Encounters with the future occur via a series of provocations in artistic endeavour, design interactions and cultural imaginations, which seek to consider the social impact of technology for humanity. The manifestation of these visions, as technological artefacts and social processes, infuses and reconstitutes our minds, bodies and world. This book brings together diverse voices to articulate the various areas of inquiry that orbit this futurological landscape. It portrays how the visual and textual culture of technological innovation is made and remade through bioculturally diverse forms of consumption. This is achieved by presenting innovative works from internationally renowned artists, writers and designers to stimulate new forms of interaction with the future, in ways that transcend the borders between the physical, virtual, biological and digital.
Human Futures addresses such issues as:
• the convergence of the NBIC (nano-, bio-, info-, cogno-) sciences; • the ethics and aesthetics of human enhancement; • the future of biological migration and transgressions; • the emergence of systems and synthetic biology; • the prospect of emotional and networked intelligence; • ecosystem responsibility.
It is essential reading for scholars interested in the range of perspectives that inform inquiries into the future of humanity. It consists of scholarly essays, images, interviews, design products, artistic artefacts, original quotations and creative writing.
These symbiotic nodes are interwoven with and stimulated by material from the Human Futures programme at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, which took place during Liverpool’s year as 2008 European Capital of Culture. Together, they interrogate the expectations and actualities of human futures, as they emerge within the social sphere.
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200+ colour illustrations
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Edited by Andy MIAH
0.1 Foreword
Sir Drummond BONE
0.2 Life in the 21st Century: Practice-based Research & the Application of Art
Mike STUBBS & Laura SILLARS
0.3 Introduction
Andy MIAH
VISIONS
1.1 The Future is Divine: A History of Human God-Playing
Steve FULLER
1.2 BIOplay: Bacteria Cultures
Jennifer WILLET
1.3 Embracing the Unknown Future: In Defence of New Technology
Russell BLACKFORD
1.4 Will Human Enhancement Make Us Better? Ethical reflections on the enhancement of human capacities by means of biomedical technologies
Ruud ter MEULEN
1.5 Our Faith in Technology
Richard A.L. JONES
1.6 Evidence Dolls: Detecting Undesirable Genes
Anthony DUNNE, Fiona RABY & Andy MIAH
CONTESTED BODIES
2.1 Shaping the Human: The New Aesthetic
Sandra KEMP
2.2 Bioterror and 'Bioart' - 'a plage o' both your houses'
George J. ANNAS
2.3 One World, One Olympics: Governing Human Ability, Ableism & Disablism in an Era of Bodily Enhancements
Gregor WOLBRING
2.4 Flesh to Data/Subject to Data: Examining Processes of Translation
Marilène OLIVER
2.5 Eduardo Kac: A Conversation with the Artist
Simone OSTHOFF
POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE FUTURE
3.1 Fragments of Creative Cloning: Time, Money and Relationships
Kate O'RIORDAN
3.2 Global Governance and Emerging Technologies: The Need for a Mainstream Policy Debate on Modifying Human Capacities
Nigel CAMERON
3.3 Will Public Engagement Lead to a Marriage between Science and Society?
Duncan DALLAS
[Material Beliefs]
3.4 Once Upon a Space Age: How the dream was lost (and how we get it back again)
Nicola TRISCOTT
3.5 The Narrative Tradition of Posthuman Rights
Pramod K. NAYAR
3.6 How Science Fiction Lost its Innocence - And Now Nano?
David BENNETT
CREATIVE F(R)ICTIONS
4.1 Our Most Important Product
George J. ANNAS
4.2 Sorrel
Heather BRADSHAW
4.3 Letter to a Supernatural Being
Catullus
[Double Happiness Jeans – 6 Steps To Your Very Own Virtual Sweatshop!]
