Olivier Goulet

Today, I attended FACT's seminar for artists and professionals, based around their Human Futures exhibition. The conversations were broadly about the practice of art processes and how we should proceed with artistic undertakings. One of the most interesting conversations I had was with Olivier Goulet who indicated he was very interested in my view. He immediaely reminded me of Alfredo, of Irene and Alfredo. I want to hook them up together, for Irene to sell his clothes in her 'sustainable clothing' shop in Barcelona.

We talked a lot about his work and I was very interested in how his clothing made from synthetic human skin were received by audiences. He explained that the removal of the word 'human' from publicity led to quite different responses, all of which were really fascinating. The clothes he makes are beautiful; incredibly stylish, trendy and wearable. He's performing tomorrow night and we'll hope to  see him, but here's SkinBag: http://www.skinbag.net/

Human Futures @ FACT launch

Last night was the launch of the Human Futures exhibit SK-interfaces at FACT. It was really extraordinary and nice to see some friends come over for the event. The highlight was the performance of http://www.yannmarussich.ch 'Blue Remix'. Photos are in my Flickr photoset. this image is of his assistant and I was moved by the care and attention this man gave to the whole process. Made me wish i could take better photographs.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVSPw1XrRK0]

ORLAN at Goldsmiths (5 February, 208)

ORLAN at Goldsmiths Tuesday 5 February 2008 6.15pm THE THEATRE Department of Drama

The Department of Drama's Performance Research Forum and the Digital Studios' (Department of Computing) Thursday Club are delighted to co-host this special event, aTALK by one of the most original and provocative woman artists working today in what she calls CARNAL ART.

"Unlike 'Body Art', from which I set it apart, Carnal Art does not desire pain as a means of redemption, or to attain purification. Carnal Art does not wish to achieve a final 'plastic' result, but rather seeks to modify the body, and engage in public debate=E2=80=A6=E2=80=A6=E2=80=A6Carnal Ar= t is not against cosmetic surgery but, rather against the conventions carried by it and their subsequent inscription, within female flesh in particular, but also male. Carnal Art is feminist, that is necessary. It is interested not onl= y in cosmetic surgery, but also advanced techniques in medicine and biology that question the status of the body and the ethical questions posed by them" ORLAN

All welcome. Entrance free. Latecomers will not be admitted.

To book this event, call 020 7919 7422

<http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/drama/orlan.php>

sk-interfaces (Liverpool, FACT, Feb 2008)

New exhibition and conference starting the FACT programme. Looks good!

"Designer hymens, a composite coat made of blended skin cultures by legendary French artist ORLAN, a brain infused with glowing moss and non-animal ‘leather’ growing in the galleries, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) presents a ground-breaking UK exhibition exploring the idea of skin as a place where art, science, philosophy and social culture meet.

sk-interfaces opens 01 February until 31 March 2008.

Curated by Jens Hauser, sk-interfaces launches FACT’s Human Futures programme in Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture and as an interdisciplinary exhibition will feature works from 15 international artists, including 2007’s Golden Nica winners at Ars Electronica.

“What used to be understood as a surface that represents the limit of the self and between the inside and the outside can today be seen as an unstable border. sk-interfaces is ideally placed within the cultural programme of Liverpool 08: Artists are exploring trans-species relationships, xenotransplantation, satellite bodies, endogene design, telepresence, permeable architecture and the ever pushed limits of art itself,” says curator Jens Hauser.

Formerly known for her surgery-performances in which she refigured her face and created new images referring to non-Western cultures, ORLAN presents her new work Harlequin Coat, a patchwork life-size mantle, which contains fusing in vitro skin cells from various cultures and species. This prototype of a biotechnological coat is made to symbolise cultural cross breeding.

The Tissue Culture and Art Project’s Victimless Leather investigates the possibility of producing ‘leather’ without killing an animal. Three miniature stitch-less garments are tissue-cultured live in the gallery. Artists Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr are behind the award-winning lab project SymbioticA (Golden Nica in Hybrid Art 2007 Prix Ars Electronica), the Australian–based research facility dedicated to artistic enquiry.

