Seeking Perfection

On Tuesday 26th, I gave an opening address to the Seeking Perfection event hosted by #msf2010 and co-funded by Wellcome and Nowgen. The evening was spent hearing from speakers about ways of altering humanity, along with a performance piece from young people, dramatizing the possible future where human enhancement is part of our culture in a more significant way. Here are some photographs from the event, along with my slides.

[slideshare id=5609909&doc=miah2010manscifest-101029104522-phpapp01 600 400]

Abandon Normal Devices 2010

From 1-7 October, I'll be working on the #ANDfest programme in Manchester, chairing a series of Salons, the #media2012. Take a peek at the AND festival programme here

Here's where you can definitely find me during the festival....

Oct 2 -The Science of Ambiguity Sat 02 Oct 12:00 – 14:00 (International Anthony Burgess Foundation) In recent years, trust in science has come under scrutiny through controversies surrounding climate change, stem cell research and environmental disasters. Is the loss of public trust in science symptomatic of a broader collapse in belief across society? As the long term implications of new technology become harder to fathom, trust becomes increasingly necessary. This Salon focuses on systems of ambiguous truths and strategies of resistance, where scepticism and cynicism become normal expectations and 24-hour news and political spin shape public opinion.

Oct 4 - #media2012 Cornerhouse, Mon 04 Oct 10:00 – 17:00 and screening This is first public presentation of the Media Blueprint for London 2012, an independent proposal, written by Professor Andy Miah, to create a UK wide Underground Media Zone during the London 2012 Games. Drawing citizen journalists and official Olympic media from the Olympic Games of Beijing, Vancouver, London, Sochi and Rio. Together with expertise in new and social media from around the UK, discussions will focus on opportunities, strategy and vision, to create a new media legacy for the Games and engage UK networks to discuss prospects within the context of an increasingly Digital Britain. This network will not focus on sport, instead, it will tell the cultural legacy of citizens engaged by London 2012, from the regions and the nations. Speakers will include London 2012 Creative Programmers, Debbi Lander and Richard Crowe, social media experts Kris Krug, Alexander Zolotarev, and Josi Paz, and London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Director Ruth Mackenzie. The event will focus attention on strategy and collaboration, building a mainline media network from North to South in the UK. This full day will include an unconference style presentation format for interested parties to present. To register, email hello@andfestival.org.uk

Oct 5 - Identity Shopping Tue 05 Oct 12:00 – 14:00 (International Anthony Burgess Foundation) Identity transplants and biometric chips are extending our identities beyond traditional forms of data surveillance. As they are gradually being woven into our biology how does this affect our behaviour in the real world? Has our obsession with human identity become more important, as we define our uniqueness via biological modifications and digital avatars? World leading bioethicist Professor John Harris debates how identity is mutating on an evolutionary scale and artist Heath Bunting introduces his ambitious project to create a new identity, lawfully creating ‘off-the-shelf’ persons for sale, building a bridge between the biological and the digital.

Oct 6 - It's Sapiens to Be Homo International Anthony Burgess Foundation, 3 Cambridge Street, Manchester, M1 5 B12:00 - 14:00 How are gender and sexuality inscribed by social and cultural norms? How has taboo changed for the booming net-porn generation and what role does digital fantasy now have in subcultures of role reversal and experimentation? From heady bloggers to drag queens, the fetishisation of code - be that digital or fashion - has entered the mainstream, or has it? Join us for a debate about how gender queerness has become a commercial device and how this may lead to its standardization and banalization.  In this salon we will be joined by Trixxie Carr, San Francisco's finest female faux-queen and outspoken voice for free speech, avant-art, drag theatre and human rights.

Oct 6 - Tactical Biodesign: Design for Debate Design For Debate CUBE, Wed 06 Oct 14:30 – 17:00 / FREE The devices and propositions in Designed Disorder aspire to create debate around scientific developments in nano and biotechnology. This debate will highlight speculative design processes whilst also challenging its role in an information society. Do art and design perform different functions in an economy of new ideas and does this line blur in the context of biological artifacts? With Professor Anthony Dunne, Head of Design Interactions Department at the RCA and designers James Gilpin, Nelly Ben Hayoun.

Oct 7 - Ideology Redux Thu 07 Oct 12:00 – 14:00 (International Anthony Burgess Foundation) From Slavoj Zizek to Michael Hardt, contemporary philosophers are calling for a renewed interest in the relevance of communism. We ask what it means to revisit socialism for a new generation who live in environmentally and economically unpredictable times. Have strong convictions been cast out of modern, democratic and political life? What are the new systems of thought for the digital generation? And how do we re-imagine art and politics against the fashionable communism of capital?

Nanoscaled

Thanks to Cat Kramer, Zoe Papadopolous and Dr Anthony Mark Cutter for their participation in the Nanoscaled Salon at #ANDfest last month. fun times gassing about nano icecream (pictured above).

Celebrity Culture

In September 2005, UWS held the 'Celebrity Culture' conference, which brought around 100 speakers to Ayr, Scotland's Riviera (according to Trip Adviser). This March, Dr Philip Drake and I have co-edited a section of Cultural Politics (BERG),  publishing a handful of those papers. You can find more here, but below is the running order. Thanks to all authors for hanging in there with us.

The Cultural Politics of Celebrity

Philip Drake and Andy Miah consider celebrity as a ubiquitous aspect of contemporary culture, mass media, and the Internet that is inextricably linked to developments in media systems that operate within capitalist systems of commodity exchange.

News, Celebrity and Vortextuality: A Study of the Media Coverage of the Michael Jackson Verdict

Gary Whannel examines the transformation of news as a cultural commodity and a social process by the expansion in the range, volume, and circulation speed of media production or what Whannel conceptualizes as 'Vortextuality' with reference to the coverage of the verdict announcement in the trial of Michael Jackson.

Unsolicited Submission

American artist David Levine’s project about unsolicited wannabe celebrity submissions to talent and other cultural agencies is a multidisciplinary and multiyear project of gathering, analysing, and archiving such unsolicited submissions in every field of cultural endeavour.

The 'Public Inquisitor' as Media Celebrity

Michael Higgins looks at the development and utility of celebrity among high-profile political interviewers, offering the revised description of 'public inquisitor' to describe the rise of the political interviewer as a celebrity form.

'As Seen on TV': The Celebrity Expert: How Taste is shaped by Lifestyle Media

Helen Powell and Sylvie Prasad examine how television, print, and advertising contribute to the construction of media stars such as Jamie Oliver whose function is to transfer knowledge of particular lifestyles to the lived experience of ordinary people.

Sport and Society

My talk at the British Library's launch of their Olympic archive discusses aspects of the Games that remain obscured from the awareness of most audiences. [slideshare id=3900823&doc=miah2010untoldolympicbl-100429063351-phpapp02]

Tuesday 20 April 2010, 2.00 – 5.00pm, followed by a reception till 18.30 Meeting Room 4, British Library Conference centre.

Speakers Professor Andy Miah University of the West of Scotland Cathy Smith The National Archives Dr Kevin Hylton Leeds Metropolitan University

Join us to celebrate the launch of the British Library’s new website, which showcases the Library’s sports-related collections, and looks at the phenomenon of the Olympic Games – and London 2012 in particular –through the lens  of social science. The website has been created  by a team led by Gill Ridgley in Social Science  Collections and Research.

Our speakers will talk about aspects of their  Olympic Games-related research. We will  also discuss the issues surrounding the capture  and archiving of London 2012 publications and documents for current and future generations of social scientists. A panel discussion will round off the event, followed by a drinks reception, where you can meet fellow academics and London 2012 stakeholders.

RSVP social-science-events@bl.uk www.bl.uk

Directions

Tube and Rail King’s Cross/St Pancras International Buses 10, 30, 59, 73, 91, 205, 390, 476

How to find us The British Library 96 Euston road London NW1 2DB

Posthuman Lifestyles

Thanks so much to everyone who came to my inaugural lecture last night, especially those who travelled far and wide. It was great to see you and spend time with you. Here's the prezi file for those who couldn't make it (please be patient, it's a big file!). [prezi width="600" height="400"]http://prezi.com/wdwqljdsb0sy/view/[/prezi]

Ethical Design

This is the title of a talk I'll give for: ‘Pervasive or Invasive?’ hosted by the UWE Digital Cultures Research Centre at the Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol on Friday, March 5th 2010.

The day is designed to bring cutting edge research to the Pervasive Media design community under the auspices of an AHRC Knowledge Transfer Fellowship project.

