Understanding and expressing ecosystems through data to reinterpret them from multispecies perspectives: keynote lectures by artists and researchers.
In conjunction with Future Ideations Camp Vol. 4: Understanding and Creatively Expressing Ecosystems as Data, held at Civic Creative Base Tokyo in October 2024, four keynote lectures aim to instill renewed awareness of ecosystems from the perspectives of art, design, behavioral science, and the history of life. Today, the negative impact of human activities on ecosystems has become a major concern. These lectures are an opportunity to learn from the practices of Japanese and international artists and researchers the means of understanding the broader ecosystems that encompass our lives and discover new guiding principles for enriching those ecosystems.
【Keynote Lecture 1】
Oron Catt: Life is Not What it Used to Mean
Date: September 21 (Sat) 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Lecturer: Oron Catts (artist / co-founder and director of SymbioticA)
*Japanese-English simultaneous interpretation will be provided.
Oron Catts (artist / co-founder and director of SymbioticA):
In most languages there is only one word to describe the concept of life in all of its manifestations. This poverty of languages might limit the ways human culture can relate to the growing knowledge about different aspects of life (sciences), and even more importantly it can impact the directions this newfound knowledge can be employed. Some of the most radical shifts in our understanding of the concept of life happen in labs by mission driven researchers in confined epistemological silos and tend to be culturally analysed by other researchers with no firsthand and direct experience of the actualities of the impact of research on life itself.
Art that is experientially engaged with the life sciences can play a role in shining a light on that which we still have no cultural words to describe.
This talk will draw on my personal experience as an artist, researcher, and curator, working in the life sciences labs for the last three decades, to provide some anecdotes that might help to culturally contextualised the important field of Artificial Biology.
Keynote Lecture 2 – 4 : Elizabeth Hénaff , Murakami Hisashi , Nakamura Keiko
October 12 (Sat) 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm, October 13 (Sun), October 15 (Tue) 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Lecturer: Elizabeth Hénaff (computational biologist, artist), Murakami Hisashi (Researcher), Nakamura Keiko (doctor of science / Honorary Director, JT Biohistory Research Hall)
Future Ideations Camp Vol.4 Results Exhibition
Dates: October 17 (Thu)-20 (Sun) 13:00-19:00