French duo Art Orienté objet has created biopsied, cultured, hybridized and tattooed skin made from their own epidermis and pig derma to create living biotechnological self-portraits. Marion Laval-Jeantet and Benoît Mangin’s work is intended to be grafted onto collectors themselves so they can physically wear and absorb an artists’ piece.

American artist Julia Reodica’s hymNext Designer Hymen Series confronts the values of purity and gender roles using the artist’s own vaginal tissue and animal muscle cells to create designer hymens. The sculptures pose as products to be marketed and are intended as objects of novelty for ‘re-virginisation’ thus addressing the issue of how different cultures value female virginity and the associated pressures.

Zbigniew Oksiuta from Poland will come to Liverpool to create a new version of his project Breeding Spaces in which a large 3D sphere of gelatin is grown in situ. The artist proposes the possibilities of designing biological spatial structures that can serve as a new kind of habitat and presents a new form of spatial coexistence between man and nature.

sk-interfaces will also feature further commissioned and existing projects from international artists such as Eduardo Kac, Jun Takita, Wim Delvoye, Olivier Goulet, Zane Berzina and Neal White among others.

Mike Stubbs, Director and CEO of FACT says, “FACT opens its 08 programme committed to pushing at the boundaries of how and what creative technologies and art can be. Touching on some of the biggest issues of our day FACT invites debate and conversation around life sciences and our changing relationships with our bodies and technology"." 

Ethical Futures

The RSA event last week was a whirlwind through so many different technologcical futures that tying everything together was quite a challenge. We roved from Web 2.0 to artificially intelligent robot soldiers in a matter of hours.

Human Futures @ FACT

It's perplexing how i can be invited all over the world to speak about this subject and, on my own doorstep, not a peep. There's a moral here somewhere, and it's a good one. Anyway, visit Human Futures @ FACT, then get down to London next week for Ethical Futures @ RSA where I am speaking to the title 'Justifying Human Enhancement: The Accumulation of Biocultural Capital [straight after which I'm taking a motorcycle taxi to make my train. life is complicated]

Science as Culture (CFPs)

Science as CultureCALL FOR PAPERS: special issue on ‘Technology, Death and the Cultural Imagination’

Deadline for receipt of abstracts: November 17th, 2007

This special issue will explore concepts of death – its causes, its prevention, its ambiguities, its interfaces with life – and how these relate to technocultures.

As well as technologies of death (as used in warfare, execution and death camps) and technologies closely associated with death (aeroplanes, cars and early industrial technology, for instance), medical technologies which aim to prevent or delay death have had a considerable impact on what it means to die and, conversely, what it means to live.  Cryonic suspension for example keeps the body in a form of undeath and offers the possibility of resurrection into a future world while the cloning of replacement body parts blurs the boundaries of identity and thus poses questions about concepts of death, life and individuality.  Similarly, technologies which keep the body 'alive' complicate legal definitions of death.  Science fiction in particular has been concerned with reconceptualising what it means to die.

We are interested in papers which explore these ideas and their expression in art and literature, including critiques of recent films and publications or re-readings of classics, as well as readings of other cultural objects. We also welcome papers which have a historical perspective and focus on pre-twentieth century technologies of death.  Subjects for consideration may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Consumer technologies and 'unusual' death. Vampires. Modern/Postmodern Frankensteins and concepts of (re)animation Technology and the language of death (e.g.,'collateral damage'). Technology, global capitalism and death. Brain death and the preservation of the body. Technologies of/and death as the subject of art. Science fictions of death/undeath. Celebrity resurrections. Drugs and the concept of 'living death'. Technologies and the life of the body after death. New technologies and preservation at the point of death. ‘Ghostly’ body parts and transplanted organs. The status of the unborn or ‘potentially’ human.

