http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/ en jo.fells@artscatalyst.org Copyright 2012 2012-09-15T12:35:10+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/the_london_orbital/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/the_london_orbital/#When:12:35:10Z Following Office of Experiments' Cold War Legacy in the South - Secrecy and Technology bus tour during the Dark Places exhibition in 2010, and the Experimental Ruins workshop at UCL, OOE returns with a new critical excursion - Experimental Ruins: The London Orbital. This new OOE project will explore areas dotted around outer London - often in improbable, underground or unremarkable suburban settings – where scientific research institutions are or have in the recent past been pushing the frontiers of investigation.  The project will focus on interrogation of the private and public imagination seen through the city's debris of occupation.The fascinating history and geography of post-1945 scientific research and testing facilities and spaces created to house technological advances were often developed around the periphery of the Capital.  These uncharted parts of our post-war heritage are remarkably under-explored and face threats of redevelopment and loss, this collaboration with London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre will record outer London's Experimental Ruins.This participatory programme will encourage the research and exploration of ‘hidden’ science and technology sites and laboratories by artists, urban archaeologists and local communities to consider the history, culture, geography, landscape, architecture and flora of these sites and their buildings. OOE will soon be recruiting volunteers to take part in the The London Orbital fieldwork.  To register your interest please email lala.thorpe@artscatalyst.org we will be in touch during May to outline opportunities for participation and attendance.  There will be limited places on July's pilot project tour but we hope to offer more opportunities to take part in Experimental Ruins later in the year.Experimental Ruins is a long-term project lead by Office of Experiments' Neal White (NW) and Steve Rowell (SR), to date activities have included events in the South West - Secrecy and Technology (NW & SR), Falmouth Convention (SR) and Secrets of Portland (NW)) and the North of the UK (Newcastle and Northumberland (SR)).  Find out more at the OOE's Field Users Guide to Dark Places website - South Edition. Collaborators websites Office of Experiments Field Users Guide to Dark Places - South Edition London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre Supported by The London Orbital is supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund (logo to follow)         2012-09-15T12:35:10+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/hehe_train_project/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/hehe_train_project/#When:16:20:14Z HeHe’s mischievous guerrilla public art interventions are internationally renowned, from ‘Nuage Vert’, highlighting factory emissions with interactive laser light to 'Is there is a Horizon in the Deepwater', a miniaturised global disaster scenario satirising popular responses to ecological issues. Their ‘Toy Emissions’ video also lampooned American SUV (sports utility vehicle) culture and its critics at the same time.   HeHe (Heiko Hansen and Helen Evans) have been working on the ‘Train Project’ for a number of years, criticising the car as the only option for autonomous transport.  They propose personal rail travel as a temporary imaginary prototype taking the problem of locomotion as a starting point.  The notion of personal rail travel has been explored as an alternative to collective transportation since the 1930s, Bruno Latour for example, reflected on the failure of Aramis (Agencement en Rames Automatisées de Modules Indépendants dans les Stations), France's ambitious attempt to develop a personal rapid transit system in his book 'Aramis, or the Love of Technology'. The ‘Train Project’ has seen HeHe develop temporary autonomous vehicles in the form of performances on unused or abandoned rail tracks.  The AND Festival 2012 commission follows interventions in Istanbul – ‘Tapis Volant’, a battery-powered flying carpet, ‘H Line’ on New York’s abandoned High-Line and ‘Petite Ceinture’ on the little belt that encircles Paris. HeHe’s new vehicle celebrates the birthplace of the world’s first recognisable modern railway - the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) - which opened in 1830.   Inspired by AB Clayton's painting of the inaugural journey of the L&MR which illustrates a series of small open-topped passenger carriages on the track outside Manchester's Liverpool Road station, HeHe will run their vehicle on this historic track, now part of Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry. In a participatory project mixing past and future, HeHe will present their mobile, light-weight, electric wheel-set along with solar charging stations, platform, signs and passenger vehicle referencing the original carriages but using modern materials for AND Festival visitors and passengers.   ‘Metronome’, a ‘Train Project’ prototype will also be shown in Paris during the Futur En Seine Festival 14-24 June 2012 and will be demonstrated on the abandoned Petite Ceinture track at the Jardins de Ruisseau on 1 July.  Websites HeHe Futur en Seine festival Partnerships and Support La Région Ile-de-France Cap Digital & Futur en Seine Ars Longa HeHe Asso 2012-06-14T16:20:14+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/moon_goose_analogue_agnes_meyer_brandis/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/moon_goose_analogue_agnes_meyer_brandis/#When:12:44:48Z Agnes Meyer-Brandis’s poetic-scientific investigations weave fact, imagination, storytelling and myth, past, present and future. In Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Bird Facility, a major commission, the artist develops an ongoing narrative based on the book The Man in the Moone, written by the English bishop Francis Godwin in 1603, in which the protagonist flies to the Moon in a chariot towed by ‘moon geese’. Meyer-Brandis has actualised this concept by raising eleven moon geese from birth within her project Moon Goose Colony at Pollinaria in Italy; giving them astronauts’ names*, imprinting them on herself as goose-mother, training them to fly and taking them on expeditions and housing them in a remote Moon analogue habitat. (* Neil, Svetlana, Gonzales, Valentina, Friede, Juri, Buzz, Kaguya-Anousheh, Irena, Rakesh, Konstantin-Hermann) The remote analogue habitat simulates the conditions of the Moon and will be accessed and operated from Meyer-Brandis’s control room installation within the gallery, where instructional videos, photographs and vitrines of the geese’s egg shells and footprints will be displayed. Meyer-Brandis develops the contested history of Godwin’s original fiction – posthumously and pseudonymously published as if the genuine account of the travels of Domingo Gonsales.  She weaves a narrative that explores the observer’s understanding of the fictitious and the factual, with a nod to notions of the believably absurd. Oxford academic, William Poole [1], in his Preface to the 2009 edition of The Man in the Moone [2], explains the importance of Godwin’s work, “First, it is a work of literary sophistication.  It is narrated by a slightly implausible figure who does a number of very implausible things, not least fly to the moon and back.…its supposed time-frame further heightens readerly problems about who and what to trust in this text, and why… its finely integrated discussion of various state-of-the-art ideas about astronomy and cosmology – magnetic attraction, diurnal rotation, and the possibility of interplanetary travel and extraterrestrial life.  The dramatisation of these discussions in The Man in the Moone is at once a form of popular science and also a form of popular fiction.  This is the age-old problem of fiction – the probable impossible intermingled with the possible improbable." Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Bird Facility, 2011 links directly to Meyer-Brandis's, Moon Goose Colony, 2011, a project during her residency at Pollinaria, Italy, the site of the remote analogue habitat where the artist has raised and houses the colony of moon geese.  1 William Poole is John Galsworthy Fellow, New College, Oxford, and author of The World Makers: Scientists of the Restoration and the Search for the Origins of the Earth (2010).2 The Man in the Moone (1638) (Broadview Editions) by Francis Godwin and William Poole (Paperback - 1 Nov 2009), preface Reviews and blogs about the show The Rhizome Art Monthly (February 2012) review  Liverpool Daily Post, Moon Goose Analogye interview  BBC World Service - The Strand, Agnes Meyer-Brandis interview   Criticism Moon Goose Analogue  Partnership Commissioned with FACT and first shows in Republic of the Moon, Dec 2011-Feb 2012 at FACT, Liverpool Presented with AV Festival, Newcastle-Gateshead, 2012 Pollinaria, Italy Supported by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Artist's website Agnes Meyer-Brandis   2012-03-01T12:44:48+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/republic_of_the_moon/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/republic_of_the_moon/#When:11:38:20Z As the players in the new 21st century race for the Moon line up – the USA rejoining China, India and Russia and jostling with private corporations interested in exploiting the Moon’s resources – a group of artists are declaring a Republic of the Moon: a ‘micronation’ for alternative visions of lunar life. Republic of the Moon challenges utilitarian plans of lunar mines and military bases with artists’ imaginings and interventions. Combining beguiling fantasies, personal encounters, and playful appropriations of space habitats and scientific technologies, Republic of the Moon reclaims the Moon for artists, idealists, and dreamers. The last race to the Moon was driven by the political impulses of the Cold War, but shaped by extraordinary visions of space created by writers, film-makers, and artists, from Jules Verne, Lucien Rudaux, and Vasily Levshin, to HG Wells, Stanislav Lem and Stanley