Growing Politics

As co-founder and director of SymbioticA ( www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/ ) The University of Western Australia, Oron Catts is involved in The Tissue Culture & Art Project (www.tca.uwa.edu.au/ ). Oron will speak about the politics of tissue cultured artworks also known as semi-living extended body artworks. With such challenging projects as Victimless Leather, Semi-Living Worry Dolls and Disembodied Cuisine, Oron continues to challenge conventional readings of tissue culture as well as the general culture of eating.

Matteo Pasquinelli is a writer, curator and researcher at Queen Mary University of London. In Amsterdam, together with Katrien Jacobs and the Institute of Network Cultures, he organized the Art and Politics of Netporn conference (2005) and the C’Lick Me festival (2007).

Before the discovery of DNA, chromosomes were considered containers for an obscure fermentation activity. Today biotech hobbyists have reduced 'life' to a predictable copy-and-paste of numeric codes. Matteo Pasquinelli shows how there is more know-how in the most ancient practice of fermenting ambrosia than in contemporary bioart.