Science as Culture is dedicated to exploring the culture of technoscientific expertise and how it shapes the values which contend for influence over the wider society.  The journal encompasses people’s experiences at various sites – the workplace, the cinema, the computer, the hospital, the home and the academy.  The articles are readable, attractive, lively, often humorous, and always jargon-free. SaC aims to be read at leisure, and to be a pleasure.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent, by either post or e-mail (with SaC in the subject line) to either of the following addresses, to arrive no later than November 17th, 2007:

Debra Benita Shaw Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies School of Social Sciences, Media & Cultural Studies University of East London 4-6 University Way London E16 2RD United Kingdom d.shaw[AT]uel.ac.uk

Megan Stern Senior Lecturer in English, Critical Theory & Media Studies Department of Humanities, Arts & Languages London Metropolitan University Tower Building 166-220 Holloway Road London N7 8DB United Kingdom m.stern[AT]londonmet.ac.uk

Synthetic Biology, Craig Venter and Bioethics

This week, Craig Venter has been working the UK media to its fullest in what seems a whistlestop tour over to convey his work in the area of synthetic biology. In the UK, news about this broke first in the Guardian on Saturday 6th October. Venter's website promptly indicated that the newspaper was slightly ahead of itself by announcing this work, stressing that publications are not yet in place. It seems now that they were only 3 weeks ahead of themselves as Venter has clearly broken the news on this in the fullest sense. While he still stresses that this work is futuristic and unlikely to give rise to any new life forms within his lifetime, the rhetoric of promise is interesting. Last night on BBC's Hard Talk and on Newsnight earlier in the week, he emphasised the importance of the research for environmental sustainability. This cannot be coincidental, but appears as a decisive, partial rebranding of gentic science. So, here we have a clear handling of the media taking place drawing on persuasive rhetorics about the long-term benefit of experimental science.  He talked about modifying humans to ensure they can survive in climates where greater carbonis in the atmosphere. Nice idea. It's all plausible, but we should still be wary of this utilization of discourses to co-opt political support for science.

I'm sure Venter's work over this period will be the subject of many studies on science communication. Things seem much more sophisticated than they were 10 years ago, when the Human Genome was nearing completion. The ante has been upped, so to speak. Now the scientists are much more in tune with how to get the message out. I could not help but feel that the Guardian story was a first litmus test for public opinion. We've not seen the last of this yet.

european neuroscience and society network

The launch of the ENSN takes place in London next month on 12th and 13th November. I'll be there as will Alex Mauron who's speaking in the final plenary. [Alex and I have written a couple of papers together with Bengt Kayser.]

Programme:

Neurosocieties: the rise and impact of the new brain sciences November 12 & 13, 2007 Regent’s College Conference Centre, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London Monday, November 12, 2007 9.00 – 9.30 Conference Registration (Regent’s College Conference Centre, Main Lobby) 9.30-10.00 (Room D06) Welcome: Neurosocieties: the rise and impact of the new brain sciences Professor Nikolas Rose, Director, BIOS Centre for the study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society, London School of Economics 10.00-12.00 (Room D06) Plenary One – Public health and the politics of the neurosciences Professor Kent Woods, CEO, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency “Regulation of medicines in a changing world: the challenges of neuropharmacology” Professor Matilde Leonardi, Neurological Institute Carlo Besta, Italy “Neurosciences and neuropolitics: the challenge of brain disorders” 12.00– 1.00 (Room D05) Lunch 1.00-3.00 (Room D06) Plenary Two – Neuroeconomies: markets, choice and the distribution of neurotechnologies Zack Lynch, Executive Director, Neurotechnology Industry Organization “The Global Neurotechnology Industry 2007 and Beyond” Dr. Philippe Pignarre, University of Paris; Publisher, Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond “The birth of neuroeconomy” 3.00 to 3.30 Coffee Break 3.30 to 5.30 (Room D06) Plenary Three - Sources of the neurochemical self: consciousness, personhood and difference Professor Alexandre Mauron, University of Geneva Dr. Ilina Singh, BIOS Centre, LSE 5.30 Wine Reception & Conference Dinner Herringham Hall, Regent’s Conference Centre Tuesday, November 13, 2007 9.30 – 10.00 Coffee and Tea 10.00-11.00 Workshop One: Public health and the politics of the neurosciences (Room D05) Discussants: Dr. Andreas Roepstorff, University of Aarhus Dr. Joao Arriscado Nunes, University of Coimbra, Portugal Workshop Two: Neuroeconomies: markets, choice and the distribution of neurotechnologies (Room D06) Discussants: Dr. Paul Martin, University of Nottingham Dr. Ilpo Helen, University of Helsinki 11.00-12.00 Workshop Three: Sources of the neurochemical self: consciousness, personhood and difference (Room D05) Discussants: Professor Kenneth Hugdahl, University of Bergen Dr. Cordula Nitsch, University of Basel Workshop Four: Neuroscience and Society: Future Directions in Europe (Room D06) Discussants: Professor Trudy Dehue, University of Groningen Professor Ilse Kryspin-Exner, University of Vienna 12.00-1.00 Lunch 1.0 to 3.00 (Room D06) Plenary Four – Neuroscience and Society: Future Directions in Europe Professor Steven Rose, Open University “Future Directions in Neuroscience: a twenty year timescale” Professor Alain Ehrenberg “Brain, Mind and Society: the Threefold cord” 3.00-3.30 Closing Remarks Tea and Coffee served

Bruce Sterling

Today, I joined the RCA's Design Interactions again, at the invitation of Tony Dunne. The project was on Robot Ethics this time and I gave a lecture that talked about the relations between Prosthesis, Robotics and Artificial Life. Also speaking this morning was Bruce Sterling, whom it was a delight to meet. I have read Bruce's work for some years and had email contact with him some time ago in relation to CTHEORY. After the morning sessions, we chewed the fat on urban regneration, Richard Florida, creativity and the trivialization of everything. Here are some notes on his talk that I made. They might be impenetrable:

Design Interactions, Oct 8 2007

Robots Bruce Sterling

Why no humanoid reobots? From literature and theatre Usually, humanoid, dim witted Can take some limited orders from humans

Contemporary robot is different C3P0 R2D2 – drone – remotely piloted Humanoid vs ME: non-humanoid

Terminologies blur - both referred to as droids

androids supposed to be different – semi-biological - form and shape of human, but semi mechanical

gianoids – women shaped mechanical objects

robot in metropolis - blog.wired.com/sterling - robo veganza

when robot word invented, made from goo – poured into moulds

mechanical version came later

there is one household robot you can buy – disc shaped vacuum cleaner - animals hate them - can get stuff on things: destroy themselves - no brains - no emotional relationship - not pets

why did robot dog fail? - people played with it then forgot to plug it in. - Sony iBo

These objects lack common sense, so cannot have relationship with

Put a face on our relationship to technology - cannot have moral discussion with it - can have one with dog – but not a robot dog

does not have morality

sony also built humanoid robot, but never launched

Institute of RoboEthics, Italy - afraid to release, for fear of hackers

‘they can dance’

There aren’t any smart machines - none that can ustd commonsense language - not even translating machines

no embodiment

strings of 1s and 0s

nothing remotely behaves like this, nor getting closer to it

serious advances in robots - intelligence NO - solving Turing Test? NO

what we’ve got is ‘arms and legs’ - big Dog – darpa project, bath tub on legs; no head

uncanny - not a perfect version of a robot human - reach a

Marvin Minsky - artificial emotions - AI doesn’t work since human brains don’t work in the way he imagined - Must be an emotional substrate below intelligence

Robots have no sense of preservation. They don’t reproduce

They don’t value their own existence

There’s no way for us to give them anything

Minsky now emotions

Hans Moravec - most advanced schemes ‘bush robot’ – equipped to do nanotechnology - ‘utility fog’ – get rid of everything and keep fingers o a kind of gas – oozing through peoples bodies o Behind a scheme like this is difficulty and tragedy

Melancholy tale of how the word robot was invented - invented by a painter – jozef char

satirical play about industrialism – RUR – Rossums Universal Robots - parody of industrial production - basic researcher and industrial technologist - scientist decides will make a mimic of human - first makes a dog, but doesn’t work very well - his son says it’s not working, so suggests try making an industrial labour - get rid of parts that would make money – no sexuality, no emotional attachment, just really good memory, doesn’t sleep, eats anything, work tirelessly on assembly line - robot = worker

communism,

humane

Human Futures

FACT's new programme for 2008 is advertised in their Oct-Dec brochure. Human Futures looks to be an excellent series of exhibitions, events and debates about such themes as medicine, the body, technology, art and more. It's so closely tied to so much of my research that I doubt I'll have much cause to leave Liverpool while it's running It also shares similar themes with 'Ethical Futures' , a project that I have become involved with at the RSA. Perhaps the two communities will meet