4.4 The Fragmented Orchestra: Minds, Music and Memory
Jane GRANT, John MATTHIAS & Nick RYAN
4.5 The Future is a Fantasy
Ann WHITEHURST
4.6 Notes on the History of the Present
Norman M. KLEIN
4.7 Artists and Scientists: A Symbiotic Relationship?
Oron CATTS & Laura SILLARS
4.8 Mission Eternity
etoy.CORPORATION
END MATTER
5. 1 Author Biographies
5.2 Index
BOOK LAUNCH
On 30 October 2008, a preview of the book took place in FACT, Liverpool, bringing together many of the contributors. This was its programme.
10.00-10.10 Why Human Futures? Mike Stubbs
10.10-11.30 Envisioning the Future,
Visions of humanity’s future are present throughout the history of science and science fiction. Their journeys articulate humanity’s aspiration to transcend known boundaries. Our Visions session interrogates the capacity to assert visions about the future of humanity. Russell Blackford is a leading science fiction writer and philosopher from Melbourne Australia, author of many of the Terminator chronicles and pioneering voice within the transhuman community. Norman M. Klein is an internationally renowned cultural critic based in Los Angeles. Together they consider how we should approach visionaries and imaginations of the future for humanity.
Chair: Steve Fuller
10.10-10.30 An Ethics of the Unknown, Russell Blackford AUS 10.30-10.50 The Human/Machine/Divinity Thing Justina Robson UK 10.50-11.10 Notes Towards the History of the Present, Norman M Klein USA 11.10-11.30 Questions & Answers, Discussion
11.30-11.45 Tea and Coffee
11.45-13.15 Designs on the Future,
How does design affect our relationship with the world around us? What can design bring to debates about the ethics of emerging technologies? This session gathers designers from the Royal College of Art whose work provokes people morally about technology. Through their artefacts and ideas, the aesthetic of future technology is brought into existence, the parameters of moral debate are drawn and the conditions of our commercial transaction with new technologies are established. Our speakers consider such questions as, how can we understand what choices people will make about genetic selection? What will be our relationship to animals in an era when we require them for sustaining human life? What does the science of nanotechnology mean for our own use of lifestyle body modifications?
Chair: Andy Miah
11.45-12.15 Design for Debate, Fiona Raby UK 12.15-12.30 Enhanced Humans as Super-Organisms, Michael Burton UK 12.30-12.45 Natural Kingdoms and the Post-Biological World, Revital Cohen UK 12.45-13.15 Questions & Answers
13.15-14.15 Lunch
14.15-15.15 Life after death in the 21st century,
etoy.CORPORATION (since 1994) is art and invests all resources in the production of more art. The Swiss based shareholder company represents the core and code of the corporate sculpture. etoy intends to reinvest all financial earnings in art - the final link in the value chain. In this session, key pioneers in the exploration of art and science discuss the latest work of etoy.CORPORATION, Mission Eternity. In a time when scientists are beginning to find ways of extending life beyond its known limits, the prospect of immortality comes under greater scrutiny. What does it mean to remember people, things, events? etoy invite our consideration of this question and, in so doing, resist the idea that questions of immortality reside solely in the sciences of cloning, life-extension and so on. Their immortality is personal, collaborative and intimate.
Chair: Ernest Edmonds UK
14.15-1435 Mission Eternity, etoy.CORPORATION SWITZ 14.35-15.15 Discussants: Paul Brown, Linda Candy, Mike Stubbs
15.15-16.15 Unsustainable Futures? FACT in 2009 ,
We exist in a world of tremendous technological development, but also of looming economic crisis. What is the future for humanity given these seemingly incompatible trends? Looking towards FACT’s programme in 2009, panel members from both sides of the Atlantic consider what are the compelling issues of our time, drawing together ideas presented throughout the day. Should we spend time investing into the exploration of outer space when basic energy requirements are becoming unsustainable on present-day technology? How can our investment into nanotechnology or the new science of synthetic biology translate into greater optimism for those who benefit least from high-technology?
