JAMedia Creation C (Concepts)
Since the establishment of quantum mechanics, the myth of ‘objective science’ has been debunked. The rapid development of information technologies, biotechnologies, etc., has urged us once more to think afresh about “the body,” “life,” and “art” in relation to us. In such a world, ongoing debates about bioengineering began to emerge, and media art—through installations and performances—began to materialize these debates by employing biological concepts and biomedia, bringing to the forefront the process by which humans transform nature. Currently, media art is producing a wide variety of works that explore complex themes such as body modification, biocybernetics, protobiology, life in extreme conditions, wet artificial life, and alien life, intersecting with the fields of medicine, synthetic biology, chemistry, and astrobiology. In this lecture, we will explore the concepts of life, the body, and biomedia, and in doing so, consider and analyze the relationship between art, technology, and philosophy with society.
Lectures, discussions, reports
Class 1: Biomedia I (Castro)
Class 2: Biomedia II (Castro)
Class 3: Blue sky: To space (Matsui)
Class 4: Ruins: The future of debris (Matsui)
Class 5: Poison I (Pharmakon) (Okubo)
Class 6: Poison II (Homeopathy and alternative medicine) (Okubo)
Class 7: Body modification, cyborgs, biocybernetics (Castro)
Class 8: Wetware (Castro)
Class 9: Blue sky: SCREAM AGAINST SKY (Matsui)
Class 10: Ruins: IMAGINE PEACE (Matsui)
Class 11: Cocoon I (Metamorphosis) (Okubo)
Class 12: Cocoon II (Evolution and technology) (Okubo)
Class 13: Alien life (Castro)
Class 14: The other heading (Matsui)
Class 15: Information and life (Discussion) (Okubo)
*Castro’s classes are generally taught in English, but may be conducted in Japanese as needed
Eduardo Kac, ed. [Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond] Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press (2007)
George Gessert [Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution] Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press (2012)
Hannah Star Rogers, ed. [Art's Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures] North Carolina State University Libraries (2019)
“Metamorphoses” by Emanuele Coccia（2022）
“Phaedrus” by Plato（1967）
室井尚?吉岡洋［共著］『情報と生命: 脳?コンピュータ?宇宙』新曜社（1993）