Neurosocieties: the rise and impact of the new brain sciences (12-13 Nov, LSE)

neurosocieties: the rise and impact of the new brain sciences Launch Conference of the European Neuroscience and Society Network

November 12-13, 2007, London, UK

This conference will mark the inauguration of the ENSN, a networking project funded by the European Science Foundation and convened by researchers at the BIOS Centre, London School of Economics.

The last twenty years have seen unprecedented innovation in the neurosciences. Despite evidence that advances in the neurosciences are having a significant influence on the lives of individuals across Europe, there has been little formal engagement within the European social sciences with the ethical, social, legal and security implications of recent developments in this branch of scientific experimentation. The European Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN) has been established to serve as a multidisciplinary forum for timely and necessary engagement with the influence of the new brain sciences on our lives.

The November conference will be the first in a series of international workshops and conferences bringing together leading neuroscientists, philosophers and social scientists for sustained discussions and cross-disciplinary dialogue on the following themes:

·       Neuroscience and society: framing the agenda in Europe

·       Public health and the politics of the neurosciences

·       Neuroeconomies: markets, choice and the distribution of neurotechnologies

·       Sources of the neurochemical self: consciousness, personhood and difference

Plenary speakers include:

Professor Kent Woods (Chief Executive Officer, UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency)

Professor Steven Rose (Open University)

Dr. Philippe Pignarre (University of Paris; Publisher, Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond)

Professor Alexandre Mauron (University of Geneva)

Zack Lynch (Executive Director, Neurotechnology Institute Organization)

Professor Wolf Singer (Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Germany)

Numbers at the Launch conference on November 12-13 are strictly limited to ensure opportunity for participation, so please book early. To indicate your interest and request a registration form, contact Linsey McGoey (l.j.mcgoey@lse.ac.uk <mailto:l.j.mcgoey [AT] lse.ac.uk> ), Programme Coordinator, European Neuroscience and Society Network.

For more information about the ENSN, see: www.esf.org/ensn <http://www.esf.org/ensn> .

Art and Biomedicine - Beyond the body (Copenhagen, 3 September, 2007)

"A one-day symposium about creative visual practices at the frontiersof biomedicine organised by the Medical Museion at the University of Copenhagen in partnership with The Schools of Visual Arts, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts."

http://www.ku.dk/Satsning/BioCampus/artandbiomedicine/index.asp

Between the Human and the Post-Human: Technology and Humanity

We are pleased to announce a forthcoming one-day conference to be heldby the Science Technology Culture Research Group at the University of Nottingham (UK) on 19 September 2007. I would be very grateful if you would circulate the attached poster to all interested members of your department or institution:

Between the Human and the Post-Human: Technology and Humanity

Technological developments in fields such as IT, biotechnology, genomics, and reproductive technologies may well take us into a new and distinct era of human evolution. Consequently, terms such as 'posthuman' and 'transhuman', have gained a degree of common currency in recent years. The aim of this conference is to generate new interdisciplinary discussion on issues relating to potential reconceptualisations of the 'human' in the light of new technologies.

Speakers:

Don Ihde (Stony Brook University)

Lenny Moss (Exeter University)

Bronwyn Parry (Queen Mary London)

Robert Pepperell (Cardiff School of Art & Design)

To register, please contact conference organiser: john.marks [AT] nottingham.ac.uk

Posthuman Conditions

Now available: Subject Matters Vol. 3, No. 2/Vol. 4, No. 1

a special issue on ‘Posthuman conditions’ guest edited by Neil Badmington

CONTENTS

Introduction: posthuman conditions NEIL BADMINGTON

“ . . . a drowning of the human in the physical”: Jonathan Franzen and the corrections of humanism NEIL BADMINGTON

Critical posthumanism or, the inventio of a posthumanism without technology IVAN CALLUS AND STEFAN HERBRECHTER