Kubrick. Can artists’ quixotic visions reconcile our romantic notions of the Moon with its colonised future, and help us to reimagine our relationship with our natural satellite in the new space age? Curated by The Arts Catalyst and FACT, Republic of the Moon includes major new commissions by Agnes Meyer-Brandis and WE COLONISED THE MOON, and works by Leonid Tishkov, Andy Gracie, Liliane Lijn and Sharon Houkema. The Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Bird Facility, Agnes Meyer-Brandis’ poetic-scientific investigations weave fact, imagination, storytelling and myth, past, present and future. In this major new work  the artist develops an ongoing narrative based on the book ‘The Man in the Moone’, written by the English bishop Francis Godwin in 1603, in which the protagonist flies to the Moon in a chariot towed by ‘moon geese’. Meyer-Brandis has actualised this concept by raising eleven moon geese from birth in Italy, giving them astronauts’ names*, imprinting them on herself as goose-mother, training them to fly and taking them on expeditions. The artist will build a remote Moon analogue habitat for the geese, which will be operated from a control room within the gallery. (* Neil, Svetlana, Gonzales, Valentina, Friede, Juri, Buzz, Kaguya-Anousheh, Irena, Rakesh, Konstantin-Hermann) Luring us onto the surface of the Moon, WE COLONISED THE MOON (Sue Corke and Hagen Betzwieser) will create an immersive audience experience, Enter At Own Risk. For this new commission, the artists will create an intimate immersive installation in the form of a laboratory-like room in which a lone astronaut tenderly gardens a group of rocks, spraying them periodically with the smell of the Moon - a scent the artists have had synthesised based on reports from the Apollo crew.  The artists question what is real and what is imagined? the nature of the fake and the authentic object, the art of showmanship and illusion through this experimental performance piece, drawing on the entertainment iconography of early astronaut training. Leonid Tishkov’s Private Moon, by contrast, brings the Moon down to us. Tishkov tells the story of a man who met the Moon and stayed with her for the rest of his life. In a series of photographs, the artist pairs images of his private moon with verse which describes how the Moon helps us to overcome our loneliness in the universe by uniting us around it. Tishkov and his illuminated moon have travelled the world for almost ten years. He has a dream to fly with her to the Moon. Transforming the everyday into the mesmerisingly beautiful, Sharon Houkema’s M3, created with characteristic simplicity with an overhead projector and a bucket of water, conjures a moon so tantalisingly close you can almost hold it. Interweaving artistic metaphor and scientific rigour, Andy Gracie‘s DIY-astrobiology experiment Drosophila Titanus attempts to select and breed an organism – a new strain of fruit fly – that might survive on Titan, a moon of Saturn. The artist recreates the environmental and atmospheric conditions found on Titan using everyday materials such as vodka, smoke alarms and a bicycle pump. The first iteration of the experiment was performed by Gracie with Kuaishen Auson, Janine Fenton and Meredith Walsh, in Laboratory Life co-commissioned by The Arts Catalyst and Lighthouse earlier this year. In Liliane Lijn’s moonmeme, the artist reveals her concept to write on the Moon from the Earth using a laser beam. The word ‘SHE' is projected onto the surface of the moon, the meaning of this word being gradually transformed as the Moon moves through its phases, the work combines territorial appropriation, the technological extension of human consciousness and mythologies. moonmeme is a symbolic union of opposites and an homage to the feminine principal of transformation and renewal. The artists in Republic of the Moon regard the lunar orb not as a resource to be exploited but as a heavenly body that belongs to us all. Who will be the first colonisers of the Moon? Perhaps it should be the artists.  Occupy the Moon To coincide with the opening of Republic of the Moon, The Arts Catalyst has commissioned Tony White to write a short fiction Occupy the Moon. Events Breakfast with the artists and curatorsFriday 16 December, 10.30-12noon, The Box, FACT, Liverpool L1 4QLArtists Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Leonid Tishkov, Liliane Lijn and Andy Gracie discuss their work with curator Rob La Frenais and FACT's Mike Stubbs. £4/£3 (FACT Members and concs) Kosmica in Liverpoool - Women in SpaceTuesday 31 January 2012, 7-10pm, The Box, FACT, Liverpool L1 4QL, Free, online booking recommended as space is limitedKosmica is a series of galactic gatherings for earth-bound artists, space engineers, performers and astronomers presented by The Arts Catalyst. It's an evening for anyone interested sharing ideas about space in original ways. This special edition of Kosmica comes to Liverpool as part of our Republic of the Moon exhibition, and is curated by artist duo WE COLONISED THE MOON and Nahum Mantra. The all-female line-up will include presentations by Hilde de Bruijn of the Moon Life Foundation and Ulrike Kubatta talking about her film 'She Should Have Gone To The Moon'. Artists' websites Agnes Meyer-BrandisWe Colonised the MoonAndy GracieLiliane LijnLeonid TishkovSharon Houkema Supported by Republic of the Moon is a touring exhibition and programme curated by The Arts Catalyst and FACT. It has been made possible with Grants for the Arts support from Arts Council England. Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Bird Facility, 2011 links directly to Meyer-Brandis's, Moon Goose Colony, 2011, a project during her residency at Pollinaria, Italy, the site of the remote analogue habitat where the artist has raised and houses the colony of moon geese. Pollinaria, Italy FACT, AV Festival 2012, Arts Council England 2011-12-15T11:38:20+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/Primate_Cinema_Apes/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/Primate_Cinema_Apes/#When:14:50:33Z In Primate Cinema: Apes as Family, the artist imagines a primate social drama in a contemporary urban context and shows this to a chimpanzee audience. Her two-screen video installation juxtaposes the drama enacted by humans in the guise of apes (of a young female city ape befriending a group of outsiders) with mesmerising footage of the reactions of its ape audience at Edinburgh Zoo. As the watchers of the watching chimps, we perceive - or we imagine - fascination, puzzlement, and flashes of anger in their responses. Sited in different spaces in Los Angeles and Edinburgh we are never sure whether we are seeing a lab, zoo, wildlife park, rumpus room or post-apocalyptic landscape inhabited by half chimp/half humans. Mayeri’s intriguing and amusing story-and-response structure contains darker undercurrents in its contemplation of the lives of our captive close relatives. To make Primate Cinema: Apes as Family artist Rachel Mayeri collaborated with comparative psychologist Dr Sarah-Jane Vick, testing different styles and genres of film to gauge chimps’ responses and discussing issues around cognition and communication in research primates.    Watch the trailer here: Rachel Mayeri is a Los Angeles-based artist working at the intersection of art and science exploring subjects ranging from the history of special effects to the human animal.  Her ‘animated documentaries’ often combine motion graphics, live action, documentary, storytelling and Hollywood-style genres.  In 2009 her Primate Cinema: Baboons as Friends (2007), a film noir re-enactment of a baboon social drama with human actors, was presented by The Arts Catalyst as part of Interspecies: artists collaborating with animals in London and Manchester.  Partnerships Primate Cinema: Apes as Family, a collaboration between Rachel Mayeri and Dr. Sarah Jane Vick, has been commissioned by The Arts Catalyst. Support Wellcome Trust Arts Award, Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies and Arts Council England. With the kind support and collaboration of Edinburgh Zoo's Budongo Trail. Websites Rachel Mayeri Edinburgh Art Festival Primate Cinema previously shown at: The Arts Catalyst, 50-54 Clerkenwell Road, London19 October-13 November 2011 Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham7 December 2011 AND Festival, TAO Gallery space, Slater Street, Liverpool29 September-2 October 2011, 11am-6pm O.K Cyberarts 11, Prix Ars Electronica1-7 September 2011 2011-09-01T14:50:33+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/data_landscapes/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/data_landscapes/#When:13:29:59Z   Data Landscapes explores the use of data and models of climate science within visual arts contexts. The  Data Landscapes exhibition features works by Tom Corby, Gavin Baily + Jonathan Mackenzie; Lise Autogena + Joshua Portway. The exhibition will be preceded by a half-day symposium on Friday 20 May, investigating the creative potential of climate data, and how multidisciplinary art-science practices can appropriate data models and disseminate them to new audiences.  Exhibition Works by Tom Corby, Gavin Baily + Jonathan Mackenzie; Lise Autogena + Joshua Portway Our modern understanding of climate arises from modeled data, gathered from multiple sources and synthesised across models of various types. ‘Data Landscapes’ presents two artworks that utilise real-time data to create poetic mappings of global systems. ‘Data Landscapes’ is organised by CREAM (The Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, University of Westminster) in partnership with The Arts Catalyst. It forms part of an AHRC funded network project which has been exploring the use of data and models of climate science within visual arts contexts. The Southern Ocean Studies by Tom Corby, Gavin Baily + Jonathan Mackenzie reveals hidden systemic complexity using climate model outputs of the Antarctic Southern Ocean. Currents circulating the central Antarctic land mass are generated in real-time and mapped against other environmental data sets. These produce flickering constellations of carbon circulation and wind direction, developing something that might be called a systems or materialist