J A N U A R Y 26 - A P R I L 8 2018
The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project. Simone de Beauvoir
Corpus is one in a series of New Media Gallery exhibitions that explore ontological states of being: the process of becoming more or less human in a world increasingly transformed by new technologies. It is the first of two exhibitions to explore the future of the human body.
The word Corpus refers to a whole. An entire body of writing: the ephemeral but whole substance of something, or the main part of an organ or structure. The word originated in the Latin, meaning the body of a human. As such it is a somewhat ironic title; all the works in the exhibition reference something that has been removed or detached from its human housing. These materials, processes and products have been dissected, memorialized, fetishized, commercialized and made other. How and what does the human body mean in a world increasingly transformed by new technologies and largely removed from what might be considered our personal or singular control?
The concept of being human is a folk-category rather than a scientific one. The boundary that separates a human body from a non-human body is imprecise. As our bodies integrate and connect with increasingly sophisticated technologies, grow more reliant on these technologies, and as technologies become ‘more human’, how will this affect our understanding of being human? As we move into a world increasingly controlled by sophisticated communication and information technologies, with astonishing medical advances and pharmaceuticals grounded in commercial interests...with increasing environmental stress and lack of resources, how will we deal with what will certainly be profound shifts in our understanding of what makes a human body?
The emergent, art-science-technology interactions in Corpus have been described as biogenetic, transgenic, biotech, bioart and point toward future creative practices. Other works offer a more traditional way of understanding the metaphorical, poetic body. All consider how and what our bodies have been and could mean at the beginning of the 21st century, in a world increasingly transformed and mediated by new technologies.
Corpus is one in a series of New Media Gallery exhibitions that explore ontological states of being: the process of becoming more or less human in a world increasingly transformed by new technologies. It is the first of two exhibitions to explore the future of the human body.
The word Corpus refers to a whole. An entire body of writing: the ephemeral but whole substance of something, or the main part of an organ or structure. The word originated in the Latin, meaning the body of a human. As such it is a somewhat ironic title; all the works in the exhibition reference something that has been removed or detached from its human housing. These materials, processes and products have been dissected, memorialized, fetishized, commercialized and made other. How and what does the human body mean in a world increasingly transformed by new technologies and largely removed from what might be considered our personal or singular control?
The concept of being human is a folk-category rather than a scientific one. The boundary that separates a human body from a non-human body is imprecise. As our bodies integrate and connect with increasingly sophisticated technologies, grow more reliant on these technologies, and as technologies become ‘more human’, how will this affect our understanding of being human? As we move into a world increasingly controlled by sophisticated communication and information technologies, with astonishing medical advances and pharmaceuticals grounded in commercial interests...with increasing environmental stress and lack of resources, how will we deal with what will certainly be profound shifts in our understanding of what makes a human body?
The emergent, art-science-technology interactions in Corpus have been described as biogenetic, transgenic, biotech, bioart and point toward future creative practices. Other works offer a more traditional way of understanding the metaphorical, poetic body. All consider how and what our bodies have been and could mean at the beginning of the 21st century, in a world increasingly transformed and mediated by new technologies.
Catherine Richards (CA)
L’intrus
l'intrus is a sculptural glass heart in a glass bell jar that implicates the spectator as part of a greater electromagnetic system. The title of this work references French Philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy who called his own transplanted heart l’intrus (the intruder). Heart-beats are electromagnetic ; Heart tissue is highly charged. Visitors are invited to hold the work, at which point it excites, phosphereces and begins to beat. This work was created as part of the Hybrid Bodies project; an investigation into the poetics of heart transplantation
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Biography
Lives and works in Ottawa
Award-winning Canadian media artist, recognized for her ‘outstanding and innovative use of new technologies in media arts.” (Canada Council for the Arts). Catherine Richard's practice as a new media artist is rooted in the investigation of the body within the promise and the threat of new technology. Through a rigorous application of the classical elements of scientific investigation, such as observable phenomena and experimental proof, her patented inventions explore the memories and subjectivity of the viewer.
