Conference

ART AND BIOMEDICINE BEYOND THE BODY

A one-day symposium about creative visual practices at the frontiers
of biomedicine organised by the Medical Museion at the University of
Copenhagen in partnership with The Schools of Visual Arts, The Royal
Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen.

3 September 2007, 10:00 -- 17:00

Current biomedicine is a vast complex of invisibles: microscopic
entities such as viruses and proteins, difficult concepts such as
genomics and proteomics, unwieldy databases of information, and large-
scale economic issues such as the practice of pharmaceutical
companies in a globalised economy. The exploratory work of artists in
relation to the body, biology and medical practice is increasingly
significant to both historians and practitioners of medicine, and
artists are beginning to appreciate the exciting arenas opening up in
biotechnology and biomedicine.

Recent biomedical sci-art projects funded by the Wellcome Trust, the
Artistsin- Labs project of the Zurich School of Art and Design and
the radical initiatives of Critical Art Ensemble among others show a
rapidly emerging field of interdisciplinary practice. Artists and
designers are skilled conceptualists who can explore these ideas
rather than simply 'explain' them.

The conference Art and Biomedicine: Beyond the Body will give voice
to the people practicing in this field -- artists, biomedical
practitioners, exhibition curators, art historians, art teachers and
funders will all be speaking. This event will be of interest to
researchers and practitioners in the life sciences and in
biomedicine, fine arts, history and philosophy of science, material
and visual culture and anthropology, history of art and aesthetics,
and those interested in developing interdisciplinary practices and
collaborations.

Programme

Monday 3 September 2007 10.00 Introduction

Mikkel Bogh (Rector, The Schools of Visual Arts, The Royal Danish
Academy of Fine Arts)
Thomas Söderqvist (Director, Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen)

10.20 Morning Session

Ingeborg Reichle (Research fellow, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie
der Wissenschaften, Berlin):
"Larger Than Life: The Use of Living Organisms in Contemporary Art"

Wolfgang Knapp (Lecturer, Institut für Kunst im Kontext, Universität
der Künste, Berlin):
"Artists as Research Scientists; Science as Art? Interdisciplinary
Approaches"

Steve Kurtz (Associate Professor, SUNY Buffalo, artist, member of
Critical Arts Ensemble):
"Point of Intervention"

12.30 Lunch. Projection of Steve Kurtz's film Marching Plague (17
minutes) in the hall.

13.30 Afternoon Session

Richard Wingate (Lecturer, UK Medical Research Council Centre for
Developmental Neurobiology, King's College, London):
"Exchange and (Sci)Art (What Art Tells Science About How Science Sees
the Brain)"

Ben Fry (Research assistant, MIT Media Laboratory, Cambridge, Mass):
"Computational Information Design and Genomic Cartography"

Ken Arnold (Head of Public Programmes, Wellcome Trust, London):
"Drawing on Science: Medicine, Art and Life at Wellcome Collection"

15.30 Coffee/tea

16.00 Keynote Address

James Elkins (E.C. Chadbourne Chair, Department of Art History,
Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago):
"Some Languages of Medical Semiotics: Thinking of Non-art Images
Discursively"

Critical Art Ensemble's film Marching Plague (USA/2006/17 min) will
be shown during the day at the conference.

A new sound work by Jacob Kirkegaard commissioned for the conference
will be presented at the Medical Museion, Bredgade 62. www.fonik.dk

www.ku.dk/satsning/biocampus/artandbiomedicine

The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Visual Arts is a
higher arts education institution under the Ministry of Culture
offering a six-year MFA programme.

information: http://www.kunstakademiet.dk

Art and Biomedicine: Beyond the Body is part funded by BioCampus, one
of four research priority areas at the University of Copenhagen
covering interdisciplinary research about the way in which
biomedicine and biotechnology is developed, applied, regulated and
understood in contemporary society.

Information: www.ku.dk/satsning/biocampus

The Medical Museion at the University of Copenhagen is a combined
academic unit and medical museum with extensive collections. Our
field is the history of health and disease in a cultural perspective,
with a focus on the material and iconographic culture of recent
biomedicine.

Organiser: Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen

Venue: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Kongens Nytorv 1,
Copenhagen.

Information: www.museion.ku.dk
blog: www.corporeality.net/museion