LIFE 2.0 Salon — an intimate exploration of the connections between Synthetic Biology and Art :: July 8, 2011; 6:00 – 7:00 pm :: Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus), Adelaide :: FREE but booking is necessary.

The evening will be hosted by Dr Lisa Bailey, RiAus Program Manager, who is passionate about promoting public understanding of science and technology — not just to produce new scientists but to produce citizens who can make their own informed choices about the science and technology that inevitably affects all our lives. Lisa will be leading a formal discussion in the Gallery, and an informal discussion in the Science Exchange bar, on the exhibition?s closing night with: Continue reading

Anna Dumitriu: Normal Flora :: July 30 – September 17, 2011 :: Opening July 30; 2:00 pm :: R-Space @ The Linen Rooms, 32 Castle Street, Lisburn, Northern Ireland.

This major new solo show by international artist Anna Dumitriu blurs the boundaries between art, textile crafts and science. It will feature: a dress patterned using pigments from environmental bacteria and antibiotic embroidery; a large-scale collaborative crochet based on the bacteria from the artist’s own bed; an indigo blue coloured patchwork stained with MRSA bacteria grown on chromogenic agar and patterned with clinical antibiotics and other tools in the research and treatment of this disease; a Whitework embroidered lab coat patterned with images of bacteria and moulds found on it; and a new series of works about the emerging field of bacterial communication (in collaboration with Dr Simon Park and funded by The Wellcome Trust). Continue reading

Resources.11 — Just Grounds: Cape Town — Post-graduate course in Architecture and Urban Planning :: Royal Institute of Art, Mejan Arc/ Architecture, 103 26 Stockholm, Sweden :: Deadline for Applications: June 13, 2011.

Urban Africa: Africa is rapidly urbanizing. 40% of the continent’s population is now urban, but despite Africa’s extensive natural resources and strong economic growth, neither international nor local investments find their way to the cities. In post-colonial Africa the City is still consider an exception. Basic infrastructure is still lacking and urbanization is occurring primarily in the form of slums, as silent encroachments. However, African urban researchers note that the African city should not be considered simply incomplete versions of their western counterparts. Indeed, the African city is following its own route with a very different map. 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

Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology — Uncovering the insect logic that informs contemporary media technologies and the network society by Jussi Parikka:

Since the early nineteenth century, when entomologists first popularized the unique biological and behavioral characteristics of insects, technological innovators and theorists have proposed insects as templates for a wide range of technologies. In Insect Media, Jussi Parikka analyzes how insect forms of social organization — swarms, hives, webs, and distributed intelligence — have been used to structure modern media technologies and the network society, providing a radical new perspective on the interconnection of biology and technology. 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

Biomodd is a collaborative art project conceived to challenge presumed notions of opposition between nature and technology in different cultures throughout the world. The title Biomodd came up spontaneously as a working title, but very rapidly came to embody the nature of the project and naturally became the final title.

Biomodd is predicated on a set of themes:

Symbiosis between biological and electronic systems. In Biomodd, nature and technology are not juxtaposed but rather fused into imaginative hybrid installations. The core idea is the creation of experimental systems in which modified computer networks coexist with living ecosystems. The challenge is to bring biological life as physically close to the electronics as possible, and allow them to communicate with each other through meaningful symbiotic relationships. Continue reading

[Image: Nullalux/Emily] Cyborg Prospecting: An Interview with Tim Maly by Greg J. Smith on Current Intelligence: