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June 2004 Meeting

Speaker 1:

Shawn Bailey & Jennifer Willet

BIOTEKNICA | ABSTRACT - ENGLISH

BIOTEKNICA is a five-year creative project conducted between Jennifer Willet and Shawn Bailey from Concordia University, Canada. BIOTEKNICA is a fictitious corporation, which explores notions of reproduction and self/other distinctions in relation to evolving biotechnologies.

BIOTEKNICA projects its viewers into the future, where within our virtual laboratory designer organisms are generated on demand. However, the organisms produced by BIOTEKNICA do not adhere to the structures and functionality normally manifest in nature. Similar to mutations depicted in The Fly and Aliens our specimens are irrational and grotesque. They are modeled on the Teratoma, an unusual cancerous growth containing multiple human tissues like hair, skin and teeth. Monstrous as this seems, scientists today are conducting research on the Teratoma with the goal of developing future therapeutic cloning technologies. BIOTEKNICA both embraces and critiques these technologies, considering the contradictions and deep underlying complexities of contemporary biotechnologies role in the future of humanity.

In the past, BIOTEKNICA has been a Multimedia production, however, we seek to bring our theoretical specimens out of their virtual environment. We have been invited to work as Research Fellows at the Symbiotica Art/Science Laboratories at The University of Western Australia in the summer of 2004, where we will grow organic prototypes that will serve as new representations of our product line. BIOTEKNICA purports to be engaged in growing specimens through cloning protocols. However, we as artists have no intention of engaging in these technologies. Instead we wish to develop soft sculptures that tip the scales between representation and reality, based on tissues cultivated under the supervision of scientists further contributing to the fascinating complexities and social discourses that arise from our project.

Speaker 2:

Peter Morris – Telesis Consulting

Peter will be presenting the results of a study he has recently undertaken for the State Department of Education and Training which has a working title, The Case for a Western Australian Digital Content & Application Developers’ Network (D-CAD Net). The report focusses on WA's Digital Content and Applications Industry and the opportunities and challenges it currently faces. The study is one of a number of projects commissioned by the government looking at the industry in order to develop a better understanding of it. Peter will provide a brief outline of the work currently underway, the results and recommendations from his study and what this might mean for SIGGRAPH and its members.