Pervasive Media may afford an intensification of surveillance, data mining, and loss of privacy, and this is certainly the perception amongst many potential designers and users. 'Pervasive or Invasive?' is designed as a day of presentations and discussions with people from different disciplines, to generate shared understandings of the issues, and then start to define what Ethical Design in Pervasive Media might be. The day will have workshop discussion opportunities - working with developers and designers to generate the beginnings of a set of ethical design principles for Pervasive Media applications.

• What data is being collected/collated and commercially exploited by the applications we use?
• When does anonymity matter?
• Is it possible to design an application so that people are able to choose which information they share?
• What levels of user consent are needed?
• Which design decisions can be left to the end user?

[slideshare id=3344129&doc=miah2010ethicaldesign-100305082822-phpapp01]

Fresh Media Olympics

Speaking today at the Fresh Media Olympics Conference in Vancouver. Starting at 1pm at W2 Media + Culture House.

SCHEDULE Monday, Feb 22 W2 Culture + Media House • 112 W Hastings

12:00pm - Registration and hot soup lunch 1:00pm - Keynote by Andy Miah followed by plenary dialogue 3:00pm - Salt Spring Coffee Co and desserts 3:15pm - Break-out workshops: Workshop 1: Harnessing the Media to Activate Citizens Workshop 2: Bejing to London 5:00pm - Wine & hors d'ouevres reception

Join Fresh Media and W2 at the W2 Culture + Media House on Monday for this afternoon of intellectual dialogue on the impact social media has had on the stories surrounding the Olympic games. The Winter Olympics and Paralympics are expected to draw 3 billion television and 70 million website viewers worldwide and will generate more wireless and social media-based content than any previous Olympics.

With this explosion of citizen-generated media tools in the hands of Olympic fans and foes, as well as pervasive reporting by new media journalists and bloggers, will social media have its journalistic coming-out party this February?

The conference features a keynote from Andy Miah, author of ‘Genetically Modified Athletes’ (2004) and ‘A Digital Olympics: Digital Games, Ethics & Cultures’ (The MIT Press, 2010), and panels with senior journalists and industry watchers from the USA, UK, Canada, and elsewhere. An afternoon unconference program provides open space for participant led-workshops with an added emphasis on practice and a summary of the first Olympic week. The conference also brings people face-to-face for networking and sharing tips on theory, practice, legal and operations. W2 will webstream to reach viewers outside Vancouver. The day wraps with a Cinq à Sept reception and open for everyone!

This event is produced by W2 with assistance from the Fresh Media Crew - more at: http://freshmedia.me

We are the Media

Tomorrow's presentation for the British Academy visit to my uni has inspired me to re-articulate my Olympic research on media activism. I'll cover a range of the salient points of the last 10 years of research, from Olympic disruption to full blown 'ambush media'. Everything I've discovered convince me  that the more powerful dimensions of media change are all about the opening up of traditional media to citizen reporting, but the trick is to ensure that a) the core professional dimensions of journalism are not lost and b) that the economic foundation of investigative journalism can be maintained. At present, we're not thinking enough about either and, while I'm fully behind the rise of online journalism - see recent on Huffington Post online surpassing Washington post online - we do need people to dedicate their whole careers to this work. Either we need to find a way to accelerate that process or better support the really great journalist we have among us: and there are many. So, this title 'We are the media', is one I've used before, but the 'we' here takes further account of the fact that our professional journalists are also part of our collective. So, here are the slides from the talk tomorrow. Enjoy. Comments appreciated! What can we do better in London for 2012?

[slideshare id=2644724&doc=miah2009wearethemedia-091203154944-phpapp01]

AMPLIFIED Leicester

I'll be speaking here next week on: Mashing-Up Computing & Biology: From Digital Bodies to Enhanced Humans "This presentation discusses the emerging era of human enhancement as an interface between cultures of computing and biology. It argues how the future of humanity will depend largely on its ability to accumulate biocultural capital, while faced with the environmental imperative to ensure sustainable adaptation."

DaDaFest

Speaking today at DaDaFest09 for a panel titled 'Art with an edge' with Debbi Lander, Tom Shakespeare and others.

