Agency in a Dish: Sup­posed a Semi-Liv­ing Brain be Art (Maker)

Symposium:

• ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• NeuroArts

• Agency in a Dish: Sup­posed a Semi-Liv­ing Brain be Art (Maker)

• Oron Catts

Venue(s):

• Sabanci Center, Istanbul, Turkey

• Panel: NeuroArts

  In the year 2000 The Sym­bi­ot­icA Re­search Group (SARG) em­barked on a pro­ject that in­tended to cul­tur­ally scru­ti­nise the pos­si­bil­ity of em­body­ing en­gi­neered neuro-as­sem­blies. The idea that neu­rons cul­tured over elec­trodes can act in the world, and that the world would have a di­rect af­fect on the neu­rons, sug­gest that with in­creased com­plex­ity these en­gi­neered neuro-as­sem­blies will re­quire eth­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tion. This paper will de­scribe the con­cept of the semi-liv­ing, in par­tic­u­lar that which re­spond;  Neu­ronal tis­sue can be cul­tured and grown in­de­pen­dently from the con­text of the bi­o­log­i­cal body and then en­gage in rudi­men­tary two way in­for­ma­tion ex­change with the world around it.  Some of the main is­sues that this no­tion raise will be ex­plored by fol­low­ing the tra­jec­tory of the neu­ro­engi­neer­ing re­lated re­search at Sym­bi­ot­icA – from SARG’s Fish & Chips to Neu­rot­ica’s Silent Bar­rage.

Category:

• Panel