Bioteknica - posthuman art

In Nov 2003, I met Jennnifer Willet and Shaun Bailey at a conference in Glasgow School of ART. The Conference was called 'The State of the Real' and was chaired by my good friend Dr Damian Sutton. It included a couple of excellent keynotes, one from Slavoj Zizek and another from Linda Nochlin. Jennifer, Shawn and I were in a symposium along with Anne-Sophie Lehman (Netherlands).

I was intrigued by their work on Biotecknica, particularly since they talked about how they had had a lot of comments from people who identified their art project as a real scientific organisation. This begs a question about what people really expect from science and how much can be taken for granted by non-experts. It also made me think about what might be characterised as posthuman art - less the content and expectations one has of the exhibit, and more to do with the conflation of fictional and non-fictional spaces.

The website for biotecknica is here

Superhumans, mutants and monsters

Superhumans, Mutants and Monsters: Gene Doping, Bioethics and the Posthuman GameUniversity of Toronto, Canada.

I just got back from UoT, where i gave a presentation on this topic. I wanted to talk a bit about how posthumanism is evolving as a body of literature and how it relates to competing ideas on transhumanism and cyborgology.

It always suprises me (pleasantly) at how different people approach this subject. The cover of GMA has written the content for many of my talks on this subject. This week conversations got into the subject of 'feline' modifications and the possible colonial interpretations of enhancement. For example, could we think about the discourse of posthumanism as similar to how people of certain races might have been characterised as savage or other. Alternatively, does the morphed human with cheetah tell us anything about the gendered nature of enhancement? What kind of animal would we like to look more like and what does thi reveal about our values and assumptions about beauty?

Interesting lines i think. If you would like to view the presentation click here (microsoft powerpoint needed, best on Mac OSX and office 2004)

Congress in Progress

What is most noticeable about the Pre-Olympic this year is the presence of social science and humanities research. There are a lot of papers discussing the law and philosophy of sport, which were not quite so present in Brisbane 2000. However, Brisbane was an important stage towards this presence and the role of John Nauright in 2000, who was able to put a lot of social science on the programme, was greatly appreciated. It is encouraging that some of the sport science congresses are now opening up to the less hard sciences. The ECSS meeting is also a good indication of this and its numbers are also quite staggering – around 1800 in 2003. In the evenings we have the chance to explore a bit of the city. Thessaloniki has great food to offer, very different from the excessive touristy bias that tends to predominate in Athens most popular spots (there is not really a Plaka here, but rather plenty of little squares full of local unpretentious flavour).

Pre-Olympic Congress in Thessaloniki

The International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE) Pre-Olympic congress is the largest Sport-related congress on the calendar. This year it is taking place in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece at the border with Macedonia. We have a very nice train ride from Athens with views of the changing Greek landscape, including mount Olympus and the sacred hills of Meteora.

We get a nice first impression of Thessaloniki, one of four Olympic cities around Greece hosting the football tournament. The city is full of Olympic banners, but has a very different feel to Athens. The air is cooler, the buildings have a marked Turkish and Macedonian influence and there is not the chaos of Olympic preparations that pervade in the capital. The trip from the train station to the hotel is very straight forward. Upon arrival we met one of the Congress delegates in the station and both proceed to ask for information from the unaffiliated info stand. Hotel very pleasant, even a small glimpse of the ocean and not too far from the Congress venue.

The congress opening ceremony is around 6pm and includes MANY welcomes from officials, including Patrick Schamash, the IOC representative for Jacque Rogge and high priests from the Greek Orthodox Church coming from Olympia, the birth place of the Ancient Olympic Games. The long and elaborated ceremony offers a first glimpse at Greek protocols which are going to be continued at length throughout the Olympic fortnight all around the country. The evening ends with a range of cultural presentations and – finally! – some nice Greek food.

Gene technology in elite sports, Sweden

International Conference on Gene Technology in Elite Sports,22/23 May, 2003 University of Sports at Stockholm,

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Gothenburg organises an international conference on gene technology in Elite Sports, in collaboration with the University of Sports at Stockholm, and the Center for Sport Studies in Gothenburg. The conference is supported by the Swedish Council of Medicine, section for Medicine.

The following persons have already confirmed their participation: Ruth Chadwick, Julian Savulescu, Torbjörn Tännsjö, Christian Munthe, Sigmund Loland (Norwegian University of Sports), Arne Ljungqvist (Wada and IOC), Bengt Saltin, Lincoln Alison.

For information about the conference, please contact Claudio Tamburrini