MIDAS Agenda Setting Workshop 2 (30 May 2014)

This MIDAS Agenda Setting Workshop 2 was the second event in a series of four. This event took place on the 30th May 2014. It was hosted by the Royal College of Art, held in the nice and unique Senior Common Room. We were surrounded by art pieces by Lucian Freud, Barbara Hepworth, David Hockney and Henry Moore, among others. The event included a mix of presentations, activities, and discussion to explore the synergies, challenges, and potentials for new interdisciplinary insights into the digital and embodiment. Find below audio files or video files of the presentations that took place.

 

‘Creativity and Innovation’ by Professor Neil Maiden

Neil is Professor of Systems Engineering, Head of the Centre for HCI Design and cofounder of the Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice at City University London. He has won and led research worth over £3 million as part of research projects collectively worth over £35 million. He is currently the principal investigator on the COLLAGE, CHOReOS and MIRROR projects, and previously led the S-CUBE, APOSDLE, TRACEBACK, SeCSE, VANTAGE, SARA, NATS-EASM, BANKSEC, CREWS, GOMOSCE, ISRE, RESCUE, RESCUE-DMAN, SERPS and SIMP projects.

Abstract: ‘Creativity and Innovation’

In this talk, Neil offers a systematic and methodological perspective on creativity and innovation. He approaches creativity as information search and idea discovery, drawing on established theories and models of creativity.

 

‘Bioart’ by Professor Sue Broadhurst

Susan is a writer and performance practitioner and Professor of Performance and Technology in the School of Arts, Brunel University, London. Her publications include Digital Practices: Aesthetic and Neuroesthetic Approaches to Performance and Technology (2007), Sensualities/Textualities and Technologies: Writings of the Body in 21st Century Performance (2010) and Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of Empowerment, Embodiment and Technicity (2012), all published by Palgrave Macmillan; together with several peer-reviewed journal articles exploring and examining the same area. Her practical work has been presented at London venues, including the ICA. As well as being the co-editor of the online journal Body, Space & Technology now in its thirteenth year of publication, she is also co-series editor for Palgrave’s ‘Studies in Performance and Technology’.

Abstract: ‘Bioart’

This presentation is the first of a series of case study/scenario presentations on interdisciplinarity across the arts and social sciences, the body and the digital, discussed during the day. Susan talks about Bioart. Bioart centres on the artistic investigation of biotechnology and raises complex ethical issues, such as, those relating to the patenting and sale of genes. At the same time genetic engineering is transforming forever our notions of and relationships to life forms including our own. Moreover, the discipline of biological studies is increasingly changing from a life science into an information science. For instance, ‘biosemiotics’ is an interdisciplinary science that studies communication and signification in living systems. Contemporary artists have responded to these changes by working with transgenics, cloning, reproductive technologies, tissue culture engineering and hybridization techniques that reconfigure the borders of artwork and life.

‘Bioart’ Presentation by Professor Sue Broadhurst from MIDAS_LKL on Vimeo.

 

‘Fertilised Futures’ by Veronica Ranner

Veronica researches the emerging field of the bio-digital – a converging knowledge space where digitality and biological matter meet. Her current doctoral work explores paradigm shifts in reality perception by coupling speculative (bio)material strategies and information experience through design research. Veronica has worked cross- disciplinary with a variety of science institutions and biomedical companies and is interested in complex networked cycles and potential new roles for designers.

Abstract: ‘Fertilised Futures’

This presentation is the second of a series of case study/scenario presentations on interdisciplinarity across the arts and social sciences, the body and the digital, discussed during the day. Veronica presents her work Fertile Futures. Fertile Futures (FF) provides a glimpse of a speculative future: a particular designed human reproductive experience is demonstrated through the use of imagined artefact and scenario. The narrative of this short film is based on research undertaken at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology (IRDB) at Imperial College in London. It describes one potential direction that technologically facilitated human reproduction could take. Both, the intricate interplay of progress in current research and societal development, as well as this science as active driving force with agency accelerating the entry of invasive technology into the human body in an increasingly opaque manner, are compound and broken down into this experience on personal level.

‘Fertilised Futures’ Presentation by Veronica Ranner from MIDAS_LKL on Vimeo.

 

‘Craft + Technology residency’ by Heidi Hinder

Heidi is an artist-maker and researcher. Trained in Jewellery, Silversmithing & Related Products, Heidi’s practice now broadly incorporates wearable technology and interaction design, in addition to more traditional art objects. Through collaboration, she explores the opportunities afforded by digital innovation in her work, while maintaining integrity to her craft-based training and an adherence to the value of materials and making. Heidi is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Birmingham City University (3D Design) and is leading a collaborative research project with the V&A Museum.

Abstract: ‘Craft + Technology residency’

This presentation is the third and last of a series of case study/scenario presentations on interdisciplinarity across the arts and social sciences, the body and the digital, discussed during the day. In this presentation, artist Heidi Hinder shares some personal reflections and insights, from the processes involved in two current examples of interdisciplinary collaboration: ‘Money No Object’ and ‘Tangible Memories’. She identifies and explores points of similarity, intersection and opposition in the different research projects, both of which have developed out of the Pervasive Media Studio and its associated community of collaborators, in Bristol.

‘Craft + Technology residency’ by Heidi Hinder from MIDAS_LKL on Vimeo.