Posthuman metamorphosis: narrative and neocybernetics BRUCE CLARKE

From inoculation to vaccination: smallpox and the shifting ground of what it means to be human TERESA HEFFERNAN

Parrots: speech and subjectivity JESSICA MORDSLEY

Plastic man: intersex, humanism and the Reimer case IAIN MORLAND

Mutation, history, and fantasy in the posthuman R. L. RUTSKY

When you can’t believe your eyes: the prosthetics of subjectivity and the ethical force of the feminine in Dancer in the Dark CARY WOLFE

To subscribe, go to

www.subject-matters.co.uk

Critical Posthumanisms

I just discovered the new book series titled 'Critical Posthumanisms' published by the Dutch company Rodopi. The forthcoming volumes look very interesting. More information here: ISSN 1872-0943

General Editors: Ivan Callus, University of Malta Stefan Herbrechter, Trinity and All Saints, University of Leeds

Editorial Board: Neil Badmington, Cardiff University Timothy Bhati Manuela Rossini, University of Amsterdam Joanna Zylinska, University of London

‘Posthumanism’ may be understood as the paradigm that succeeds humanism, but also as the study of what might follow humanity's ends. After prompting an initial sense of novelty and shock, posthumanism has become a discourse whose unsettling anticipations of the future and timely critiques of the present have firmly established themselves within the academy. Posthumanism’s concerns—typically relating to the impacts of bio- and digital technology on body, mind, culture, and epistemology—are now part of mainstream debate within the humanities and within interdisciplinary explorations of the integrity of the human.

Critical Posthumanisms is a new series focusing on the exciting rise of posthumanism and its probable directions. It makes available studies by scholars whose perspectives on the posthuman vary in important and interesting ways, and should serve as a crucial point of reference for anybody working within the field.

Books within the series provide:

(a) analyses of the histories, idioms, and canons of different “posthumanisms”; (b) discussion of the main thinkers and trends of posthumanism; (b) alternative formulations of posthumanism, which downplay the centrality of technology; (c) philosophical and political critiques of the "prosthesization" of the human; (d) cross-disciplinary takes on posthumanism, particularly those allowing the humanities to engage with areas like Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology, Virtual Reality, etc.

Editorial Address: Dr Ivan Callus Department of English Faculty of Arts University of Malta Msida MSD06 Malta

Email: ivan.callus@um.edu.mt

Dr Stefan Herbrechter Department of Media, Film and Culture Trinity and All Saints Brownberrie Lane Horsforth LEEDS LS18 5HD UK

Email : s.herbrechter@leedstrinity.ac.uk

---------------------------- Forthcoming volumes:

Volume 1. Stefan Herbrechter and Ivan Callus. Critical Posthumanisms: An Introduction.

Volume 2. Gloria Lauri-Lucente. Mutatas Formas: Posthumanism and Transembodiment in Ovid, Dante, and Petrarch.

Volume 3. Thorsten Botz-Bornstein. Virtual Reality: The Last Human Narrative?

The editors are also looking to commission further monographs in the areas described above.

Virtual Anxiety

Kember, S. (1998). Virtual Anxiety: Photography, New Technologies, and Subjectivity. Manchester, Manchester University Press.

"...the raising of the undead in technoscientific discourse signifies not only the validation of difference but the desire to effect new and illicit kinds of connection within and across academic and disciplinary boundaries as well as organic and inorganic realsm. Vampires in this context are about difference, technology and writing linked by the possibilities of 'as if'. They are a facet of feminist figurative writing in academic discourse which, tied to specific and declared investments, help to keep the monsters out of the closets and divert us from our virtual anxieties."

