Naturally Hypernatural: Visions of Nature - Conference at the School of Visual Arts, NYC; Friday November 14 - Sunday November 16

The Morbid Anatomy Museum's creative director Joanna Ebenstein will be giving a talk as part of a conference at New York City's School of Visual Arts. Entitled "Naturally Hypernatural: Visions of Nature," the conference will take place from Friday November 14 through Sunday November 16. You can find out more--and purchase tickets--by clicking here.
Conference
Naturally Hypernatural: Visions of Nature is an interdisciplinary conference investigating the fluctuating “essences” of “nature” and the “natural” in the 21st century. Each of these terms carries with it an enormity of philosophical questions ranging from the alteration of life itself to dialogues concerning the notion of the Anthropocene, a term used to describe man’s intervention into the natural world. The talks presented here will focus on contemporary issues in the visual arts as they intersect with the biological and geological sciences, confirming that nature remains an intrinsically mysterious, ever more mutable entity.  At the present time, cellular parts are being remixed in laboratories to create synthetic organisms while geological transformations are forecasting wild swings in weather conditions. Human reproduction regularly occurs in Petri dishes while cucumbers are grown in space. The artificial and the natural now combine to form novel entities, never before seen on earth, while animal species dwindle down to extinction every day.  Animals and plants are exhibited as contemporary art, while the real is conflated with the imaginary. Technological advances and their theoretical undertones have migrated into art practice producing New Media installations, Bio Art exhibitions and a global community of art practitioners adapting novel productions to cultural resources.   In addition, visual art has become a social practice platform with projects that intersect with urban farming, DIY biology and extremes in performance art.  Naturally Hypernatural: Visions of Nature brings together artists, historians, curators, philosophers and scientists to examine and comment on these ideas.
In addition, there will be an exhibition of work by students, alumni and faculty, generated through SVA’s Bio Art Laboratory, the first of its kind in the U.S.A.
Program
Friday, November 14, 2014
4:00pm - 5:00pm Conference Registration
5:00pm - 5:15pm Introduction by Suzanne Anker
5:15pm - 7:30pm

Keynote Speakers 
  • Lucas Evers - Bio Art and creative biotechnology in the Anthropocene - some innovative misunderstandings
7:30pm - 8:30pm Opening Reception for the exhibition Blue Egg: Visions of Nature
Saturday, November 15, 2014
9:00am - 10:00am Conference Registration and Breakfast
10:00am - 12:00pm  Panel 1: Conditions of Possibility
12:30pm - 1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm - 4:30pm: Panel 2: Water-Bodies: A Relationship of Paradox
4:30pm - 5:00pm Coffee Break
5:00pm - 7:00pm Panel 3: Anthropocene
  • Roy Scranton - The Compulsion of Strife: Nature, War, and the Anthropocene
7:00pm Dinner Reception
Sunday, November 16, 2014
9:00am - 10:00am Conference Registration and Breakfast

Panel 4: Dead or Alive 10:00am - 12:30pm  
  • Joanna Ebenstein - The "Once-Alive and the Eerily Lifelike" at The Morbid Anatomy Museum
12:30pm - 2:00pm Lunch
2:00pm - 4:00pm Panel 5: DIY Biology
  • Joseph DeGiorgis - The Aquatic Studio: the fine art of using novel and traditional scientific techniques to capture images of life
4:00pm - 4:30pm Coffee Break
4:30pm - 6:30pm

Panel 6: Colonizing Nature

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