Chair: Nicola Triscott
15.15-15.25 Overiew & Summary, Nicola Triscott UK
Rapporteurs:
15.25-15.40 Steve Fuller 15.40-15.55 Heather Bradshaw 15.55-16.10 Ernest Edmonds 16.10-16.25 Laura Sillars
16.25-16.45 ISEA 2009 Presentation by Karen Fleming
17.05-18.00 Book Preview Reception with Speeches
Mike Stubbs - Human Futures: The Programme
Andy Miah - Human Futures: The Book
QUOTES FROM THE BOOK
“Questions on the societal implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology will permeate every policy discussion of the 21st century and create whole new kinds of policy dilemma, and we are ill-prepared to provide good answers” (Cameron, 2008). “…are the Olympic competitions a mechanism for evaluating athletes with a ‘normal biological body’? Can the body structure, as such, be used as a basis to justify the separation between different kinds of –lympics?” (Wolbring, 2008b:119)
Check out the films from the 30 October event:
FILMS FROM THE DAY
Life After Death in the 21st Century
Human Futures & Unsustainability
MEDIA COVERAGE
2009.02.15 The Times Andy Miah profiled, features book content.
2009.01.29 review in Nature
2008.12.15 BBC Radio 4 Start the Week with Andrew Marr Andy Miah appeared to discuss the book
2008.11.29 The Scotsman 2-page profile piece on Andy, features content from the book
2008.11 Digicult Feature
2008.10 The Independent Andy Miah included in Visionaries for the 21st Century supplement, byline
AUTHORS
George is the Edward R. Utley Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights of Boston University School of Public Health, and Professor in the Boston University School of Medicine, and School of Law. He is the co-founder of Global Lawyers and Physicians, a transnational professional association of lawyers and physicians working together to promote human rights and health. He is the author or editor of 17 books on health law and bioethics, including American Bioethics: Crossing Human Rights and Health Law Boundaries (2005), The Rights of Patients (3rd ed. 2004), Some Choice: Law, Medicine, and the Market (1999), Standard of Care: The Law of American Bioethics (l993), and Judging Medicine (1987), and a play entitled Shelley’s Brain. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the Institute of Medicine, and co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Health Rights and Bioethics (Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section).
William Sims Bainbridge (aka Catullus) William has published 14 books, 4 textbook-software packages, and 200 articles on technology, information science and culture. After editing The Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction (2004), he wrote God from the Machine (2006), Across the Secular Abyss (2007) and Nanoconvergence (2007). He has served on five advanced technology initiatives: High Performance Computing and Communications, Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence, Digital Libraries, Information Technology Research, and Nanotechnology.
David J. Bennett David has a PhD in biochemical genetics and an MA in science policy studies with long-term experience, activities and interests in the relations between science, industry, government, education, law, the public and the media. He works with the European Commission, government departments, companies, universities, public interest organizations and the media in these areas, having worked in universities and companies in the UK, USA, Australia and, most recently, The Netherlands. He is a member of numerous international organizations and committees in biotechnology and nanobiotechnology, and for the last nearly twenty years has coordinated and managed many European Commission projects in this field. He is now a Visitor to the Senior Combination Room at St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge, Guest at the Kluyver Laboratory for Biotechnology of the Delft University of Technology, Secretary of the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) Task Group on Public Perceptions of Biotechnology and Director of Cambridge Biomedical Consultants Ltd.
Russell Blackford Russell teaches in the School of Philosophy and Bioethics at Monash University, where he is completing his second PhD. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Evolution and Technology.
Heather Bradshaw Heather is working on a thesis on enhancement and disability at the Centre for Ethics in Medicine at the University of Bristol. She is a staffer at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, where she is currently managing the editing and publication of a collection of essays on wisdom in Western and East-Asian culture. She recently published a short story in Nature.
