Since
2018 the Department of Media Theory is serving as co-host of Leonardo’s LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Talks
- an international programme of evening gatherings that bring artists and scientists together for informal presentations and
conversations.
On October 15 the LASER “The Art and Science Experiment in the Age of CRISPR”
with Suzanne Anker (New York), Frank Rösl (Heidelberg) and Margarete Jahrmann (Vienna / Zurich) chaired by Ingeborg Reichle
and Klaus Spiess will take place: In recent decades science-based art emerged, enhancing progressive encounters of the art
world with cutting-edge technologies and the technosciences. With the rise of bioart, a variety of new materials, such as
DNA, bacteria, cells, tissue cultures, and transgenic organisms, entered art studios as a means of artistic expression. Obviously,
this made it necessary for artists to get acquainted with new epistemologies and a new logic of producing reality within the
techno-scientific regime. By bringing their artistic endeavour to the public’s attention, science-based art has provoked greater
reflection on the limits of manipulating and creating life with biotech tools, highlighting Genome Editing tools like CRISPR.
Therefore, it is high time to shed some light on the relationship of ontology and aesthetics in the age of technoscience by
focusing on the production of art that is related to technoscience; not only because of the technologies and tools it uses—but
most importantly because from this relationship a new model emerges which is fruitful for understanding and interpreting our
reality. Contributions will come from bioart, cancer research, cutting-edge artistic research, and media theory.
Contributors:
Suzanne Anker (US) The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age (10 min)
is a visual artist
and theorist working at the intersection of art and the biological sciences. She is chairing Fine Arts Department at the School
of Visual Arts (SVA) in NYC since 2005 and continues to interweave traditional and experimental media in her department’s
new digital initiative and the SVA Bio Art Lab.
Frank Rösl (DE) The Art and Science Experiment: A Critical View
(10 min)
is a professor and head of the Division of Viral Transformation Mechanisms Research Programme “Infection,
Inflammation and Cancer”, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany. This field of research received considerable
publicity when Harald zur Hausen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2008, his mentor and colleague with
whom Frank worked together for more than 15 years.
Margarete Jahrmann (AT) The Ludic Method: A playful form of
artistic research or how to design more naturalistic experiments in cognitive sciences (10 min)
is an Austrian
media epistemologist and artist working on activism, urbanism and play. She holds a professorship for Game Art and Game Design
since 2006 at the University of the Arts in Zurich and since 2019 she is also active as Professor for Artistic Research at
the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Chair
Klaus Spiess (AT)
is an internist, psychoanalyst,
medical anthropologist, and a specialist in metabolic psychosomatics, who runs the cross-disciplinary Arts and Science programme
at the Medical University of Vienna, where he is Associate Professor of Arts in Medicine at the Center for Public Health.
Co-Chair
Ingeborg Reichle (DE)
is the Chair of the Department of Media Theory at the University of
Applied Arts Vienna. Her primary area of research and teaching is the encounter of the arts with science and cutting-edge
technologies such as biotechnology and synthetic biology.
LASER Talks were founded in 2008 by Bay Area LASER Chair
Piero Scaruffi and are taking place in over 30 cities around the world. The mission of the LASERs is to provide the general
public with a snapshot of the cultural environment of a region and to foster interdisciplinary networking. The host of Leonardo’s
LASER Talks in Vienna is Klaus Spiess, an internist, psychoanalyst, medical anthropologist and a specialist in metabolic psychosomatics,
who runs the cross-disciplinary Arts and Science programme at the Medical University of Vienna, where he is active as Associate
Professor of Arts in Medicine at the Center for Public Health. His performances and installations have been shown in Europe
and the USA. He has published on the subject of his work in Leonardo, The Journal of Performance Research and The Lancet,
among other publications. The co-host Ingeborg Reichle is the head of the Department of Media Theory and serves as full professor
of Media Theory at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her primary area of research and teaching is the encounter of the
arts with science and with cutting edge technologies like biotechnology and synthetic biology.
To learn more about
Leonardo’s LASER Talks please visit Leonardo’s website:
https://www.leonardo.info/laser-talks