poetics. The project has been produced in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey. The project software runs in real-time generating the ocean currents encircling Antarctica, to, which are, mapped various ecological data sets. These geophysical phenomena visually mesh to produce filamented structures from data describing tidal flow, wind direction and geochemical and atmospheric flux. While it’s tempting to see the swirling forms as representative of an Antarctic wilderness, in actuality the patterning effect is as much a product of human activies as natural ecologies. The Southern Ocean is a crucial component of the Earth’s climate system as it may be responsible for absorbing 15% of the planets carbon emissions. Carbon saturation of this stretch of water caused by inaction on climate change, has had knock on effect in terms of increased heat transference throughout the planet; the intricacies of the patterning are bittersweet representing both the beauties of a complex Earth system and a political and social failure.The project has involved extensive research into how climate systems work, climate model technologies and scientific research methodologies. In doing so it has received expert advice concerning climate data and modelling from Nathan Cunningham, David Walton, Andrew Clarke and Claire Tancell from the British Antarctic survey; access to climate data sets from Bob Hallberg from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Southampton’s Oceanographic Centre and the ARGO programme. Lisa Autogena + Joshua Portway’s Most Blue Skies combines the latest in atmospheric research, environmental monitoring and sensing technologies with the romantic history of the blue sky and its fragile optimism. It addresses our changing relationship to the sky as the subject for scientific and symbolic representation. Fed by live global atmospheric data, the installation calculates the passage of light through particulate matter in the atmosphere and computes sky colours for five million places on earth, while displaying ongoing calculations and a global map of sky colours. A specially developed lighting system reproduces the colour of the current bluest sky in real time. Most Blue Skies is an ongoing project by Joshua Portway and Lise Autogena. The first editions of Most Blue Skies were shown at the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea in 2006, Copenhagen Climate Summit, 2009 and Tensta Kunsthalle, Sweden, 2010. A scaled down presentation of the project will be shown here.Most Blue Skies attempts to answer the child’s question: “Where is the bluest sky in the world?” - and it is a painstakingly laborious pursuit for an answer: Advanced realtime satellite and atmospheric sensor data is processed by custom-built software, simulating the passage of light through the atmosphere and calculating the colour of the sky at millions of places on earth. Minute by minute, as the earth rotates and weather systems change, the location of the most blue sky is displayed, along with the most accurate possible reproduction of it’s colour.  It plays with the tension between the simplicity and romance of the image of the blue sky, and the complex technology involved in measuring and representing it. It explores our changing perception of the sky space above us and the effort required to sustain a human vision of nature.Developed with support from Tom Riley, Newcastle University, Space and Atmospheric Physics at Imperial College London, The Met Office, UCL Colour and Vision Research Laboratory, The Alexandra Institute, The US National Physical Laboratory and NASA. Symposium Friday 20 May 2011, 1:30 – 6pm. Free. The Data Landscapes symposium will investigate the creative potential of climate data, and how multidisciplinary art-science practices can appropriate data models and disseminate them to new audiences. For more details click on the link opposite.Video footage is available at http://data-ecologies.ning.com/page/data-landscapes Supported by Data Landscapes is supported by the AHRC, University of Westminster and Arts Council England.   2011-05-20T13:29:59+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/specimens_and_superhumans/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/specimens_and_superhumans/#When:18:15:49Z Specimens to Superhumans is a series of events curated by The Arts Catalyst and Shape exploring contemporary issues around biomedical science, disability and ethics, and how these are explored, represented and critiqued in art. The events provide creative opportunities to show the work of and to provide mentoring, development and networking opportunities for disabled artists. The series hopes to identify and nurture artists who could participate in future programmes, with the long-term aim of commissioning a series of new artists’ projects.  The final event in the series is planned for early 2012 and will explore disability, human enhancement, prosthetics and science fiction. The three events that have take place so far have been: Labyrinth of Living Exhibits Hunterian Museum, London 12 May 2011 Labyrinth of Living Exhibits considered specimens and curiosities through infiltrating and responding to the exotic and disturbing collection of London’s Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. With Aaron Williamson, Sinéad O'Donnell, Brian Catling and Katherine Araniello.  Alternative Ways of Thinking  Cheltenham Science Festival, 10 June 2011 At a time when the media frequently feature stories about screening for or even ‘curing’ autism, presenting it as an affliction or disease, this event explored and celebrated the special qualities of the autistic mind. With Simon Baron-Cohen, Jon Adams, Gabriel Hardistry-Miller and Ben Connors. Benedict Phillips unleashed his dyslexic side in his performance piece 3D Thinking in a 2D World. "All that happened to us..." Roehampton University Dance Faculty, London, Thursday 22 September 2011 An event exploring the implications of the biomechanics of ageing for contemporary dance practice with Ann Dickie, Anna Bergström, Trevor Mathison, Professor Raymond Lee, Dr Siobhan Strike and Dr Jin Luo. Event Details Labyrinth of Living Exhibits Hunterian Museum, London 12 May 2011 Labyrinth of Living Exhibits considered specimens and curiosities through infiltrating and responding to the exotic and disturbing collection of London’s Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. The audience had the chance to explore the displays while encountering four simultaneous site-specific performances curated by Aaron Williamsion and commissioned by Shape and The Arts Catalyst to respond to the museum's permanent collection: Aaron Williamson, Sinéad O'Donnell, Brian Catling and Katherine Araniello. This was followed by a panel discussion. Artists Aaron Williamson and Katherine Araniello, were joined on the panel by Brian Hurwitz, D’Oyly Carte Professor of Medicine and the Arts at Kings College, and Sam Alberti, Director of the Hunterian Museum, for a discussion about the historical representation of disability and contemporary approaches taken by the medical community, chaired by the Richard Hollingham. Full-length panel discussion could be seen in the videos below: Alternative Ways of Thinking Cheltenham Science Festival, 10 June 2011 Exploring the Autistic Mind  At a time when the media frequently feature stories about screening for or even ‘curing’ autism, presenting it as an affliction or disease, this event explores the special qualities of the autistic mind. Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre, discusses creativity and the autistic mind with artist and geologist, Jon Adams, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, Gabriel Hardistry-Miller, a non-verbal young man with autism who, with artist Ben Connors, runs a music, performance and poetry club. Gabriel & Ben's video- How We Met can be viewed here: Benedict Phillips, 3D Thinkers in a 2D World In this humorous and thought-provoking performance, artist Benedict Phillips unleashes his dyslexic side as ‘The DIV’ highlighting and examining our presumptions about intelligence, communication and perception, unravelling the numerous misconceptions surrounding dyslexia and presenting the unusual advantages it brings. "All that happened to us..." Roehampton University Dance Faculty, London, Thursday 22 September 2011 An event exploring the implications of the biomechanics of ageing for contemporary dance practice.   While traditional dance science looks at how to enable an elite dancer to achieve perfection in both performance and aesthetics, this participative event will seek to explore what we can learn from the science of ageing about how a disabled or older dancer’s body works and what they need in order to perform to full capacity and to unlock their body’s full potential.For both older and disabled dancers, achieving elite standards may be neither possible nor what they are striving for, and this event explored the nuances between the social model of disability and the medical model of ageing, to see what common ground emerges. The collaborative event, hosted by the University, was led by choreographers Ann Dickie, Director of From Here to Maturity Dance Company and Anna Bergström, Associate Artist at Candoco Dance Company, audio and digital artist, Trevor Mathison. Drawing from expertise across Roehampton University, Professor Raymond Lee and his colleagues Dr Siobhan Strike and Dr Jin Luo from the Active Ageing Unit at Life Sciences Department also participated in the event. We are grateful for the support of Roehampton University’s Dance Faculty and for the input from Louise Portlock and Frank McDaniels from Gloucestershire Dance. Partners Shape, Hunterian Museum, Cheltenham Science Festival, Roehampton University Funders Funded by a Wellcome Trust People Award, and Arts Council England   2011-05-12T18:15:49+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/laboratory_life_exhibition/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/laboratory_life_exhibition/#When:11:42:54Z The exhibition Laboratory Life is the result of 9 days of intensive work in a collaborative open laboratory. It shows projects created by five groups of artists and scientists, led by artists Andy Gracie, Adam