Nigel Cameron Nigel is President of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies in Washington, DC, and Research Professor in the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), where he has been Director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society and co-founded the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future. His books include The New Medicine: Life and Death after Hippocrates (1991), and he has edited Nanoscale: Issues and Perspectives for the Nano Century (2007). He has been a visiting scholar at UBS Wolfsberg in Switzerland, and a featured speaker at the Aspen Ideas Festival. He serves on the advisory boards of Nanotechnology Law and Business, the Converging Technologies Bar Association, and the World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress. He chaired the Technosapiens process that brought together leading liberals, conservatives, and technology leaders with transhumanists, and gave a keynote address at the 2006 Stanford Law School conference on enhancement technologies and human rights. Nigel has represented the United States on delegations to the United Nations General Assembly and UNESCO, and testified before the European Parliament and the US Congress..
Catullus Catullus is a level 70 Blood Elf priest, a member of the Alea Iacta Est guild, and chief sponsor of the first scientific conference to be held inside World of Warcraft. Several times a week, this hero undertakes fully a dozen advanced quests in rapid succession, a real labour of Hercules, to earn gold for the costs of the conference. Having been thoroughly educated, from Silvermoon to the Sunwell, mastering fully six professions, and having completed many advanced research projects, his publishing career is ready to begin. Although the Gnomes and the Draenei have scientific pretensions, the Blood Elves are of course the most scientifically advanced of the ten races, and Catullus is the most brilliant of them all.
Oron Catts Oron is an artist, researcher and curator and co-founder and Director of SymbioticA, School of Anatomy & Human Biology, University of Western Australia. SymbioticA- –The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts is dedicated to the research, learning and critique of the life sciences and enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in biological laboratories. SymbioticA was awarded the inaugural Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007). Oron was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School. He exhibited and presented his award-winning work (mostly under the banner of The Tissue Culture & Art Project) and SymbioticA’s research internationally at institutions including NY MoMA, Ars Electronica, National Gallery of Vitoria, Tate Modern and elsewhere. Oron also runs workshops and is a sought-after speaker in international forums and symposia.
Duncan Dallas Duncan gained a degree in chemistry from Oxford University before joining the BBC in 1964. He then moved over to Yorkshire Television (YTV) in 1968, and became the Head of Science and Features. In 1992 he left YTV and started an independent production company, XYTV, which produced science programmes for the BBC, Channel 4 and ZDF in Germany. In 1998 he created the concept of Café Scientifique in a wine bar in Leeds, advertising it as: ‘a place where, for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, people can meet to discuss the latest ideas of science and technology which are changing our lives’. In 2001 he won an Impact Award from The Wellcome Trust to set up Café Scientifiques in cities throughout the UK, and there are currently 36 ‘Cafés’ across the UK and over 250 worldwide.
Anthony Dunne Anthony is Professor and head of the Design Interactions department at the Royal College of Art in London. He studied Industrial Design at the RCA before working at Sony Design in Tokyo. On returning to London he completed a PhD in Computer Related Design at the RCA. He was a founding member of the CRD Research Studio where he worked as a Senior Research Fellow(1996-2001). He also taught in Design Products where he jointly led Platform 3 between 1998 - 2004. Dunne & Raby was established in 1994. Their projects have been exhibited and published internationally and are in the permanent collection of several museums including the MOMA, New York, FRAC, FNAC and the V&A Museum, London. Dunne & Raby have worked with Sony UK, National Panasonic, France Telecom and The Science Museum. They have published two books: Design Noir; The secret life of electronic products (Princeton Architectural Press) and Hertzian Tales (The MIT Press).
etoy.CORPORATION etoy.CORPORATION (since 1994) is art and invests all resources in the production of more art. The shareholder company represents the core and code of the corporate sculpture. It controls, protects, shares, and exploits the cultural substance (intellectual property / etoy trademarks) and the etoy.ART-COLLECTION. etoy intends to reinvest all financial earnings in art - the final link in the value chain.
