Eye of the Storm
An Interdisciplinary Conference on Scientific Controversy
19 / 20 June 2009
Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1, UK
Interested in how artists are responding to today's hot
issues in science and society? Join artists, scientists and
social scientists at this conference exploring belief and
experiment, dissent and discord, big science, high finance,
geopolitics and the legislation of uncertainty around
subjects including climate change, biotechnology, genetics
and astrophysics. From esoteric arguments over the structure
of the universe to highly charged public controversies
around the use of stem cells, Eye of the Storm brings
together an extraordinary international group of artists
whose work playfully and provocatively intervenes in
science, scientists at the heart of these controversies, and
other experts to spark two days of dynamic conversations
about our changing world.
Speakers include artist Eduardo Kac, whose artworks creating
transgenic animals have generated controversy since he first
persuaded French geneticists to produce a rabbit that glows
in the dark, Sheila Jasanoff, one of the major voices in
science and technology studies who has called for a new
humility in technology, artist Rod Dickinson whose
re-enactments of scientific experiments form part of his
ongoing exploration into the mechanisms underpinning systems
of belief and social control, Oron Catts, pioneer in the use
of bioscience as a medium for artistic expression, Helen and
Newton Mayer Harrison, pioneers of environmental art, who
have worked for over thirty years with biologists,
ecologists and urban planners to to uncover ideas and
solutions to complex ecological problems, astronomer Roger
Malina who will discuss the current crisis in astronomy with
dark energy, and sociologist Harry Collins who for many
years has studied the human dynamics of controversies raging
between astronomers in the search for gravity waves.
Organised by The Arts Catalyst and Tate Britain, in
association with Leonardo/Olats
REGISTRATION
Tate Britain Auditorium
£70 (£35 concessions), booking required
Price includes drinks afterwards
Register on
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/symposia/18169.htm
or call +44 (0) 20 7887 8888.
Register online
or call +44 (0) 20 7887 8888.
PROGRAMME
Day One Friday 19 June
9:30 Registration
10:00 Conference starts
10:15 Keynote Lecture
Sheila Jasanoff, Professor of Science and Technology
Studies, Harvard University
Q&A chaired by Nicola Triscott, Director, The Arts Catalyst
11:00 – 12:15 Session 1: Trust in Numbers
Richard Hamblyn & Martin John Callanan, writer and artist in
residence, UCL
Environment Institute
Data Soliloquies: Graphical Communication in Science
Stephen Healy, senior lecturer, School of History and
Philosophy, UNSW
Scientific Controversy – Differences of ‘Fact’ or Contending
‘Forms of Life’?
Tommaso Venturini, researcher, Bologna University
Cartography of Controversies
Discussion chaired by Rob La Frenais, Curator, The Arts Catalyst
12:15 Artists’ Presentation
Helen and Newton Mayer Harrison, artists
The Force Majeure
Q&A chaired by Rob La Frenais, Curator, The Arts Catalyst
12:45 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:00 – Session 2: Testing to Destruction
Rod Dickinson, artist and senior lecturer, University of the
West of England
Michael Bravo, senior lecturer, Scott Polar Research
Institute, University of Cambridge
How Experiments are Remembered
15:00 – 15:30 Tea
15:30 – 17:30 Session 3: The Genetic Paradigm
15:30 – 16:15 Keynote Lecture
Eduardo Kac, artist
Telepresence and Bio Art
16:15 – 17:30
Sylvia Nagl, Head of Cancer Systems Science and Informatics, UCL
Our Virtual Genome
Trish Adams, artist in residence, Visual and Sensory
Neuroscience Group, University of Queensland
Pluripotent Adult Stem Cells: an artist grows her own...
17:00 Discussion chaired by Oron Catts, artist and Director
of SymbioticA, University of Western Australia
17:30 END
18.30 – 20:00 Reception
Day Two Saturday 20 June
10:00 – 10:10 Conference starts
10:10 – 11:30 Session 4: An Unsteady Universe
Keynote Lecture
Roger Malina, astrophysicist, Director of L’Observatoire
Astronomique de Marseille
Dark Energy and the Ethics of Curiosity
Keynote Lecture
Harry Collins, Professor of Sociology, Cardiff University
Getting into Gravitational Waves: `Elective Modernism' and
the Two Cultures
Discussion
11:30 – 13:00 Session 5: Species and Power
Meredith Tromble, Associate Professor, San Francisco Art
Institute
Models or Agents? Animals, Women, and the Culture of Science
Revital Cohen, designer
Natural Kingdoms and the Postbiological World
Oron Catts, Director, SymbioticA, The Centre of Excellence
in Biological Arts,
School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western
Australia
The Salamander and the Slime Mould - Mixing the Regenerative
Bodies
Adam Zaretsky, artist
Does Cloned Animal Safety take into account the effect of
Aesthetics on the long-term Ecological effects of Food Chain
Design?
Discussion chaired by Rob La Frenais, Curator, The Arts Catalyst
13:00 - 14.00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:00 Session 6: Decoding the Body
Ania Dabrowska, artist, & Bronwyn Parry, cultural
geographer, Queen Mary, University of London
Mind over Matter: Rehabilitating Bodily Donation in the wake
of 'Alder Hey
Kira O’Reilly, artist, & Janet Smith, developmental
geneticist, University of Birmingham
[Scientific] objectivity: can convergences and divergences
of ideas between the ‘artist’ and ‘scientist’ point of view
engender a truth that is ‘more real’?
Norman Cherry, Professor of Art, Architecture & Design,
University of Lincoln
Grow Your Own – Angiogenetic Body Adornment
Discussion chaired by Bernadette Buckley, Programme
convenor, MA Art & Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London
15.00 - 15.30 – Tea
15:30 – 17:30 Session 7: The Geopolitics of Science
Alana Jelinek, artist and curator
BLACCXN Science
Steven Rose, neurobiologist, Emeritus Professor Department
of Life Sciences, The Open University
Who Controls our Minds? Neuroscience and the Surveillance
Society
Paul Dorfman, senior research fellow, University of Warwick,
spokesman, UK Nuclear Consultation Group
Russian Dolls, Chinese Whispers and Nuclear Song-Lines
Helen Evans, artist, Hehe
Incineration – Smoke without Fire, Fire without Smoke
Discussion
17:30 END
Selection Committee
Chair: Nicola Triscott, Director, The Arts Catalyst
Michael Bravo, Senior Lecturer, Scott Polar Research
Institute, University of Cambridge
Bernadette Buckley, Programme Convenor, MA Art & Politics,
Goldsmiths, University of London
Sian Ede, Director of Arts, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Madeleine Keep, Education Department, Tate Britain
Rob La Frenais, Curator, The Arts Catalyst
Roger Malina, Chairman Emeritus, Leonardo, Director of Research, CNRS
Updated 9 September 2009
