunches)
Practice For Dance Mix (student groups practicing for dance competitions)
Spring Agency Fair / Open House
Impression of India: A Look at Rural Development
Fashion Show
Robotic Surgery Course
In addition to these very diverse groups of people (that incidentally make the Windows Room a very lively place), CRLT, the bioinformatics groups, and many other organizations and individuals pass through the location every day. Palmer Commons is situated between the Central and Medical Campuses and is passed by many on their way to State Street. Palmer Commons was also fairly easy to arrange as an exhibition location–in part because few see it as an opportunity. We like to think sometimes that the older and more culturally-charged areas are more open. I’m not sure this is true. Drawing on lessons from plant ecology, sometimes the newly disturbed areas make it easier to colonize and sow ideas for the future. I especially enjoy that the schoolchildren visiting the Exhibit Museum use the space for their lunches. This led me to take them much more into consideration as I was making the work. I’ll try to get some video and audio of what it is like when a hundred or so 8-11 year olds swarm into the space.
organism: making art with living systems
The idea of making art with living systems is not new; you might even consider a garden or a goldfish pond to be biological art. What is new is the degree of control over biological systems and materials contemporary technology offers us. Topics on the organism weblog include technical, practical, aesthetic, and ethical issues related to making art with living systems. Artists, scientists, engineers, students, and anyone else with an interest in this area are invited to contribute.
visit organism
Thesis Presentation: Network Entrepreneurship in Biology, Art, & Design
Gabriel Harp’s thesis defense* entitled, “Network Entrepreneurship in Biology, Art, & Design” will take place on April 2nd, 2007 from 5-6:30 p.m. in the Art & Architecture Auditorium.
The talk will address:
-the assessment of interdisciplinary creative work
-common denominators for working across boundaries in biology, art and design
-systems art
-my creative work as a response to and example of these parameters
*I should note that with the MFA program there is an effort to semantically differentiate “thesis defense” from “thesis presentation”. I understand it as a response to the “defensive” position that the term may place students in as having to back up their work is somewhat of a “scientific” context. While I largely agree with the sentiment, I maintain the term “defense” as a way to signal my own desire to be challenged within the Art & Design academic context. Without such challenges and my own responses to those challenges, I find it difficult to assess and integrate the value of the work I’ve done with other perspectives and processes.
Biology and Art: Two Worlds or One? at the The New York Academy of Sciences
A public conference:
Biology and Art: Two Worlds or One?
at the The New York Academy of Sciences
Apr 14, 2007 – 8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
[New Location]
7 World Trade Center
250 Greenwich Street, 40th floor
New York, NY 10007-2157
212.298.8600
Limited seating — Register now!
For details see:
click here to link to the conference website
We gratefully acknowledge our sponsor:
The William A. Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts
This conference will explore the nature of the science-art interface, the
inspiration this interface provides to scientists and artists alike, and the
impact of these interactions on art, research and other human endeavors.
More specifically, the conference will focus on how biological
objects whether viruses, animals, plants, cells, or organelles become an
inspiration for certain artists’ work, and how scientists ever so particular
about accuracy and specificity respond to such artistic representations.
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