[DIYbio] [Genspace Talks/Workshops] Oron Catts: Crude control – Growing the Semi Living world

 
Crude control - Growing the Semi Living world
Talk + Workshop by Oron Catts
 

Join us at Genspace for a special guest Oron Catts founder of Symbiotica and The Tissue Culture and Art Project (TC&A). Catts, a pioneer in bioart, will give a talk about using tissue cultures, and lead a two-part workshop where he will show us how to DIY our own.

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TALK: Crude control  – Growing the Semi Living world

When: Wednesday, July 25 2012, 8pm
Doors open at 7:30pm



Biology grows organs and tissues naturally, but what happens when we repurpose that function to produce consumer products? Catts will introduce us to the Tissue Culture and Art Project and explore the semi-living world of bioengineered materials. In his art, Catts makes in-vitro meat and leather with tissue engineering. Picture pig cell overcoats and lab-made ears. Under the banner of The Technologically Mediated Victimless Utopia (2000-2008), the pieces explored the use of tissue engineering for the creation of in-vitro meat and leather while questioning the tendency of western technology to obscure its victims.These tangible and evocative creations illustrate and critique how human-centric ends transform and potentially warp the regenerative logic of life. His work evolves from research in regenerative medicine from 1990s. TC&A takes the science beyond medicine and turns it towards hands-on artistic experiments. These range from the construction and growth of symbolic to pseudo-utilitarian objects and the creation of semi-living "products."

Join us early for wine and cheese
FREE (sugested donations are welcome), Please RSVP !

Where: Genspace, The MEx Building
33 Flatbush Avenue,
Talk: 6th Floor conference area
Brooklyn NY 11217

For questions contact us at info@genspace.org

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WORKSHOP: Grow It Yourself - The Semi Living World

When: Tuesday, Thursday,  July 24, 26, 2012,  6 - 9:30pm



Today with 3D printing we can make our own products from dead materials like plastics. What if we could print living material—like organs and skin—with a 3D bioprinter? Make your own tissue cultures at this workshop. First, learn how to design and build a DIY incubator, sterile hood and centrifuge. Then learn the essentials of tissue engineering. The workshop will cover the main techniques of regenerative medicine and will explore the broader cultural and artistic implication of using living tissue within artistic context. By the end of the course you will have learned how to make the tools necessary for tissue engineering and build your own living structure with biodegradable soft polymers and 3D scaffolds created by a MakerBot 3D printer. 

$200 non-members / $150 members
15 person limit 

To Register, please email: nurit@genspace.org 

Where: Genspace
33 Flatbush Avenue
7th Floor
Brooklyn NY 11217

For questions contact us at info@genspace.org

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Oron Catts is an artist, researcher and curator whose pioneering work with the Tissue Culture and Art Project which he established in 1996 is considered a leading biological art project. In 2000 he founded SymbioticA, an artistic research centre housed within the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia. Under Oron's leadership SymbioticA has gone on to win the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) and became a Centre for Excellence in 2008. Catts interest is life, more specifically the shifting relations and perceptions of life in the light of new knowledge and its application. Often working in collaboration with other artists (mainly Ionat Zurr) and scientists, Catts have developed a body of work that speak volumes about the need to for new cultural articulation of evolving concepts of life. Oron was a Research Fellow in Harvard Medical School and a visiting Scholar at the Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University. He is currently the Director of SymbioticA, a Visiting Professor of Design Interaction, Royal College of Arts, London, and a Visiting Researcher/consultant at Aalto University's Future Art Base, Helsinki. Catts' ideas and projects reach beyond the confines of art; his work is often cited as inspiration to diverse areas such as new materials, textiles, design, architecture, ethics, fiction, and food.

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Genspace is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting culture, innovation and education in molecular biology for both children and adults. We work inside and outside of traditional settings,  providing a safe,  supportive environment for training and mentoring in biotechnology. In the summer of 2010,  we built the first-ever community laboratory,  a facility where we design workshops,  train students and innovate new technologies. As a membership-based community lab,  we offer New Yorkers the opportunity to work on their own projects in a safe, Biosafety level 1 facility.