Some notes from the day:

DaDaFest 2009-11-28

Alexa Wright, artist

Photography of people with acquired disabilities

Sky tv wer recording magnolia prize in 1998 - when they discovered I had won, they did not want to show the work

“Ok to show physical difference in a scientific context, but when it is in an artist context, it was somehow unacceptable”

“image of me the author of the work who incorporates the otherness that these bodies represent”

“inclination to desexualize people with physical disabilities”

Skin (2001) - research at hospital - medical photographs - not just documenting skin conditions, but beautiful photographs - led to a photo and  text work - skin as acceptable, social surface - interface between me and rest of the world - what happens when surface is not ‘polite’ - invu 10-12 people, photographed 5 - digital snap shots - fabrics to complement - re-appropriating medical photographs and inserting into different contexts - trying to make beautiful.

Noella - psorasis -

June -

Cover Story (2006) - installation  - work about the face - what it would be like to live without a legible or viable face - identity invested in the face - originally used in Norwich for UK Science week (2006) - needed to be accessible and function in public space - visual cue: a blob that slowly becomes a face - try to read the face: its age, gender, race, etc - to assign character in history - second video: taking fragments from people speaking about their faces and bring together, narrated by someone who has no unusual face

Q&A

Nazis used photography to identify profiles and types

The re-imaging of disability: Different art, different audiences, different artists

Tom Shakespeare

Disability is at heart of human condition

Happy for non-disabled artists to make work about disability

Instead of ‘disability’ use ‘predicament’

Traditional: art with disabled people

Representationa: art about disabled people

Radical: disability art by disabled people for disabled people

Individual: artis who happens to have a disability

Existential: art as a tool for thinking about disability, by anyone for anyone

John Keats - ‘negative capability’

Cathy Come Home - Ken Loach - homelessness - led to ‘shelter’ - art can bring home an issue in a way that academic may not

What do disabled people need? -understanding of shared humanity - recognition of social barriers - acceptance

Mona Hatoum (1998) Untitled (wheelchair) - clinical medical wheelchair - cannot self propel - uncomfortable - push handles are carving knives - disability, anger, relationships between carer and cared for - tool for thinking - title: does not prescribe

Julian Germain - bioethics, genetics - family photographs - generations - resemblance - single sex - all wearing same shirts - heredity write large - can see how genes determine them - personality

Christine Borland (2001) Progressive Disorder - drawings of young boy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy - boy getting to his feet - from 19th C doctor -

Aidan shingler - www.oneinahundred.co.uk - Rorschach blocks - one is a butterfly - 1 in 100 experience schizophrenia - butterfly reflects the joy of the condition - psychiatrist often wear bow tie - ‘The Butterfly Collector  - commentary on psychiatry -

Elio Caccavalle - MyBio, Utility Pets - use art to think of futures - interested in genetically modified animals - xenotransplantation - how develop products to help negotiate bioethical challenges -

Tom Shakespeare, The Wrong Birth (after Fuseli), 2007 - original has a horse - in original, was a goblin - mistaken idea that night mare meant horse in your dream - concern that was about the fear of having a disabled child - in terms of prenatal diagnosis - every pregnancy is tested - now more aware of possibility of having a disabled child - whatever she chooses, have to take responsibility - didn't want to comment on it - just wanted to realize it - I didn't actually sit on her chest, we photoshopped it - image 1.5m wide - photography by Keith Patterson - Jack Lowe did photoshop -

Tom Shakespeare, The Good Death (after Mantegna), 2008 - dead Christ - limited tonal range - Christ laying on slab - early years of perspective - radically foreshortened -so much so that the man could have restricted growth

Tom Shakespeare, Figure with Meat (after Bacon), 2009 - from Velazquez pope on throne - most interesting part of picture is the meat - hard to access - meat markeing board sent these images.

Benefits of this work - explores, depends, challenges, interpret science for wider audiences - bring disability to mainstream - reveal emotional and relational - questions about ethics and responsibility, difference and identity - complex, nuances, simultaneous: show not tell

Not keen on notion of disability art

Reveal emotional and relational

Glenway Westcott comment on Walker Evans (1938): for me this is better propaganda than it would be if it were not aesthetically enjoyable. It is because I enjoy looking that I go on looking, until the pity and the shame are impressed upon me, unforgettably.

