Event 1: BioArt

 The event I attended this week explored the applications and possibilities of utilizing technology to enhance our biological experience, while also highlighting some fascinating equipment already being engineered to see just how far we can intertwine math, technology, and biology. 

Depiction of how the technological advances work to correlate the senses, courtesy of BioArt event by Aisen Caro Chacin

    This week's speaker, Aisen Car Chacin, does work that wonderfully highlights the intersection between technology, art, and science by pushing the boundaries on just how far we can take and enhance our biological senses. Chacin discusses her many projects throughout her career, all focussed around the central idea of utilizing technology as a prosthetic to intensify the ability to perceive or transverse through life. Her interventions both intensify and provide new ability to patients that would otherwise not have such a sensation. In doing so, Chacin is reimagining the future body and the functions we perceive as “normal”. 

An example of the type of inventions made is shown above. A grill that can be used to listen to music through your teeth, courtesy of Aisencarochacin.com

Chacin also focuses on the artistic and approachability of her inventions, noting that the technology not only should be useful and empower more diverse realities, but they should also be approachable to the consumer audience. Here is where the artistic aspect comes into play and the necessity of building ideas and projects to accommodate the larger goal, even in an extremely technical job.

Image of Stelarc with ear transplant on forearm to reimagine body engineering, courtesy of Radio National

This event is definitely something that I would recommend to fellow classmates, as it was an exceptional example of the merging between three seemingly disparate fields into a very fascinating and nuanced way of reimagining the human body and its relationship with technology.

Image of Aisen Caro Checin, courtesy of UCLA Sci Center + Lab

Sources:

Aisen Caro Chacin | UCLA Art | Sci Center + Lab. https://artsci.ucla.edu/node/1345. Accessed 8 Apr. 2022.

Aisen Caro Chacin. http://www.aisencaro.com/play-a-grill.html. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

Aisen Caro Chacin - 2 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy. https://www.artsy.net/artist/aisen-caro-chacin. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

BioArt + Assistive Device Art: Transformation of Ability and Perception, the Plasticity of the Mind, and Human Expansion - Sanctuary For Independent Media. https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/bioart-assistive-device-art-transformation-of-ability-and-perception-the-plasticity-of-the-mind-and-human-expansion/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

“STELARC: EAR ON ARM.” Radio National, 21 Mar. 2012, https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/bodysphere/stelarc-ear-on-arm/3903988.

SVA Bio Art Lab – Art & Science. SVA BFA Fine Arts – New York City. https://bioart.sva.edu/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

“Champagne for the Blind: Paul Bach-y-Rita, Neuroscience’s Forgotten Genius.” MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 1 Sept. 2013, https://cmsw.mit.edu/paul-bach-y-rita-neurosciences-forgotten-genius/.

Tuuri, Kai, and Oskari Koskela. “Understanding Human–Technology Relations Within Technologization and Appification of Musicality.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 11, 2020. Frontiers, https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00416.

Proof of attendance