Speaker: Marta De Menezes
“Exploring Possibilities That Modern Biology Offers to Artists”
“Identity Issue: Where do we come from? What Are We? Where Are We Going?”
“As we gaze into the mirror [nature] holds up for us, we too easily imagine that what we behold is Nature when in fact we see the reflection of our own unexamined longings and desires.”
William Cronon
Marta de Menezes’ work explores the possibilities modern biology offers to artists. She has been developing, for the last 20 years, the use of biology and biotechnology as new art media, conducting her practice in research laboratories that also are her art studios. She has been trying to not only portray the recent advances of biological sciences, but to incorporate biological material into her art as a way to convey a discourse that is not possible with any other medium: using DNA, proteins, cells and bodies offers an opportunity to explore novel ways of representation and communication. In the artistic research and practice that Marta de Menezes has been developing, she experiments with living and pulsing material, changing that material to express concepts within the realm of art and philosophy. Through her art works she positions herself and the audience in a range of perspectives that allow different understanding of self through other, through nature and our alternative selves.
Besides the works by de Menezes like first seminal bioart project entitled “Nature?” (1998) that questions the definition of nature through a non-genetic manipulation of live butterfly wing patterns, and her most recent projects that use the technology of CRISPR-cas9 to reengage with questions of identity as a species, as animals, as composites, and multiples – and how we understand these concepts in relation to our future, Marta will give a brief introduction to the field of bioart and the different strategies of engagement of the artists with the research in the biological sciences.
The event is free of charge.