Catherine Richards is a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. She studied English literature and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from York University and a B.A. in Visual Arts from the University of Ottawa. In 1991, together with Nell Tenhaaf, she organised the Virtual Seminar on the Bioapparatus at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, one of the first public art events in Canada to examine virtual realities and the interfaces between technology and the human body. This innovative project in art and new technology earned her the Corel Prize from the Canadian Conference of the Arts. In 1993, she won the Petro-Canada Award in Media Arts from the Canada Council for the Arts for her outstanding use of new technologies in media arts and, more specifically, for Spectral Bodies(1991). That same year, her interactive work Virtual Body was presented at the Antwerp ’93 Festival in Belgium. The Canadian Centre for the Visual Arts, affiliated with the National Gallery of Canada, awarded her a fellowship in 1993-1994, and in 1994-1995, her Charged Hearts (1997) project was partially funded through the Gallery’s Claudia De Hueck Fellowship in Art and Science. Her work has been commissioned for Gemeentemuseum in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and shown at the Biennale of Sydney, Australia. Her works have been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts; AT&T Canada; The Claudia De Hueck Fellowship in Art and Science at the National Gallery of Canada; the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, the University of Ottawa; as well as the contributions of individual scientists. Recently, Catherine Richards received the AIRes fellowship - an Artist in Residence position at the National Research Council of Canada. Currently she is an Associate professor in the Department of Visual Arts, at the University of Ottawa.
Award-winning Canadian media artist, recognized for her ‘outstanding and innovative use of new technologies in media arts.” (Canada Council for the Arts). Catherine Richard's practice as a new media artist is rooted in the investigation of the body within the promise and the threat of new technology. Through a rigorous application of the classical elements of scientific investigation, such as observable phenomena and experimental proof, her patented inventions explore the memories and subjectivity of the viewer.
Catherine Richards is a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. She studied English literature and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from York University and a B.A. in Visual Arts from the University of Ottawa. In 1991, together with Nell Tenhaaf, she organised the Virtual Seminar on the Bioapparatus at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, one of the first public art events in Canada to examine virtual realities and the interfaces between technology and the human body. This innovative project in art and new technology earned her the Corel Prize from the Canadian Conference of the Arts. In 1993, she won the Petro-Canada Award in Media Arts from the Canada Council for the Arts for her outstanding use of new technologies in media arts and, more specifically, for Spectral Bodies(1991). That same year, her interactive work Virtual Body was presented at the Antwerp ’93 Festival in Belgium. The Canadian Centre for the Visual Arts, affiliated with the National Gallery of Canada, awarded her a fellowship in 1993-1994, and in 1994-1995, her Charged Hearts (1997) project was partially funded through the Gallery’s Claudia De Hueck Fellowship in Art and Science. Her work has been commissioned for Gemeentemuseum in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and shown at the Biennale of Sydney, Australia. Her works have been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts; AT&T Canada; The Claudia De Hueck Fellowship in Art and Science at the National Gallery of Canada; the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, the University of Ottawa; as well as the contributions of individual scientists. Recently, Catherine Richards received the AIRes fellowship - an Artist in Residence position at the National Research Council of Canada. Currently she is an Associate professor in the Department of Visual Arts, at the University of Ottawa.
Credits
Coming soon
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (CA/MX)
Ultimo Suspiro (Last Breath),
The profundity of a human breath as imagined by Canadian Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. A biometric portrait machine that has captured and now holds a single human breath, forever. The machine breathes 10,000 times a day, sighs 158 times. This edition holds the breath of Cuban singer, Omara Portuondo. Her voice is replaced by the crackle of a paper bag inflating and deflating. A machine pumps; a tube hums. When Portuondo dies the work will be installed in the National Museum of Music, Cuba.
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Biography
Prolific, award-winning Canadian artist. 2015 Governor General Awards winner. His works have been collected by the likes of MOMA and TATE. “Beyond his brilliant artistic career and established position as a world leader in the world of media art, he is an advocate for social responsibility.” (Jennifer Dorner, Director of FOFA, Concordia).
Lives and works in Montréal and Madrid
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is known for creating large-scale interactive installations in public spaces throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. Using robotics, custom software, projections, internet links, cell phones, sensors, LEDs, cameras, tracking systems, and often employing vanguard technologies, his “Antimonuments” challenge traditional notions of sitespecificity, and instead focus on the idea of creating relationship-specific work through connective interfaces. His smaller-scale “Subsculptures” and his work in photography, video, and installation explore themes of surveillance, perception, and deception. Since his emergence in the 1990s, Lozano-Hemmer has mixed the disparate fields of digital media, robotics, medical science, performance art, and lived experience into interactive artworks.
His public artworks have been commissioned by the New York Department of Transportation (2013), the Philadelphia Association for Public Art (2012); La Triennale québécoise, Montreal, Canada (2011); Winter Olympics, Vancouver, Canada (2010); Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia (2010); the 50th Anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2009); the memorial for the Tlatelolco Student Massacre, Mexico City (2008); Madison Square Park, New York (2008); Trafalgar Square, London (2008); Québec City’s 400th Anniversary (2008); the Expansion of the European Union, Dublin, Ireland (2004); the opening of the YCAM Center, Yamaguchi, Japan (2003); and the Millennium Celebrations, Mexico City (1999).
Featured recently in solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Fundación Telefónica, Buenos Aires; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Lozano-Hemmer was the first artist to represent Mexico at its national pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. Collections holding his work include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami; Colección Jumex, Mexico City; Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; DAROS Latinamerica Collection, Zurich; Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul; 21st C Museum of Art, Kanazawa; Manchester Art Gallery, UK; MUSAC, Leon; MONA, Hobart; ZKM, Karlsruhe; the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and Singapore Art Museum, among others.
Past exhibitions of his work have also included The Barbican Centre, London; The Museum of Art, Hong Kong; and La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris; Kulczyk Foundation, Poznan; Art Basel Unlimited; and art biennials in Moscow, New Orleans, Shanghai, Sydney, Singapore, Liverpool, Istanbul, Seville, Seoul, Graz, and Havana. A recipient of the International Bauhaus Award in Dessau, his honors also include the Golden Nica from Ars Electronica, a Rockefeller Fellowship, a Daniel Langlois Foundation grant, two British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards in Interactive Art, and the Trophée des Lumières in Lyon.
Lives and works in Montréal and Madrid
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is known for creating large-scale interactive installations in public spaces throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. Using robotics, custom software, projections, internet links, cell phones, sensors, LEDs, cameras, tracking systems, and often employing vanguard technologies, his “Antimonuments” challenge traditional notions of sitespecificity, and instead focus on the idea of creating relationship-specific work through connective interfaces. His smaller-scale “Subsculptures” and his work in photography, video, and installation explore themes of surveillance, perception, and deception. Since his emergence in the 1990s, Lozano-Hemmer has mixed the disparate fields of digital media, robotics, medical science, performance art, and lived experience into interactive artworks.
His public artworks have been commissioned by the New York Department of Transportation (2013), the Philadelphia Association for Public Art (2012); La Triennale québécoise, Montreal, Canada (2011); Winter Olympics, Vancouver, Canada (2010); Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia (2010); the 50th Anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2009); the memorial for the Tlatelolco Student Massacre, Mexico City (2008); Madison Square Park, New York (2008); Trafalgar Square, London (2008); Québec City’s 400th Anniversary (2008); the Expansion of the European Union, Dublin, Ireland (2004); the opening of the YCAM Center, Yamaguchi, Japan (2003); and the Millennium Celebrations, Mexico City (1999).
Featured recently in solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Fundación Telefónica, Buenos Aires; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Lozano-Hemmer was the first artist to represent Mexico at its national pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. Collections holding his work include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami; Colección Jumex, Mexico City; Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; DAROS Latinamerica Collection, Zurich; Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul; 21st C Museum of Art, Kanazawa; Manchester Art Gallery, UK; MUSAC, Leon; MONA, Hobart; ZKM, Karlsruhe; the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and Singapore Art Museum, among others.
Past exhibitions of his work have also included The Barbican Centre, London; The Museum of Art, Hong Kong; and La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris; Kulczyk Foundation, Poznan; Art Basel Unlimited; and art biennials in Moscow, New Orleans, Shanghai, Sydney, Singapore, Liverpool, Istanbul, Seville, Seoul, Graz, and Havana. A recipient of the International Bauhaus Award in Dessau, his honors also include the Golden Nica from Ars Electronica, a Rockefeller Fellowship, a Daniel Langlois Foundation grant, two British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards in Interactive Art, and the Trophée des Lumières in Lyon.
Credits
Coming soon
Eduardo Kac (USA/BR)
The Natural History of the Enigma
A petunia seed that has been infused with the DNA of its creator Eduardo Kac. He has been called one of the most radical figures in the bio-design movement and in transgenic art. He uses biotechnology and genetics to create provocative works that explore and critique scientific procedure. Over six years Kac and Professor Neil Olszewski (Plant Biologist) created a new life form, a plantimal called Edunia; a genetically engineered hybrid of the artist and a petunia. The petunia flower expresses the artist’s DNA through its red veins. The seed and documentation will be part of Corpus.
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Biography
Eduardo Kac (USA/Brazil) is an award-winning, boundary-pushing, bio-art pioneer who teaches at the Chicago Art Institute. He has been called the most radical figure in the bio-design movement and in transgenic art. He uses biotechnology and genetics to create provocative works that explore and critique scientific procedure.
Eduardo Kac is widely recognized for his interactive net installations and his bio art. A pioneer of telecommunications art in the pre-Web '80s, Eduardo Kac (pronounced "Katz") emerged in the early '90s with his telepresence and biotelematic works. His visionary combination of robotics and networking explores the fluidity of subject positions in the post-digital world. His work deals with issues that range from the mythopoetics of online experience (Uirapuru) to the cultural impact of biotechnology; from the changing condition of memory in the digital age ; to distributed collective agency ; from the problematic notion of the "exotic" , to the creation of life and evolution.
Kac's work has been showcased in biennials such as 1st Yokohama Triennial, Japan, 49th International Venice Biennale, Italy, 1st Mercosul Biennial, Brazil, and 4th Saint Petersburg Biennial, Russia. His work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection in Chicago, and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, among others.
Kac's work has been featured both in contemporary art publications (Flash Art, Artforum, ARTnews, Kunstforum, Tema Celeste, Artpress) and in the mass media (ABC, BBC, PBS, Le Monde).
The recipient of many awards, Kac lectures and publishes worlwide. His work is documented on the Web in eight languages: http://www.ekac.org. Eduardo Kac is a Ph.D. research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Interactive Arts (CAiiA) at the University of Wales, Newport, United Kingdom. He is Chair of the Art and Technology Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Eduardo
Eduardo Kac is widely recognized for his interactive net installations and his bio art. A pioneer of telecommunications art in the pre-Web '80s, Eduardo Kac (pronounced "Katz") emerged in the early '90s with his telepresence and biotelematic works. His visionary combination of robotics and networking explores the fluidity of subject positions in the post-digital world. His work deals with issues that range from the mythopoetics of online experience (Uirapuru) to the cultural impact of biotechnology; from the changing condition of memory in the digital age ; to distributed collective agency ; from the problematic notion of the "exotic" , to the creation of life and evolution.
Kac's work has been showcased in biennials such as 1st Yokohama Triennial, Japan, 49th International Venice Biennale, Italy, 1st Mercosul Biennial, Brazil, and 4th Saint Petersburg Biennial, Russia. His work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection in Chicago, and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, among others.
Kac's work has been featured both in contemporary art publications (Flash Art, Artforum, ARTnews, Kunstforum, Tema Celeste, Artpress) and in the mass media (ABC, BBC, PBS, Le Monde).
The recipient of many awards, Kac lectures and publishes worlwide. His work is documented on the Web in eight languages: http://www.ekac.org. Eduardo Kac is a Ph.D. research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Interactive Arts (CAiiA) at the University of Wales, Newport, United Kingdom. He is Chair of the Art and Technology Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Eduardo
Credits
Coming soon
Agi Haines (UK)
Drones with Desires
A new edition of an earlier award-winning work; a human-scale neural network that wanders the gallery, bumping and learning even as it seeks comfort. An MRI of the artist’s brain was taken by neuroscientists at Erasmus MC Rotterdam. This was then coded into an algorithm and imprinted on a human-scale balloon that learns about its own anatomy and environment as it moves through the space via a drone. As the drone learns, the network updates, showing us how the brain might change if it was in a completely different anatomical structure.
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Biography
Agatha Haines looks at possible futures of the human body; exploring the human body as everyday material and questioning how far it can be pushed. She completed a PhD research in transtechnology at Cognovo, Plymouth University, a large-scale Marie Curie funded ITN exploring cognitive innovation. This smaller edition of the work is unique to Corpus and is the winner of the Bio Art and Design Award (BAD Award).
After completing her masters in the Design Interactions department at the Royal College of Art, she is now undertaking PhD research at Transtechnology Research, funded by Plymouth University. This research sits within a transdisciplinary department called Cognovo - a large scale Marie Curie funded ITN exploring cognitive innovation.
After completing her masters in the Design Interactions department at the Royal College of Art, she is now undertaking PhD research at Transtechnology Research, funded by Plymouth University. This research sits within a transdisciplinary department called Cognovo - a large scale Marie Curie funded ITN exploring cognitive innovation.