Steve Fuller Steve is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. He is best-known for his work in the field of ‘social epistemology’, which addresses normative philosophical questions about organized knowledge by historical and social scientific means. His most recent work has focused on the future of the public intellectual and the university, as well as the biological challenge to the social sciences, especially as it bears on the future of ‘humanity’ as a category in terms of which we define ourselves. Fuller is the author of 15 books, including The Knowledge Book: Key Concepts in Philosophy, Science and Culture (Acumen and McGill-Queens, 2007), New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies (Polity, 2007), Science vs Religion? (Polity, 2007) and Dissent over Descent: Intelligent Design’s Challenge to Darwinism (Icon, 2008). He is the UK partner of the European Union’s Sixth Framework Project on the ‘Knowledge Politics of Converging Technologies’. Jane Grant Jane is an artist who works with film/video, sound, installation and drawing. She works both individually and collaboratively with scientists and musicians. She has been working with neurological time patterns and the human voice for a some time and was awarded an AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) grant to make work which merges firing patterns of artificial spiking neurons with the human voice and breath. This work forms the audio part of the film and sound installation entitled Threshold shown in Just World Order at Artsway, UK. Recent exhibited works have included Untitled (Room), with John Matthias, in the Sonic Arts Network Expo 2007 and Nothing is Further in the Voices III Festival in Plymouth 2008 and Running Piece in MUTICHANNEL at Artsway. She has exhibited widely including one-person shows at Spacex Gallery and Still at Chapter, Cardiff. Other exhibitions include Kissing the Dust at Walsall Museum and Art Gallery and Aufsteigen in Germany funded by the British Council.
Richard A. L. Jones Richard was educated at Cambridge University, with a first degree and a PhD in physics. After postdoctoral work at Cornell University, he was appointed as a lecturer at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University. In 1998 he moved to Sheffield University, where he is a Professor of Physics. In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He lives in Derbyshire, is married and has two young children. He is an experimental physicist, whose research centres around the properties of polymer molecules at interfaces and ultrathin polymer films. He is currently the Senior Strategic Advisor for Nanotechnology for the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Sandra Kemp Sandra is Head of the London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London. She was formerly Director of Research at the Royal College of Art. She gained her B.A. and D.Phil at Oxford University, and has held senior research posts at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Sandra Kemp’s research has always explored the connections between individual identity and philosophical, cultural and aesthetic concerns. Her recent work investigated multiple readings of the face as a 3D barcode of identity and the impact of advances in science and technology on both appearance and identity. Her exhibition Future Face was shown at the Science Museum, London, from 2005-6, and toured Southeast Asia in 2006-7. Her current research continues her investigation of the cultural centrality of the human image and its extraordinary expressive repertoire through an exploration of the issues relating to human enhancement.
Norman M. Klein Norman is a cultural critic, and both an urban and media historian, as well as a novelist. His books include The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory, Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon, and the data/cinematic novel, Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920–86 (DVD-ROM with book). His next book will be The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects (2003). His essays appear in anthologies, museum catalogues, newspapers, scholarly journals, on the WWW – symptoms of a polymath’s career, from European cultural history to animation and architectural studies, to LA studies, to fiction, media design and documentary film. His work (including museum shows) centres on the relationship between collective memory and power, from special effects to cinema to digital theory, usually set in urban spaces; and often on the thin line between fact and fiction; about erasure, forgetting, scripted spaces, the social imaginary.
John Matthias John is a composer, musician and physicist and is lecturer in Sonic Arts at the University of Plymouth. He has released three albums, Smalltown, Shining (Accidental Records 2001), Stories from the Watercooler (Ninja Tune/ Counter 2008) and Cortical Songs (with Nick Ryan) (Nonclassical 2008) and has worked with many recording artists including Radiohead, Matthew Herbert and Coldcut. He is the winner (with Jane Grant and Nick Ryan) of the 2008 PRS New Music Award and his research interests include the new subject of Neuronal Music Technology. He has also contributed as a violinist to the sound of many albums, television programmes and two feature films. He also plays in the band, Derailer with David and Andrew Prior.
