Leonardo Art, Science and Technology Lecture Series 2016 FLESH FOR FANTASY: Matter does matter
Lecturer: Thomas Feuerstein
Time: 2016.03.26 15:00-17:00
Venue: Chronus Art Center
Address: Building 18, No 50 Moganshan Road, Shanghai
Language: English with Chinese translation
Translator: Rachel Huang
Organizer: Chronus Art Center, CAFA School of Experimental Art, Leonardo/ISAST
About The Lecture
Throughout the history of art, matter has been a deficit and a stigma. Fine art belonged to the artes mechanicae and not to the artes liberales. Immaterial art – like music or literature – had priority, but from the moment we speak of the molecular age, this deficit turns into a specific quality. Contemporary art can apply matter, material and materiality in a conceptual and in an actual way.
Thomas Feuerstein’s artworks function like laboratory experiments: Molecular sculptures, biotechnology and material processes take up the threads of reality and weave the viewer into a tapestry of narratives. The real and the symbolic, the biological and the political, form a conceptual knot that provokes confabulations and fictional narratives. The boundaries between body and mind, nature and culture are blurred and become replaced by growth and decay, order and entropy.
About THE LEONARDO ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LECTURE SERIES
Co-organized by CAC and Leonardo/ISAST in collaboration with CAFA School of Experimental Art, each installment of the series will feature renowned guest speakers from around the world on topics within the ever-expanding scope of Art/Science. CAC and its partner institutions will provide the venues for the events.
About Leonardo
Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST) serves the global network of thinkers and practitioners working in the realms where art, science and the humanities connect. Since its beginnings nearly 50 years ago, Leonardo has fostered and supported the work of artists, scientists and scholars dedicated to breaking down the barriers that often separate fields of endeavor. Today, Leonardo/ISAST continues its leadership in cross-disciplinary creativity through the publication of content on evolving platforms (in collaboration with the MIT Press); the presentation of events, residencies and art/science projects; and other programs designed to address the interests of the art/science/humanities community.
About THE LEONARDO ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LECTURE SERIES
Co-organized by CAC and Leonardo/ISAST in collaboration with CAFA School of Experimental Art, each installment of the series will feature renowned guest speakers from around the world on topics within the ever-expanding scope of Art/Science. CAC and its partner institutions will provide the venues for the events.
About Leonardo
Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST) serves the global network of thinkers and practitioners working in the realms where art, science and the humanities connect. Since its beginnings nearly 50 years ago, Leonardo has fostered and supported the work of artists, scientists and scholars dedicated to breaking down the barriers that often separate fields of endeavor. Today, Leonardo/ISAST continues its leadership in cross-disciplinary creativity through the publication of content on evolving platforms (in collaboration with the MIT Press); the presentation of events, residencies and art/science projects; and other programs designed to address the interests of the art/science/humanities community.
Thomas Feuerstein
Thomas Feuerstein was born in 1968 in Innsbruck, Austria. He studied art history and philosophy at the University of Innsbruck and received a doctorate degree in 1995; he works as artist and author in the fields of fine art and media art. From 1992 to 1994, along with with Klaus Strickner, was co-editor of the magazine Medien. Kunst. Passagen., published by Passagen Verlag in Vienna. In 1992, he founded the office for intermedia communication transfer and the association Medien.Kunst.Tirol. In 1992 and 1993, Feuerstein’s received research commissions from the Austrian Ministry of Science on art in electronic space and art and architecture. Since 1997, he has assignments as lecturer as well as visiting professor at the University for Applied Arts Vienna, Bern University of the Arts, the F+F School of Art and Media Design Zurich, University of Innsbruck, Applied Science University Vorarlberg and the University Mozarteum Salzburg.
Thomas Feuerstein’s works and projects are realised using various media. They are comprised of installations, environments, objects, drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographies, videos, radio plays, and net art. Some of the crucial aspects are the interplay between verbal and visual elements, the unearthing of latent connections between fact and fiction, as well as the interaction between art and science. For his purposes, Feuerstein has come up with an artistic method he calls “conceptual narration.” Since the end of the eighties, he has investigated the possibilities of algorithmic art. Beginning in the early nineties, the first net installations looked at the economic and mass medial conditions for the construction of reality. The Biophily project (1995 to 2002) puts up for discussion a new idea of man in the face of bio-technology and genetic engineering. Other projects examine the interplay between individuality and sociality, formulate the aesthetics of entropy, and develop a daimonology of cultural processes.