Cambridge University

Today, I was in Cambridge at Corpus Christi for a debate about human enhancement and sport. Within the line up were Dr Alun Williams, Dr Thomas Petersen and world record breaking Paralympian gold medal winner Clare Cunningham, chaired by Michele Verroken

It was part of their 'Triple Helix' seminar series. Here was their brief:

"Hormones, vitamins, stimulants and depressives are oils upon the creaky machinery of life.  Principal item, however, is the machinery."  Martin H. Fischer

Sport is about pushing the human body as far as is physically possible. But what about scientific advancements that can surpass these limitations? The expanding spheres of molecular biology and materials science give more possibilities to extend human strength and endurance. To confuse issues further, there are a whole host of legal supplements that can enhance performance, and technology is improving sports equipment not just humans.

In the second of two debates examining human enhancement, join our panel of experts to discuss the impact science is having and will have on sport:

Edinburgh Biomedical Ethics Film Festival

I'll be part of 2 panels on Eugenics, the first movie is GATTACA. Here's the full programme"

Eugenics: Science Fiction or Future Reality?

Biomedical Ethics Film Festival on the topic of Eugenics 20-22 November 2009 – Edinburgh Filmhouse - 88 Lothian Road, Edinburgh EH3 9BZ Box Office Tel: 0131 228 2688

Should society create the perfect human race? Is this already happening? Why should parents not seek to have the perfect child? These are some of the questions which will be asked in a three-day biomedical ethics film festival taking place in Edinburgh between the 20th – 22nd of November 2009. At the end of each film, a discussion will be taking place with a panel of 3-4 invited experts in bioethics, science, law, medicine and politics who will support, but not take over, a debate lasting 30-45 min with the general public attending the film.

Friday the 20th of November 2009 – 17.45 hrs

Homo Sapiens 1900 - Swedish Documentary in English Directed by Peter Cohen (1998) - 88 min

This documentary reflects the birth and rise of the eugenics movement in the early 20th century. At this time, it was generally accepted in a number of countries including Germany and Russia to justify ‘weeding out’ those individuals who were considered as an undesirable burden to society. Saturday the 21st of November 2009 – 13.00 hrs

My Sister’s Keeper - Drama, USA (2009) - 109 min

Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian Fitzgerald (Jason Patric) have just been informed that their young daughter Kate will die of leukaemia. Because of this, the doctor suggests that the parents try an unorthodox medical procedure to create a new child in a test-tube who would be a perfect match, as a cell and tissue donor, for Kate. However, at age 11, and when this new child is asked to also give a kidney to her older sister, she decides to sue her parents for the right to decide how her body will be used.

Sunday the 22nd of November 2009 - 13.00 hrs

Gattaca - Drama, USA, Director: Andrew Niccol (1997) - 112 min

In a future society, the wealthy can choose the genetic makeup of their children and people are designed to fit into whatever role is decided before birth. But one of the natural non-improved young men, Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), who has several serious defects, develops a different outlook on life with his pre-ordained fate.

Sunday the 22nd of November 2009 - 15.45 hrs (Three short films)

Eugenic Questions – Documentary Directed by Angel-benito Garcia-Anta (2009) - 15 min.

What are some of the questions being asked by members of the general public in Scotland about eugenics? This short documentary, made specially for the film festival, will seek to understand some of the issues raised.

Who's afraid of designer babies? - BBC Horizon Documentary (2005) – 50 min

What is a 'designer baby' and can we really make one today? This edition of Horizon aims to cut through the hype and distortions to get to the truth. The film looks at three techniques often linked to alarmist headlines about designer babies: preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), gene therapy and cloning. The documentary asks if any of these technologies will really give us the ability to hand-pick the genes of our children.

The Gift - BBC adaptation of the play of the same name (1995) - 38 min

Ryan is a carrier for a genetic condition that will kill his big sister. When he grows up to become a geneticist, he finds that both he and his wife are at risk of having a child with a severe genetic disorder. Thus, they decide to choose which embryo will develop into their child. However, when Ryan selects an embryo free from the debilitating gene, he also secretly opts for a child with special athletic abilities. Once discovered, Ryan’s actions prompt conflict and anger.

The film festival is organised in partnership with: (1) the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics,

(2) the Edinburgh Filmhouse (venue for the event), (3) the Edinburgh and South-East Scotland Branch of the British Science Association and (4) the ESRC Genomics Forum at