We are delighted to inform you that our next NY Posthuman Winter Summit is scheduled for Wednesday, December 5th, to be held at NYU, 7.00-9.00 pm. We are truly excited to present our next speakers, who are coming from different states and countries to bring their visions on the posthuman turn. This is our highly promising outline:
Invited Speakers
1. Sozita Goudouna (NYU) and Yiannis Melanitis (Athens School of Fine Arts):
"A transgenic butterfly with a human gene: Transfering information between organisms"
2. Maria Witheman
(Indiana University):
"In the Air: Art and Philosophy through Ecology of Air, Oil and Wildlife"
3. Orsola Rignani
(University of Firenze,Italy)
"Towards a Posthuman Humanism: Federal Humanism between Natural Contract and Political Ecology"
4.Romina Wainberg
(Stanford University)
"The Posthuman Aporia: On How (Not) to Sacrifice Posthuman Ethics"
Full abstracts and bios available in the last section of this email.
Here all the details to attend our NY Posthuman Winter 2018 Summit:
When
Wednesday, December 5th, 7.00-9.00 pm.
Where
(Please, note that this Summit we are in a different NYU building than last Winter)
New York University, Silver Center for Arts and Science.
Address: 31 Washington Pl, New York, NY 10003.Room: 401
RSVP
Entrance is free, registration is required:
To register, please fill out this form
If you are planning to attend, please make sure to send the form, otherwise, the security will not let you in the building.
Our most sincere gratitude goes to NYU for all the kind, generous and precious support offered to our Group.
ABSTRACTS
Abstract 1: "A transgenic butterfly with a human gene: Transfering information between organisms"
The Melanitis leda Project is a transgenic model of the Leda Melanitis butterfly (named by Linnaeus 1758), using one of the artists’ genes .The project, completed last year, was to breed transgenic butterflies containing a gene of human origin, which miss-expressed a protein to acquire ectopic eyes. As Antiphon the sophist states “Names can be erroneous… The concepts we use are not delimited by the exact way objects are”. That is the initial point for making LEDA MELANITIS. My surname, Μelanitis, derives from the Greek root melas (μέλας), dark, deprived of light; a property probably attracted Linnaeus in naming the inspected butterfly... The broader area of my analysis is information in contemporary art and under this sense, Leda Melanitis initiates a dispersion of homonymic information between organisms. The aim of Leda Melanitis is to interweave language and life not as bio-laboratory exercise, but in the tradition of a modernistic art strategy and practice.
Bios: Sozita Goudouna / Yiannis Melanitis
Dr. Sozita Goudouna is an art theorist, curator and the author of "Beckett's Breath," published by Edinburgh University Press released in the US by Oxford University Press. She is the artistic director of a new art & biomedical sciences initiative in Abu Dhabi and has taught at New York University as the inaugural Andrew Mellon Curatorial Fellow at Performa New York, the leading organisation's partnerships consist of a consortium of 80+ institutions across NYC (MoMA, New Museum, Whitney, Guggenheim et al).
Yiannis Melanitis (1967-) is a Greek conceptual artist, bio artist, sculptor, painter, writing on critical art theory. His work initiates from an intense conceptualisation on the strategies of contemporary art. His research focuses on the role of information on the arts .(“INFORMATION AS THE NEW CONCEPTUALIZATION / see Quantum Manifesto) . First bioart works realized in 1998. Latest work is LEDA TRANSGENIC -his gene micro-injected into the butterfly named Leda Melanitis for the creation of a transgenic butterfly breed.(see Ontogenetic Art statement) His essays on art and philosophy have been translated into English, Italian, Korean and Greek. He has exhibited worldwide and his work has become a subject of criticism in international editions as "Art Tomorrow" (Ed.L.Smith), Leonardo MIT press, Lomonosov Moscow University, by Seung-Chol Shin, Mario Savini, Assimina Kaniari and others.
More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiannis_Melanitis
Abstract 2:
In the Air is a project that brings together Art and Philosophy by looking at our contemporary environments through ecology of air, oil and wildlife. In the Air combines still images and text incorporating quotes by Luce Irigaray from The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger and Elemental Passions. Both books speak to philosophers of the past by inserting the elements (air and water) as a way to discuss what is essential to being alive (i.e., breath) in order to think about consciousness and being in the world. This work engages in questions around how we coexist with other sentient beings in this world of climate change and global warming and the ecological transitions that form from our coexistence. I’m not interested in speaking about sustainability but rather about how oil and wildlife are interwoven into a system that simultaneously exists in the environments we live.