Ruud ter Meulen Ruud is a psychologist and ethicist. He is Chair for Ethics of Medicine and Director of the Centre for Ethics in Medicine at the University of Bristol. He has been working on a broad range of issues in medical ethics, particularly issues of justice in healthcare, ethical issues of healthcare reform and health policy, ethics of evidence-based medicine, ethical issues of long-term care and ethics of research and research ethics committees. Ruud has directed several international projects and was principal co-ordinator of a range of European projects. He was the principal coordinator of the ENHANCE project, funded within the Sixth Framework Program of the European Commission, dealing with the ethical, philosophical and social issues of enhancement technologies.
Andy Miah Andy is Reader in New Media and Bioethics at the School of Media, Language and Music University of the West of Scotland, a Fellow at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) and a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He has a PhD in bioethics and cultural studies and a Masters degree in medical law. He is author of Genetically Modified Athletes (2004 Routledge) and co-author with Emma Rich of The Medicalization of Cyberspace (2008, Routledge). He is a Steering Committee member and Panel Co-Chair for ISEA 2009, Belfast.
Pramod K. Nayar Pramod teaches at the Department of English at the University of Hyderabad, India. He is the author of Virtual Worlds: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cybertechnology (Sage, 2004), Reading Culture: Theory, Praxis, Politics (Sage, 2006), besides work on colonial discourse (English Writing and India, 1600-1920: Colonizing Aesthetics, Routledge, 2008) and postcolonial literature (Postcolonial Literature: An Introduction, Pearson, 2008). Forthcoming work includes essays on human rights narratives from India, and books on celebrity culture, cultural studies and cyberculture. Marilène Oliver Marilène was born in the UK in 1977. Marilène has exhibited widely in the UK and Europe in both private and public galleries including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Academy, Royal Institution, Science Museum (UK) and Frissarias Museum (Greece) and Kunsthalle Ahlen (Germany). She has had a number of solo shows in Europe. She was awarded the Royal Academy print prize in 2006 and the Printmaking Today prize in 2001. Her work is held in a number of private collections around the world as well as a number of public collections such as the Wellcome Trust and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Marilène is currently completing a practice-based MPhil in Fine Art Print at the Royal College of Art, London.
Simone Osthoff Simone is Associate Professor of Critical Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. She holds a Ph.D. in Media and Communications from the European Graduate School in Switzerland, an M.A. degree in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Maryland. She is a member of the Leonardo Review panel since 2000. Her many interviews, essays, and book chapters focusing upon contemporary art have been translated into eight languages and included in among others, various MIT Press and Routledge books as well as in international art magazines and web publications. She received a Fulbright Fellowship in 2003, and is a frequent lecturer in the United States and abroad having participated in dozens of conferences worldwide.
Kate O’Riordan Kate is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media and Film at the University of Sussex, and co-director of the Centre for Digital Material Culture. She is also an affiliate member of the Centre for the Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (CESAGEN), at Lancaster University. Her research is in cultural studies of science and technology, engaging with forms of mediation, and collective and individual identities. She has published widely in these areas, including Human Cloning in the Media: From Science Fiction to Science Practice (Routledge, 2007), and Queer Online: Media Technology and Sexuality (Peter Lang, 2007).
Fiona Raby Fiona is a partner in the design practice Dunne & Raby. She was a founding member of the CRD Research Studio at the Royal College of Art where she worked as a Senior Research Fellow (1996-2001). She taught in Architecture at the RCA from 1996-2005 where she led ADS04 with Gerrard O’Carroll. She currently teaches in Design Interactions. Dunne & Raby were established 1994. Their projects have been exhibited and published internationally and are in the permanent collection of several museums including the MOMA, New York, FRAC, FNAC and the V&A Museum, London. Dunne & Raby have worked with Sony UK, National Panasonic, France Telecom and The Science Museum. Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Products (Princeton Architectural Press) was published in 2001. Nick Ryan Nick is a composer and sound designer. He holds major industry awards in technical and creative fields for his unique approach to sound and music in the context of multi-sensory experience. In 2006 Nick was invited by photographer Nick Knight and interaction designer Daniel Brown to sonify a still photograph of a Balenciaga garment [worn by Gemma Ward] and to create a multi-sensory interactive artwork. The work, Synaesthesia, which allows the user to touch a photograph and hear its texture, was launched on Showstudio website and performed by Nick Ryan at the MAK Building, Vienna, June 2007.