Credits
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Revital Cohen (Il) + Tuur Van Balen (BE)
Electrocyte Appendix
A video and sound work that documents some future scenario in which a useless human organ can be exchanged for a more useful artificial organ and implanted into the body allowing people to become electricity-generating organisms. Inspired by the way an electric eel uses electrocyte cells to produce electrical current from its abdomen, this organ is constructed of artificial cells that convert blood sugar into electricity. The work was created in response to 2050 forecasts that point toward a greater human propensity for reclusiveness, self-sufficiency, and social isolation and a corresponding increase in our need for communication networks.
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Biography
They work and live in London.
A multi-award winning London-based, experimental art + design practice. Their work is held by major collections worldwide including MOMA. They are known for pushing boundaries, and have developed a reputation for creating experimental, fictional works and future scenarios. Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen’s work is occupied with broad meanings of material and production. They work with objects, installation, film and photography to explore manufacturing processes as cultural, ethical and political practices. They have exhibited worldwide including the MOMA, Moscow Biennale, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt Museum, NY. Their work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, M+ Museum, Hong Kong, Science Museum, London, Royal College of Art, London, KU Leuven. The have won the Jerwood Art Prize (UK), the RGB Prize (Tokyo), Wellcome Trust Awards (UK), Award of Distinction from Prix Ars Electronica, Science Museum Emerging Artist Commission, First Prize VIDA Art + Artificial Life Award.
A multi-award winning London-based, experimental art + design practice. Their work is held by major collections worldwide including MOMA. They are known for pushing boundaries, and have developed a reputation for creating experimental, fictional works and future scenarios. Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen’s work is occupied with broad meanings of material and production. They work with objects, installation, film and photography to explore manufacturing processes as cultural, ethical and political practices. They have exhibited worldwide including the MOMA, Moscow Biennale, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt Museum, NY. Their work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, M+ Museum, Hong Kong, Science Museum, London, Royal College of Art, London, KU Leuven. The have won the Jerwood Art Prize (UK), the RGB Prize (Tokyo), Wellcome Trust Awards (UK), Award of Distinction from Prix Ars Electronica, Science Museum Emerging Artist Commission, First Prize VIDA Art + Artificial Life Award.
Credits
Coming soon
Verena Friedrich (DL)
Transducers
In Transducers, Friedrich posits that a single human hair can be debris, but once the information is decoded through DNA analysis it reveals itself to be the repository of our biological blueprint. Friedrich collected a single hair from a number of different donors. The work in Corpus explores an alternative means of decoding and classification. Using an electronic transducer each hair is stimulated to react, generating a unique sound based on the donor’s hair sample. The work questions the dominance of science in describing and classifying life.
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Biography
Lives and works in Cologne
Verena Friedrich is a multidisciplinary artist creating installations in which organic, electronic and sculptural media come into play. Theoretical research and practical hands-on experiments with very diverse materials, objects and functions are the starting points of her artistic work. In Friedrich’s’ oeuvre art, science, magic and technology come together. Her projects have been presented internationally in the context of media art festivals, exhibitions and conferences. She received the International Media Award for Science and Art from ZKM Karlsruhe 2005; a special mention in the VIDA 13.2 Art and Artificial Life Awards; an honorary mention in the Prix Ars Electronica 2015 and a jury mention in the Japan Media Arts Festival 2015. She was artist in residence i. a. at “SymbioticA – Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts” in Australia and at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing Cologne. Verena Friedrich studied at the University of Art and Design Offenbach, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.
Verena Friedrich is a multidisciplinary artist creating installations in which organic, electronic and sculptural media come into play. Theoretical research and practical hands-on experiments with very diverse materials, objects and functions are the starting points of her artistic work. In Friedrich’s’ oeuvre art, science, magic and technology come together. Her projects have been presented internationally in the context of media art festivals, exhibitions and conferences. She received the International Media Award for Science and Art from ZKM Karlsruhe 2005; a special mention in the VIDA 13.2 Art and Artificial Life Awards; an honorary mention in the Prix Ars Electronica 2015 and a jury mention in the Japan Media Arts Festival 2015. She was artist in residence i. a. at “SymbioticA – Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts” in Australia and at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing Cologne. Verena Friedrich studied at the University of Art and Design Offenbach, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.
Credits
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