SEMINAR: Tissue Engineered Muscle Actuators as evocative cultural objects

The Speakers: Chris Salter is an artist, Director of the Hexagram Concordia Centre for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technology at Concordia University in Montreal and Associate Professor for Design + Computation Arts at Concordia. He studied philosophy and economics at Emory University and completed a PhD in theatre (directing and dramatic criticism) with a concentration in computer music at Stanford University. After collaborating with Peter Sellars and William Forsythe/Ballett Frankfurt, he co-founded and directed the art and research organization Sponge (1997-2003). His solo and collaborative work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale, the National Art Museum of China, Ars Electronica, Meta.Morf in Norway, PACT Zollverein, Todays Art, Villette Numerique, EMPAC, Transmediale, EXIT Festival, Place des Arts, Elektra, Shanghai Dance Festival, V2_, among many others. He is the author of Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance (MIT Press, 2010) and is currently working on a followup tentatively entitled Alien Agency: Performances of the Nonhuman, also for MIT Press.

Ionat Zurr is an artist and a researcher at SymbioticA – The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, the University of Western Australia. Ionat together with Oron Catts formed the internationally renowned Tissue Culture and Art Project. She has been an artist in residence in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology since 1996 and was central to the establishment of SymbioticA in 2000. Ionat is considered a pioneer in the field of biological arts and her research been published widely, exhibited internationally and her artwork has been collected by MoMA New York. Ionat is this year recipient of the ARC DECRA award; she has been a fellow in the InStem Institute, NCBS, Bangalore (2010) and a visiting scholar at The Experimental Art Centre, Stanford University (2007) and The Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School (2000-2001). She exhibited in places such as the MoMA NY, Mori Museum Tokyo, Ars Electronica, Linz, GOMA Brisbane and more.