Laura Sillars Laura is Head of Programme at FACT. She leads FACT’s artistic programme and manages a team of curators and project managers to develop and deliver exhibitions, projects, education and collaboration programmes. Previously Senior Curator: Collaboration Programme at FACT, Curator: Public Programmes at Tate Liverpool and an Associate Lecturer for the Open University, she holds an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, a PGCE in Adult and Community Education from the Institute of Education and a BA from the University of York in History and History of Art. A member of the Liverpool John Moore’s Art and Design Academy Advisory Board, she is a Senior Research Fellow: Centre for Architecture and Visual Arts for the University of Liverpool, is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and currently holds a Clore Leadership Fellowship.
Mike Stubbs Mike has been Director of FACT since May 2007. Previously he was Head of Exhibitions at the Australian Centre for Moving Image (ACMI), Senior Research Resident at Dundee University’s School of Television Imaging and was Founding Director at Hull Time Based Arts (HTBA). During his career, Mike has commissioned over 250 interactive, site-specific, performative, sonic and moving-image based artworks. Originally educated at the Royal College of Art and Cardiff College of Art, Mike’s own internationally commissioned artwork encompasses broadcast films, video art, large-scale public projections and new media installation.
Nicola Triscott Nicola is a cultural producer, working in the performing, interdisciplinary and visual arts. She founded The Arts Catalyst, the UK science-art agency, in 1993. As Director of The Arts Catalyst she has built alliances internationally between disciplines and commissioned more than 60 art projects over the last 15 years. Nicola writes and speaks regularly at international conferences on the interrelationships between art, science, technology and society, and cultural perspectives on space exploration. After studying physics at Imperial College and geography at University College London, Nicola worked in theatre and arts production, arts policy, arts centre management, and as a freelance arts consultant. Prior to setting up The Arts Catalyst, she was working and researching in southern, central and east Africa.
Ann Whitehurst Ann is one of the UK's leading multi-media artists and is also a theorist and thinker of great imagination, who challenges the various axioms of contemporary thought on otherness and difference. Ann, fullpainly alive, creates through her art work and her perceptions a milieu of understanding and threat to the hegemonies of the fictive dramas of normalcy. Ann is at the heart of www.outside-centre.org.uk; an agency which seeks to explore, instigate and challenge you. She writes, ‘My work is to challenge the very existence of the norm; challenge and so liberate the conforming and their limited and limiting understanding of life, politics and culture. Diversity in body, mind and spirit doesn't restrict it advances’. Ann’s 1993 piece “Wheelchairbound” was produced at a time when the social model of disability became a universally recognized concept thus influencing policy and the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act.
Jennifer Willet Jennifer is an international artist specializing in performance, installation and reproductive (analogue/digital/biological) technologies. She is PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Humanities programme at Concordia University in Montreal, and an Assistant Professor in the School of Visual Arts at the University of Windsor in Canada. Between 2000 and 2007 she collaborated with Shawn Bailey on a bioart project called BIOTEKNICA.
Gregor Wolbring Gregor is an ability and ableism governance, science and technology governance, disability studies and health policy scholar, a bioethicist and a biochemist.He is an Assistant Professor, University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, Dept of Community Health Sciences, Speciality in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies. He is among others an affiliated scholar, Center for Nanotechnology and Society at Arizona State University. Part-time Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Canada, Adjunct Faculty Critical Disability udies York University Canada.
Here's an overview of what we've covered in the Human Futures book. These are actual page proofs of the Index:
