Monthly Archives: July 2013
Brains: The Mind as Matter_Wellcome Collection_MOSI
This exhibition asks not what brains do for us, but what we have done to brains in the name of medical intervention, scientific enquiry, cultural meaning and technological change. On display for the first time outside London, Wellcome Collection’s hugely popular exhibition comes to Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), featuring previously unseen objects and artworks which explore Manchester’s contribution to understanding the brain. Open daily until 4th Jan 2014. More info, here and here! 
An Anatomical Demonstration_Wellcome Collection
Medical research and resurrection men..
Would you mind being dug up in the spirit of anatomical discovery?
Muriel Bailly looks into the history of the ‘tradition’ with another object of the month from our collections.
Read the blog post of Wellcome Collection (posted by Danny Birchall) here
This 18th-century wood and ivory anatomical model takes its inspiration from a 16th-century painting you may be familiar with:
The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt.
Weird Science: Biotechnology as Art Form_by Carolina A. Miranda
Tissue cultures, genetic modification, bacterial colonies. Over the last decade, more and more artists have been giving up
the studio in favor of the laboratory.
In the spring of 2008, curator Paola Antonelli at the Museum of Modern Art in New York was forced to kill a work of art. A thumb-size “jacket” cultivated from mouse tissue that lived inside a sterile glass ball, Victimless Leather was not your typical museum piece. The cells were very much alive—and they were multiplying. So rapidly, in fact, that five weeks into the exhibition, they were threatening to clog the incubation system that kept them alive. Antonelli would have to cut off the nutrient supply. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. “There was no way I was going to switch it off,” she recalls. “I can’t even kill a mosquito.”
Victimless Leather—A Prototype of Stitch-less Jacket grown in a Technoscientific “Body,”
created by Tissue Culture & Art Project
(Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr), 2004.
Read the whole article here
“The Institute of Unnecessary Research” brings together art, science and philosophy_Director: Anna Dumitriu
Einstein said: “If we knew what it was we were doing it wouldn’t be called research, would it?” “The Institute of Unnecessary Research” presents a new paradigm in the way artists are engaging with the world through transdisciplinary practice and connective aesthetics. Bringing together art, science and philosophy by creating participatory audience experiences, performances and installations. Sometimes humorous and sometimes grotesque, their work pushes the boundaries and critically questions the means of knowledge production in the 21st Century. Artists are innovators, if a new piece of technology or a new medium, becomes available; artists want to try it, to experiment with it- from microbiology to robotics; from tissue culture to neuroscience. Some artists take on the role of a scientist in almost a performative way and some scientists become artists themselves. Philosophy and ethics is always at its core and the work unpacks the instrumentalization of science for commercial and political ends. Forms of “connective aesthetics” are used to engage the audience in a participatory experience that extends and generates new outcomes throughout the exhibition and go beyond simple interactivity, throwing authorship into question, as members of the audience are inspired to become Unnecessary Researchers in their own rights. The IUR is a hub for researchers and artists working experimentally and deeply engaged with their specific research areas. We present our research through performative and experiential methods, engaging the public and new audiences in our ideas. We organise performance events (many of which can be seen here) in art galleries and other non-traditional settings (including: universities, businesses and festivals) to engage the public in our research and meta-research. We also create participatory workshops, where participants become the researchers and learn about our work experientially. We are specialists in our specific research fields and deeply committed to making our work accessible. We offer exhibitions (curated around specific themes in our research), talks and organise symposia and are able to suggest speakers for events. To organise a special IUR event, get involved with our work, be kept informed about events or for permission to use images please contact us. For more information contact Anna Dumitriu, Founder and Director of the Institute of the Unnecessary Research at: [email protected]
Also check Anna’s Dumitriu work at MEDinART here
