Designer Suzanne Lee shares her experiments in growing a kombucha-based material that can be used like fabric or vegetable leather to make clothing.

Vida 13.2 Art & Artificial Life International Competition:: Call for Submissions — Deadline: July 27, 20011 Continue reading

May 2011 on –empyre soft-skinned space: Wearable Technologies: Cross-disciplinary Ventures with Janis Jefferies (UK), Valérie Lamontagne (CA), Ashley Ferro-Murray (US), Sabine Seymour (US), Susan Elizabeth Ryan (US), Danielle Wilde (AU/FR), Sarah Kettley (UK), Lucy Dunne (US) :: Moderated by Renate Ferro (US) and Tim Murray (US).

During the month of May 2011, -empyre soft-skinned space will be featuring a discussion of wearable technologies, means through which technology augments or enables the body in interacting with the surrounding environment. The integration of wearables that augment the body with technological capabilities permeate our diverse worlds from entertainment to the military. Continue reading

Living Mediations: Biology, Technology and Art — A forum hosted by HASTAC Scholars. Register to join the conversation.

Summary: Much contemporary scholarship is interested in how the biological body, on any scale, becomes a site for political, technological, scientific, and critical engagement. The founding of the Human Genome Project in 1988 marked the life sciences as a major cultural paradigm of the late twentieth century; the first decade of the twenty-first century has continued this proliferation of the biological, initiating the increased funding and visibility of such phenomena as biomedia, biotechnology, bioinformatics, biometrics, and other technological engagements with the biological. Mediation is important to this proliferation, and media studies has taken up the biological in its many forms. Continue reading

HUMAN + :: April 15 - June 24, 2011 :: The Science Gallery, Pearse Street, Dublin, Ireland.

HUMAN+ will invite you to consider a future of augmented abilities, authored evolution, new strategies for survival and non-human encounters through a range of installations and laboratories exploring the future of our species. This major international exhibition draws together a range of installations ranging from a euthanasia roller coaster to the prosthetic head of Australian performance artist Stelarc. HUMAN+ also includes Eduardo Kac’s “plantimal” called the Edunia – a hybrid plant which includes the artists own DNA. HUMAN+ paints a somewhat ambiguous picture of the future of our species. What enhancements will we choose to become better humans? What happens when we live side by side with our robotic companions? How can we author our genetic futures?

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The Arts Catalyst, UCL and Synthetic Aesthetics in partnership with SymbioticA present: Synthesis :: July 4-9, 2011 :: University College London (UCL), UK :: Call for Participants — Deadline: April 4; 10:00 am. Continue reading

Fingerprints… — Biomedia Art by Paul Vanouse | curated by Jens Hauser :: January 28 - March 26, 2011 :: Schering Stiftung, Unter den Linden 32-34, 10117 Berlin, Germany :: See related transmediale events below.

The exhibition Fingerprints… at the Ernst Schering Foundation’s project space will showcase the performative installations and live laboratories by US-American biomedia artist Paul Vanouse. Curated by Jens Hauser, the exhibition presents the world premiere of the Suspect Inversion Center, an operational laboratory in which Vanouse creates identical ‘genetic fingerprints’ of criminals and celebrities from his own DNA. Continue reading

GenSpace Opening :: December 10, 2010; 7:00 pm :: The Metropolitan Exchange Building, 33 Flatbush Avenue, 7th Floor, Brooklyn, NY :: RSVP: Daniel Grushkin: 917-340-0591 or dgrushkin [at] genspace.org.

Please join us in celebrating the grand opening of GenSpace — the world’s first community biolab! View our facility, meet our members, and learn about our projects while enjoying delicious food and beverages brought to you by our favorite microrganism (yeast).

Two years in the making, it will be New York City’s home for innovative educational programs, public workshops and hands-on courses in fields like synthetic biology and bio-art. We provide a safe lab space and mentorship for the enthusiasts and entrepreneurs who are creating our biotech future.

Unruly Ecologies: Biodiversity and Art — A SymbioticA Symposium :: November 26-28, 2010 :: Perth and Lake Clifton, Mandurah, Western Australia :: Call for Contemporary Artwork: Deadline — November 19.

A symposium exploring the possibilities and difficulties of the diversity of life through critical investigations in art, ecology and action.

The ecology of biodiversity is based upon an uncertain definition, incomplete statistics and the need to act in a world without balance. While multiple flora and fauna databases have being established and are being coordinated, and as natural biodiversity diminishes and more technological life forms come into being; there is an urgent need to engage even more proactively with complex ecosystems and human responses. Artists, scientists, humanities scholars and conservationists will come together to talk of the ‘matters of concern’ around the potentials and futures of biodiversity. Continue reading