LASER Talks in Hong Kong | Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University

LASER Talks in Hong Kong

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The Leonardo/ISAST LASERs are a program of international gatherings that bring artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together for informal presentations, performances and conversations with the wider public. The mission of the LASERs is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building to over 40 cities around the world.

 


 

ABSENCE, PRESENCE, BELONGING AND BECOMING: CELLS AND BODIES IN ART AND ANATOMY 
 
 
Online talks by Dr. Nina Sellars and Dr. Yun W Lam
 
When:Saturday 20th of March at 4pm (Hong Kong Time/UTC+8), 7pm (Melbourne, Australia / UTC+11). Find your timezone HERE
 
 
 
 
The inaugural LASER-HK talk in 2021, given by Dr Nina Sellars and Dr Yun Wah Lam, will be about the art and science of the body. Sellars’ talk will question the cultural and scientific implications of the relative absence of fat in the history of anatomy and the significance this has for contemporary discourses about the human, non-human, and posthuman. She will explore these ideas through a discussion of her biological artwork, Sentinels, an installation that features living human preadipocyte cells embedded in a drip-fed hydrogel kouros—its inaugural showing was for the exhibition, ‘HyperPrometheus: The Legacy of Frankenstein’, 2018, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Australia. Lam will discuss his fascination with the meaning of the “body” from the perspective of cells. Although many types of human cells can be cultured in plastic dishes in the lab, cells inside our organs are embedded in the extracellular matrix, a fabric of proteins and sugars that give each organ its unique shape and texture. The signals contained in this inanimate and messy meshwork define the identity of the cells. Lam has been working to unlock the information stored in this matrix and reconstitute these signals in the lab.

Speakers Bio's

Dr Nina Sellars is curator of exhibitions and programs at the Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Melbourne, and visiting research fellow at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, Australia. Previously, she was artist in residence at SymbioticA, the Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, 2016-2018, University of Western Australia, and research fellow at the Alternate Anatomies Lab (robotics and art research group), Curtin University, Perth, W.A., 2013-2015. Recent exhibitions of her artwork include: Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia—New Romance: Art and the Posthuman, 2016; Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts—HyperPrometheus: The Legacy of Frankenstein, 2018; Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, Canada—IOTA Bio Art Series, 2019; RSU Anatomy Museum, Riga University, Latvia—Anatomy & Beyond, 2021. Her recent authored publications include—'Fat Matters: Fluid Interventions in Anatomy’, in Fluid Matter(s): Flow and Transformation in the History of the Body, ANU Press, 2020, and 'Robert Hooke’s Micrographia: a historical guide to navigating contemporary images’, in the Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies, 2021. An online 2020 interview with Sellars can be accessed through IOTA.

Dr Yun Wah Lam is a biochemist and cell biologist. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Hong Kong, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Wellcome Trust Biocentre in Dundee, Scotland. He joined City University of Hong Kong as a faculty member in 2007, where he built a multi-disciplinary research network to tackle a myriad of biological problems, from environmental sciences to regenerative medicine. He has published over 100 scientific papers and patents, and is the current leader of the “Global Research Enrichment And Technopreneurship” programme at City University of Hong Kong. He was a scientist-in-resident at SymbioticA (Perth, Australia) in 2019 and the recipient of the CityU innovative e-learning award in 2020. He is a co-organiser of Leonardo Art and Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) and Café Scientifique in Hong Kong, and is the scientific advisor to a number of artworks, including “Magic Wands, Batons and DNA Splicers” by Wong Kit Yi (2018), “Microbial Emancipation” by Maro Pebo (2020) and “CRISPR Seed Resurrection” by Ken Rindaldo (2021).

 


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The Leonardo/ISAST LASERs are a program of international gatherings that bring artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together for informal presentations, performances and conversations with the wider public. The mission of the LASERs is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building to over 40 cities around the world. To learn more about how our LASER Hosts and to visit a LASER near you please visit our website. @lasertalks

 

When
March 20th, 2021 from  4:00 PM to  6:00 PM
Location
Online / Hong Kong,
China