Join us for an exploration of how modern science can be incorporated into the artistry field with the help of an internationally-renowned pioneer of biological arts.

In her talk Nature, Marta de Menezes will reflect on the possibilities and strategies of identity and nature, and how they interconnect and entangle. The lecture will include an educational demonstration of using scientific technology as a creative form. Followed by a 3-day CRISPR workshop with Marta. Come with an open mind and be ready to discuss and debate this gene editing technology, CRISPR.  Please remember that this a workshop to promote creative thinking using a DIY version of this technology, combining art and science and interdisciplinary investigations.

More about Marta de Menezes

Marta de Menezes is a Portuguese artist (b. Lisbon, 1975) with a degree in Fine Arts by the University in Lisbon, and a MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture by the University of Oxford. She has been exploring the interaction between Art and Biology, working in research laboratories demonstrating that new biological technologies, DNA, proteins and live organisms can be used as an art medium. Her work has been presented internationally in exhibitions, articles and lectures. She is since 2005 artistic director of Ectopia – Experimental Art Laboratory and from 2009 director of Cultivamos Cultura – Association.

Marta de Menezes’ work explores the possibilities modern biology offers to artists. She has been developing the use of biology and biotechnology as new art media, conducting her practice in research laboratories that also are her art studios. She has been trying to not only portray the recent advances of biological sciences, but to incorporate biological material into her art as a way to convey a discourse that is not possible with any other medium: using DNA, proteins, cells and bodies offer an opportunity to explore novel ways of representation and communication. In the artistic research and practice that Marta de Menezes has been developing over the last 20 years, she experiments with living and pulsing material, changing that material to express her concepts.

Through her art works she positions herself and the audience in a range of perspectives that allow different understanding of self through other, through nature and our alternative selves.

The works to be discussed include de Menezes’ first seminal bioart project entitled “Nature?” (1998) that questions the definition of nature through a non-genetic manipulation of live butterfly wing patterns, and her most recent projects that use the technology of CRISPR-cas9 to reengage with questions of identity as a species, as animals, as composites, and multiples – and how we understand these concepts in relation to our future. The works discussed are a series called The origin of Species: Post evolution using CRISPR-Cas9 to silence a transgenic modification of corn, creating a new variety simultaneously natural and genetically modified, developed in collaboration with Mexican philosopher Maria Antonia Gonzalez Valeiro (UNAM-Mexico), with geneticist and immunologist Luis Teixeira (IGC-Portugal), Truly Natural – using genome editing of GMO organisms through CRISPR-Cas9 leading to removal of transgenes, Immortality for Two– where the author and her collaborator (her partner), Luís Graça, immortalize each other immune cells, achieved by introducing cancer-inducing genes in the cells with a viral vector, and the most recent project, Anti-Marta: self and non-self, looking at antibodies between parents, in collaboration with her partner, immunologist Luís Graça (UNICEL Group, Intituto de Medicina Molecular – Portugal). For more information, please visit  http: http://martademenezes.com/

NATURE Lab [North Troy Art Technology and Urban Research in Ecology] is the Sanctuary’s resident ecological education program. NATURE Lab promotes sustainability, and urban research in ecology using art, technology and science. Programming is open to novices and experts alike. We are currently in development of the NATURE Lab Urban Environmental Center, a resource for community science.

The event is co-sponsored by the Vollmer Fries Lecture series, the Arts Department and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer.

We are committed to lowering the barriers to access for events at The Sanctuary for Independent Media. For people who are hard of hearing or deaf, blind or low-vision, or whose physical limitations can interfere with a satisfying experience, let us know two weeks in advance so we can make appropriate arrangements.