Zaretsky, Kira O'Reilly, Bruce Gilchrist, and Anna Dumitriu. The exhibition features DNA tattooing, an astrobiological experiment with fruitflies, a Regency dress embroidered and stained using microbiology, interpretations of synthetic biology terminology made by the public, and a garden shed for DIY tissue culture. Laboratory Life was named after Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar’s well-known book about an anthropological study of a scientific laboratory. Laboratory Life is organised by Lighthouse and The Arts Catalyst, with support from The Wellcome Trust. It was conceived by Andy Gracie, based on the Interactivos? model developed by the Media Lab Prado in Madrid and is part of Brighton Science Festival. Artworks The Quest for Drosophila Titanus Led by Andy Gracie Collaborators: Kuaishen Auson, Janine Fenton, Meredith Walsh This group of artists and scientists were engaged in an astrobiological experiment using various phenotypes of Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly). Since the early 1960s Drosophila have also played a critical role in space research and are regularly used in experiments on the International Space Station. As such they offer themselves as a perfect organism with which to conduct an experiment about how life might survive elsewhere in the solar system. Taking inspiration from diagrams obtained from NASA the group developed an apparatus with which to expose the fruit flies to various environmental conditions found on Titan. The aim being to take the first step in developing a new species which could adapt to living there. The 'best' flies from each experiment were selected to form a breeding colony which would be the ancestors of this new creature. Their exhibition of work-in-progress includes the experimental chamber, video documentation of the experiments, a printed manual which describes the experimental process, the breeding colony and the memorial to failed individuals. The Garden Shed Lab Led by Kira O'Reilly Collaborators: Valerie Furnham, Columba Quigley, Genevieve Maxwell This group created a space for exploring the relationship between biotechnologies and domestic everyday experiences, such as cooking, tinkering, composting, and gardening. They build a garden shed in their laboratory and inside worked with tissue culture - a technology now just over 100 years old. In order to practice home tissue culture, they made a sterile laminar flow hood and a tissue culture incubator. The group incubated chick embryos, opened the eggs, and attempted to create cell cultures from them, always mindful of the ethical issues of these practices. The group explored the early histories of tissue culture, re-creating an experiment first performed in 1926 by tissue-culture pioneer, Thomas Strangeways, who attempted to harvest cells from a fresh uncooked sausage. Their exhibition of work-in-progress features their garden shed lab, containing their home-made sterile hood and incubator, their laboratory equipment and photographs and video they made whilst on site. Public Misunderstanding of Science Led by Bruce Gilchrist Collaborators: Kate Genevieve, Simona Casonato, David Louwrier, Daksha Patel This group of artists and scientists spent several days testing the public’s understanding of science. Visitors to their laboratory were invited to draw and illustrate their understandings of scientific information and protocol, while listening to scientific discourse on synthetic biology. Their exhibition of work-in-progress is an animated film, which features the drawings sound-tracked with the original discourse and field recordings made on-site at a medical laboratory. Infective Textiles Led by Anna Dumitriu Collaborators: Rosie Sedgwick, Sarah Roberts, Brian Degger, Melissa Grant This group of artists, doctors and scientists worked on the development of a textile-based artwork that takes the form of a Regency style dress stained with bacterial pigments and patterned by antibiotics. Their work used ‘garage science’ methods and ‘DIY’ microbiological processes to explore the notion of infection control. During the lab they cultured microbes from the local environment including soil, buildings and other public places. They then stained silk thread with natural antibiotics – including cloves, turmeric and green tea – and used them to create embroidered patterns on fabric. Their exhibition features the Regency style dress, which has now been pasteurized so that the bacteria are no longer living, video documentation of their project, framed works (which show slides of cultured bacteria and moulds, Gram’s stain paintings embroidered with antibiotic threads and drawings made by visitors to the lab) and a table of items used in their lab.   