Conference: Under the Viral Shadow, exploring biological, cybernetic & social networks

Text by CLOT Magazine

On October 9 from 11 am to 19:00 pm CET Art Laboratory Berlin presents Under the Viral Shadow an international interdisciplinary one-day conference that aims to explore biological, cybernetic, and social networks with a special keynote by Roberta Buiani. Buiani will discuss the multiple implications of viruses, natural and human-mad,e in an age of technoscience and infection.

The core of the Under the Viral Shadow is the exhibition project Under the Viral Shadow. Networks in the Age of Technoscience and Infection featuring works by internationally renowned artists Anna Dumitriu, Alex May, Benjamin Bacon, Gene Kogan, Sarah Grant and Vivian Xu. 

ArchaeaBot: A Post Climate Change, Post Singularity Life-form by Alex May and Anna Dumitriu features an underwater robotic installation investigating ‘life’ in a post-climate change; Engineered Antibody by Anna Dumitriu is a custom beaded necklace based on an antibody engi­neered; PROBE II: Subaudition by Benjamin Bacon is a binary set of extra-planetary machines that apply machine learning methods to investigate speech to text recognition.

Gene Kogan’s project Abraham is an ‘autonomous artificial artist’ based on decen­tralised AI; Physarum Topologies by Sarah Grant makes use of living slime mould to demonstrate bio-computed information routing through different topologies of computer networks. And fi­nally, wearables such as Electric Skin and Sonic Skin by Vivian Xu explore the concept of human-machine co-evolution. 

The conference opens with Introduction | Under the Viral Shadow. Networks in the Age of Technoscience and Infection from Art Laboratory Berlin curatorial team Regine Rapp and Christian de Lutz. It will follow Panel A, Bodies, Organisms and Machines; Panel B, Digital and Biological Networks, Roberta Buiani’s keynote; Panel C, On Artificial Intelligence, to finish at 18:30 CET with a final discussion with all speakers and moderators. 

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You can find more information here. The conference will be live-streamed at Art Laboratory Berlin and CLOT Magazine.

Website https://artlaboratory-berlin.org/events/under-the-viral-shadow-conference/
(Image courtesy of Vivan Xu and Art Laboratory Berlin)