NTNU ARTEC SEMINAR SERIES - webinar talk with artist Anna Dumitriu
Thursday, Sept. 3, 14.30-16.00
Presentation by Anna Dumitriu
Followed by conversation with guests from NTNU Oceans, OSEH (UiO), NTNU Program for Applied Ethics, Greenhouse (UiS), the Center for Experimental Humanities at Bard, & Kunsthall Trondheim
Susceptible Anna Dumitriu and Alex May
About Speaker: Anna Dumitriu is a British artist who works with BioArt, sculpture, installation, and digital media to explore our relationship to infectious diseases, synthetic biology, and robotics. Past exhibitions include ZKM, Ars Electronica, BOZAR, The Picasso Museum, HeK Basel, Science Gallery Detroit, MOCA Taipei, LABoral, Art Laboratory Berlin, and Eden Project. She holds visiting research fellowships at the University of Hertfordshire, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and Waag Society, as well as artist-in-residence roles with the Modernising Medical Microbiology Project at the University of Oxford, and with the National Collection of Type Cultures at Public Health England. She was the 2018 President of the Science and the Arts Section of the British Science Association. Her work has featured in many significant publications including Frieze, Artforum International Magazine, Leonardo Journal, The Art Newspaper, Nature and The Lancet. Current collaborations include the Institute of Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology at BOKU – Universität für Bodenkultur in Vienna, the EU H2020 CHIC Consortium, the University of Leeds and the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells at HelmholtzZentrum in München.
Talk Abstract: In Uncertain Histories and Unstable Futures Anna Dumitriu will discuss the ideas and processes behind her artworks which explore infectious diseases, synthetic biology and genomics, and well as robotics, artificial intelligence and emerging digital technologies. Equally at home in bioscience and technology settings as the art studio, Dumitriu will discuss key past works including her “Plague Dress”, embedded with real plague DNA and artworks involving CRISPR genetic modification and antibiotic resistance. Furthermore, she will give an insight into new artworks created in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, including "Susceptible" which focusses on new innovations in global health and tuberculosis genomics, "Shielding" which looks at the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on victims of domestic abuse, and “Cyberspecies Proximity” a robotic artwork exploring how we will share future cities with intelligent robots. Finally, she will consider the impact of the pandemic on biotechnology and synthetic biology in her ongoing research “Biotechnology from the Blue Flower” exploring new plant breeding methods and CRISPR, and “Fermenting Futures” focused on yeast biotechnology and ecology. Her work is frequently inspired by the history behind research, situating contemporary issues within cultural contexts, weaving narratives and telling stories and drawing threads across time.