Tattoo Traits Led by Adam Zaretsky Collaborators: Zack Denfield, Helen Bullard, Simon Hall This group of artists and doctors examined the feasibility of a new notion – “DNA Tattooing”. They explored the ethical, legal, and health issues that might be raised by such a process. Their work involved the creation of a "new media" which they have referred to as Shecan, and the extraction of hybrid DNA from this media. They then adapted a tattoo gun, with the intention of tattooing a novel sequence of hybrid DNA into the nucleus of a living cell, something which is statistically improbable, but conceptually possible. Their exhibition of work-in-progress features The Shroud of Shecan, a monoprint cloth containing the residue of their new media, Whirling Dervish Human Centrifuge, a sculptural and performative device which also contains Shecan, the adapted tattoo gun, beans which have received DNA tattoos, photographs of their work, and a release which the group adapted to manage the legal and contractual issues associated with DNA tattooing. Tour Lighthouse28 Kensington StreetBrighton BN1 4AJ, UK2-6 March 2011  Microwave FestivalHong Kong5-30 November 2011 Partners Lighthouse, Brighton Microwave Festival, Hong Kong Reviews Wired, Culture24 2011-03-02T11:42:54+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/a_field_users_guide_to_dark_places/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/a_field_users_guide_to_dark_places/#When:20:30:21Z A Field User's Guide to Dark Places - South Edition Now Online. This is an Arts Catalyst commissioned online database of sites of secrecy, science and technology in the UK by the Office of Experiments. The South Edition of the database was created and presented as part of our exhibition Dark Places, in 2009-10, curated by Office of Experiments, The Arts Catalyst, John Hansard Gallery, and SCAN. It is part of the ongoing Overt Research Project, run by Office of Experiments. to map and record advanced labs and facilities around the UK, and to involve the public in this exploration and revealment. 'A Field Guide to Dark Places' is the first of these experimental resources. It draws on and develops responses to the vast infrastructure of the techno-scientific and industrial/military complex, probing aesthetic, political and philosophical questions around spaces that are inaccessible or in some cases secret. It is focused on physical sites in the South of England (with reach of Southampton where the exhibition was shown). Participate The initial research was conducted by artists Neal White and Steve Rowell. The artists' aim now is to extend the scale of this work by opening up this resource to enthusiasts, amateur scientists and urban explorers and extending it across the UK. If you would like to take part, we ask that you attend a physical event. We run a number of events at which you can register to become an official Overt Researcher. These have most frequently included 'Critical Excursions'. In order to register here as an Overt Researcher, we ask that you attend an Overt Research Project event. For more information on these events, please use the contact form. Critical Excursions The form of a Critical Excursion is experimental and varies depending on context. Recent Critical Excursions have included an intellectual and emotional tour of physical sites by vehicle "Secrecy & Technology: Legacy of the Cold War' around Southampton, with around 50 attendees. We utilised an experimental mix of factual, historic -informational and conspiracy video / audio on board a coach whilst moving around physical sites. Exceptional highlights were entry into a former Nuclear Bunker, a drive-past of Porton-Down and lunch and lecture at ISSEE (International School of Security and Explosives Education) at the Department of Homeland Security. More information and responses to the Critical Excursion are available at the following links. New Scientist Blog - New Scientists take. Angela Last Blog - A Mutable Matter reflection. Geoforum Editorial - Theoretical Framing by Dr Gail Davies for the Scholarly Journal Geoforum. Media BLUEPRINT has published an extensive six page full colour featureon office of Experiments Dark Places project in the April 2010 Edition. Only available as a printed publication. 2010-12-13T20:30:21+00:00 http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/arctic_geopolitics_autonomy/ http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/arctic_geopolitics_autonomy/#When:18:30:27Z Arctic Geopolitics and Autonomy is edited by Dr Michael Bravo, senior lecturer at the Scott Polar Research Institute, and Nicola Triscott, director of The Arts Catalyst.  The book explores the interplay of visual culture, technology and indigenous activism in the North, and highlights the cultural, environmental and geopolitical significance of the Arctic and its indigenous people. The book features essays by Michael Bravo, Nicola Triscott, Katarina Soukup, Lassi Heininen and David Turnbull, and is richly illustrated with colour and black and white images and photographs. Arctic Geopolitics & Autonomy is the second publication of the Arctic Perspective Initiative (API), a project led by artists Marko Peljhan and Matthew Biederman, that aims to empower local citizens of the North via open and free technologies. €19.80 (approx £17.00)English2010. c. 128 pp., ca. 60 color illustrations16.5 x 24 cm softbackISBN 978-3-7757-2681-8 ORDER NOW FROM HATJE CANTZ or download pdf version from the link on the left of this screen (about 4.7MB) 2010-12-13T18:30:27+00:00