BIOCULTURES GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE (16-17 Nov, 2007)

BIOCULTURES GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE:>science >technology >culture >humanity

University of Illinois at Chicago, November 16-17, 2007

Keynote speakers:

Judith Halberstam, University of Southern California Lennard J. Davis, University of Illinois at Chicago

In the 1950s, C.P. Snow saw a fundamental split between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities. But in recent years this split has faded, with theorists like Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway as well as writers like Samuel Delaney and Octavia Butler examining what "the human" is in a world where recent biological and technological developments have profoundly shaken our assumptions about identity and power. At the same time, interdisciplinary work in fields like bioethics, gender studies, disability studies and critical race theory has begun to bridge this divide, offering up new ways of theorizing the body and its relationship to medical, cultural, and political knowledge. Putting projects like these in dialogue with one other, this conference seeks to create an interdisciplinary discourse that participates in the emergence of biocultures - the intellectual space where the humanities and the sciences converge. We invite presentations on biocultural issues from scholars and professionals from all disciplines. Papers may address, but are in no way limited to, the following:

> posthumanism > cosmetic surgery/body modification > cognitive mapping > prosthesis > eugenics/phrenology/scientific racism > psychiatric illnesses (post-traumatic stress, OCD, etc.) > the science of sexual deviance (sexology, the �gay gene,� etc.) > medical technologies > anthropology vs. genetics > birth control and reproductive rights > the human/animal boundary > psychiatry & brain science > transgenderism, transexuality intersexuality > literary representations of science and medicine > biopower/biopolitics > postmodern warfare > nanotechnology > cybercultures > eco-feminism > disability studies > bioethics

For more information and updates, visit our conference website at: http://www.uic.edu/depts/engl/biocultures/

This conference is part of Project Biocultures, an ongoing effort dedicated to exploring new ways of thinking about the intersections between the human and the technological. More information about Project Biocultures can be found at: http://www.biocultures.org/index2.php

Please send abstracts of 250-350 words to projectbiocultures [AT] gmail.com by July 1, 2007

Biologically Inspired Robotics Network

This is a link from Myra Wilson's work. Something to follow up I think. http://biro-net.aber.ac.uk/

Human 2.0: new minds, new bodies, new identities (9 May, 2007)

After having spent part of today talking about Aimee Mullins and body modifications, this event is awfully appealing. I am in NYC the following week, but it might be just too much of a stretch...http://h20.media.mit.edu/

Human2.0: new minds, new bodies, new identities

A One-Day Symposium, 5/9/2007 at MIT

Ushering in a New Era for Human Capability

The story of civilization is the story of humans and their tools. Use of tools has changed the human mind, altered the human body, and fundamentally reshaped human identity. Now at the dawn of the 21st century, a new category of tools and machines is poised to radically change humanity at a velocity well beyond the pace of Darwinian evolution.

A science is emerging that combines a new understanding of how humans work to usher in a new generation of machines that mimic or aid human physical and mental capabilities. Some 150 million of us are over the age of 80, while 200 million of us suffer from severe cognitive, emotional, sensory, or physical disabilities. Giving all or even most of this population a quality of life beyond mere survival is both the scientific challenge of the epoch and the basis for a coming revolution over what it means to be human. To unleash this next stage in human development, our bodies will change, our minds will change, and our identities will change. The age of Human 2.0 is here.

Hosts

JOHN HOCKENBERRY award-winning journalist; distinguished Media Lab fellow

HUGH HERR NEC Career Development Professor, MIT Media Lab

keynote OLIVER SACKS

special guests MICHAEL GRAVES MICHAEL CHOROST JOHN DONOGHUE AIMEE MULLINS DOUGLAS H. SMITH

The program will focus on the Media Lab's sweeping new research initiatives for augmenting mental and physical capability to vastly improve the quality of human life. Presenters will explore how today's-and tomorrow's-advances will seamlessly interact with humans, giving us a glimpse into a future where all humans will integrate with technology to heighten our cognition, emotional acuity, perception, and physical capabilities.

The Media Lab at the Center

In a dramatic and crucially important new initiative, h2.0, the MIT Media Lab seeks to advance on all fronts to define and focus this scientific realignment. The Lab will leverage a new understanding of human cognition, emotion, perception, and movement to produce machines that better serve humanity.

Positioning itself at the center of a confluence of new science is a familiar place for the Media Lab. Understanding the adaptive impulse of humans and harnessing it for the pursuit of a new generation of machines is an endeavor as world shattering as anything the Media Lab has ever undertaken. The goal? New Minds, New Bodies, New Identities. Please Join Us