Bio: Maria Whiteman
Currently, Maria Whiteman is a Visiting Fellow as the Artist in Social Practice at the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University, Bloomington. Whiteman’s art practice explores themes such as art and science, environmentalism and ecology, global warming and climate change. Maria’s work continues to engage in the relationships between industry, natural energy, community and nature, and the place of animals in our cultural and social imaginary. In addition to her studio work, she conducts research in contemporary art theory and visual culture. Maria has published critical texts in Public: Art/Culture/Ideas, Minnesota Review and Antennae and an essay on Visual Culture in the John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, Sustaining The West (2014) and Catalyst (forthcoming 2016). In 2011, Whiteman attended the Caetani Culture Artist in Residence FRESH AIR! Okanagan, Vernon, BC, Alberta May-June 2015. In November, 2015 Co-organizing "After BioPolitics" The SLSA Society for Literature, Science and the Arts, Keynotes (Mark Dion and Vinciane Despret) Houston, Texas. She has also been selected as a recipient of the Visiting Scholar Lynette S. Autrey Fellowship 2015-2016. In March of 2016 "Touching" will be exhibited in the Urban Video Project “Between Species,” Curated by Anneka Herre at Syracuse University, New York. “Walker,” Curated by Angela Ellsworth, presented at the Museum of Walking, Tempe, Arizona, March 2016. Whiteman's “Mountain Pine Beetle and Roadside Kestrel” most recent video/photography work will be premiered at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival and Rice Media Centre, Houston, TX, Nov 2014.
More info:
https://maria-whiteman.squarespace.com
Abstract 3:
Towards a Posthuman Humanism: Federal Humanism between Natural Contract and Political Ecology
My contribution reflects on the significance of posthuman in relation to a humanism intended as a foedus between man and nature. To this end, a “dialogue” is conducted with Michel Serres’s reflection on the objective dimension of hominescence, that is, on the hominescent links with the world that point to a new humanism, federal of nature and culture. Serresian proposal of a symbiotic man-nature contract, whose “habitat” could be the Natural Parc, the ideal space for a political ecology in which human and environmental interrelations meet, is taken into consideration and analyzed as a “germinal nucleus” of a posthuman humanism.
Bio: Orsola Rignani
Orsola Rignani (Parma, Italy, 1971) is Assistant Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Florence, Department of Humanities. She’s interested in history of ideas, relations between philosophy and science, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of the Posthuman, philosophy of the body. On Posthuman philosophy she published the volumes Umano? Una domanda per Italo Calvino e Michel Serres (2012); Emergenze “post-umaniste” dell’umano (2014); “E-mergenze” “post-umaniste” del corpo (2016).
More info:
https://www.unifi.it/p-doc2-2018-0-A-2b333c2f382e-1.html
Abstract 4:
The Posthuman Aporia: On How (Not) to Sacrifice Posthuman Ethics for the Sake of Philosophical Robustness.
I will argue that ethics poses a limit to Speculative Posthumanism (SP) to such an extent, that the formulation of an ethical framework is only feasible within SP when the philosophical consistency of its assumptions is sacrificed. By exposing the contradiction between SP’s claim on the impossibility of accounting for the ethical implications of posthuman becoming (Roden, 2014), and SP’s attempts at accounting for them (Roden, 2010), I will demonstrate that the postulation of Ethical SP is aporetic if philosophically consistent. I will conclude that the oxymoronic nature of this postulation can be dissolved if theoretical robustness is abandoned in favor of the inclusion of unsolved aporetic tensions as an integral part of SP’s philosophical device.
Bio: Romina Wainberg
Romina Wainberg is a doctoral researcher in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University. She holds a Specialization in Narrative Writing from Casa de Letras, a Licentiate Degree in Letras from the University of Buenos Aires and an M.Phil. in Hispanic Studies from the University of Glasgow. She has worked as a Lecturer in Spanish at the Graduate School of the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (I.T.B.A.), as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Centro Cultural Recoleta (C.C.R.) and as a Literature Instructor at the Instituto Superior Cronopios.
More info:
https://dlcl.stanford.edu/people/romina-wainberg
This will be a very exciting Meeting: we are looking forward to seeing you again and keeping developing together the posthuman turn!
Invited Speakers
1. Sozita Goudouna (NYU) and Yiannis Melanitis (Athens School of Fine Arts):
"A transgenic butterfly with a human gene: Transfering information between organisms"
2. Maria Witheman
(Indiana University):
"In the Air: Art and Philosophy through Ecology of Air, Oil and Wildlife"
3. Orsola Rignani
(University of Firenze,Italy)
"Towards a Posthuman Humanism: Federal Humanism between Natural Contract and Political Ecology"
4.Romina Wainberg
(Stanford University)
"The Posthuman Aporia: On How (Not) to Sacrifice Posthuman Ethics"
Full abstracts and bios available in the last section of this email.
Here all the details to attend our NY Posthuman Winter 2018 Summit:
When
Wednesday, December 5th, 7.00-9.00 pm.
Where
(Please, note that this Summit we are in a different NYU building than last Winter)
New York University, Silver Center for Arts and Science.
Address: 31 Washington Pl, New York, NY 10003.Room: 401
RSVP
Entrance is free, registration is required:
To register, please fill out this form
If you are planning to attend, please make sure to send the form, otherwise, the security will not let you in the building.
Our most sincere gratitude goes to NYU for all the kind, generous and precious support offered to our Group.
ABSTRACTS
Abstract 1: "A transgenic butterfly with a human gene: Transfering information between organisms"
The Melanitis leda Project is a transgenic model of the Leda Melanitis butterfly (named by Linnaeus 1758), using one of the artists’ genes .The project, completed last year, was to breed transgenic butterflies containing a gene of human origin, which miss-expressed a protein to acquire ectopic eyes. As Antiphon the sophist states “Names can be erroneous… The concepts we use are not delimited by the exact way objects are”. That is the initial point for making LEDA MELANITIS. My surname, Μelanitis, derives from the Greek root melas (μέλας), dark, deprived of light; a property probably attracted Linnaeus in naming the inspected butterfly... The broader area of my analysis is information in contemporary art and under this sense, Leda Melanitis initiates a dispersion of homonymic information between organisms. The aim of Leda Melanitis is to interweave language and life not as bio-laboratory exercise, but in the tradition of a modernistic art strategy and practice.
Bios: Sozita Goudouna / Yiannis Melanitis
Dr. Sozita Goudouna is an art theorist, curator and the author of "Beckett's Breath," published by Edinburgh University Press released in the US by Oxford University Press. She is the artistic director of a new art & biomedical sciences initiative in Abu Dhabi and has taught at New York University as the inaugural Andrew Mellon Curatorial Fellow at Performa New York, the leading organisation's partnerships consist of a consortium of 80+ institutions across NYC (MoMA, New Museum, Whitney, Guggenheim et al).
Yiannis Melanitis (1967-) is a Greek conceptual artist, bio artist, sculptor, painter, writing on critical art theory. His work initiates from an intense conceptualisation on the strategies of contemporary art. His research focuses on the role of information on the arts .(“INFORMATION AS THE NEW CONCEPTUALIZATION / see Quantum Manifesto) . First bioart works realized in 1998. Latest work is LEDA TRANSGENIC -his gene micro-injected into the butterfly named Leda Melanitis for the creation of a transgenic butterfly breed.(see Ontogenetic Art statement) His essays on art and philosophy have been translated into English, Italian, Korean and Greek. He has exhibited worldwide and his work has become a subject of criticism in international editions as "Art Tomorrow" (Ed.L.Smith), Leonardo MIT press, Lomonosov Moscow University, by Seung-Chol Shin, Mario Savini, Assimina Kaniari and others.
More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiannis_Melanitis
Abstract 2:
In the Air is a project that brings together Art and Philosophy by looking at our contemporary environments through ecology of air, oil and wildlife. In the Air combines still images and text incorporating quotes by Luce Irigaray from The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger and Elemental Passions. Both books speak to philosophers of the past by inserting the elements (air and water) as a way to discuss what is essential to being alive (i.e., breath) in order to think about consciousness and being in the world. This work engages in questions around how we coexist with other sentient beings in this world of climate change and global warming and the ecological transitions that form from our coexistence. I’m not interested in speaking about sustainability but rather about how oil and wildlife are interwoven into a system that simultaneously exists in the environments we live.
Bio: Maria Whiteman
Currently, Maria Whiteman is a Visiting Fellow as the Artist in Social Practice at the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University, Bloomington. Whiteman’s art practice explores themes such as art and science, environmentalism and ecology, global warming and climate change. Maria’s work continues to engage in the relationships between industry, natural energy, community and nature, and the place of animals in our cultural and social imaginary. In addition to her studio work, she conducts research in contemporary art theory and visual culture. Maria has published critical texts in Public: Art/Culture/Ideas, Minnesota Review and Antennae and an essay on Visual Culture in the John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, Sustaining The West (2014) and Catalyst (forthcoming 2016). In 2011, Whiteman attended the Caetani Culture Artist in Residence FRESH AIR! Okanagan, Vernon, BC, Alberta May-June 2015. In November, 2015 Co-organizing "After BioPolitics" The SLSA Society for Literature, Science and the Arts, Keynotes (Mark Dion and Vinciane Despret) Houston, Texas. She has also been selected as a recipient of the Visiting Scholar Lynette S. Autrey Fellowship 2015-2016. In March of 2016 "Touching" will be exhibited in the Urban Video Project “Between Species,” Curated by Anneka Herre at Syracuse University, New York. “Walker,” Curated by Angela Ellsworth, presented at the Museum of Walking, Tempe, Arizona, March 2016. Whiteman's “Mountain Pine Beetle and Roadside Kestrel” most recent video/photography work will be premiered at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival and Rice Media Centre, Houston, TX, Nov 2014.
More info:
https://maria-whiteman.squarespace.com
Abstract 3:
Towards a Posthuman Humanism: Federal Humanism between Natural Contract and Political Ecology
My contribution reflects on the significance of posthuman in relation to a humanism intended as a foedus between man and nature. To this end, a “dialogue” is conducted with Michel Serres’s reflection on the objective dimension of hominescence, that is, on the hominescent links with the world that point to a new humanism, federal of nature and culture. Serresian proposal of a symbiotic man-nature contract, whose “habitat” could be the Natural Parc, the ideal space for a political ecology in which human and environmental interrelations meet, is taken into consideration and analyzed as a “germinal nucleus” of a posthuman humanism.
Bio: Orsola Rignani
Orsola Rignani (Parma, Italy, 1971) is Assistant Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Florence, Department of Humanities. She’s interested in history of ideas, relations between philosophy and science, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of the Posthuman, philosophy of the body. On Posthuman philosophy she published the volumes Umano? Una domanda per Italo Calvino e Michel Serres (2012); Emergenze “post-umaniste” dell’umano (2014); “E-mergenze” “post-umaniste” del corpo (2016).
More info:
https://www.unifi.it/p-doc2-2018-0-A-2b333c2f382e-1.html
Abstract 4:
The Posthuman Aporia: On How (Not) to Sacrifice Posthuman Ethics for the Sake of Philosophical Robustness.
I will argue that ethics poses a limit to Speculative Posthumanism (SP) to such an extent, that the formulation of an ethical framework is only feasible within SP when the philosophical consistency of its assumptions is sacrificed. By exposing the contradiction between SP’s claim on the impossibility of accounting for the ethical implications of posthuman becoming (Roden, 2014), and SP’s attempts at accounting for them (Roden, 2010), I will demonstrate that the postulation of Ethical SP is aporetic if philosophically consistent. I will conclude that the oxymoronic nature of this postulation can be dissolved if theoretical robustness is abandoned in favor of the inclusion of unsolved aporetic tensions as an integral part of SP’s philosophical device.
Bio: Romina Wainberg
Romina Wainberg is a doctoral researcher in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University. She holds a Specialization in Narrative Writing from Casa de Letras, a Licentiate Degree in Letras from the University of Buenos Aires and an M.Phil. in Hispanic Studies from the University of Glasgow. She has worked as a Lecturer in Spanish at the Graduate School of the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (I.T.B.A.), as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Centro Cultural Recoleta (C.C.R.) and as a Literature Instructor at the Instituto Superior Cronopios.
More info:
https://dlcl.stanford.edu/people/romina-wainberg
This will be a very exciting Meeting: we are looking forward to seeing you again and keeping developing together the posthuman turn!
