Exposition eCONSCIOUSNESS à Moscou

eCONSCIOUSNESS exhibition is the third exhibition held as part of the SCIENCE ART international project implemented by the Central House of Artists and Lomonosov Moscow State University. The project aims at creating a transdisciplinary science art platform that could provide productive collaboration between artists and scientists, and bring the integration of art, science, and technology to a new level.

State-of-the-art artistic research projects are found at the « intersection » of art and biology, chemistry, physics, nanosciences, robotics and other areas of scientific knowledge. At the intersection of actual art and environmental science, ECOLOGICAL ART is formed as a global science art trend. Its philosophy is based on the idea of developing the environmental consciousness, harmonic coexistence of the human kind and natural ecosystems.

Although some of the projects displayed at the exhibition aim at attracting the public attention to environmental issues (The 21st Century Cultural Layer by RECYCLE group, Russia; Parásitos Urbanos by Gilberto Esparza, Mexico) falling into the domain of Environmental Art<span, the array of issues covered by the exhibition is much wider. It covers the entire range of environmental issues (in the sense of Ernst Haeckel): from the relations among living organisms and their communities to their relations with the environment (Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot by Garnet Hertz, USA; Decon by Marta de Menezes, Portugal).

Russian and foreign artists and researchers will not only demonstrate various approaches to artistic apprehension of environmental issues but also possible ways of addressing them using technologies based on achievements of contemporary science, including synthetic biology (Plantas Nómadas by Gilberto Esparza; Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robot Series by James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau, UK).

In some projects synthetic biology technologies were used (Decon; Impulse by Juan Castro, Colombia-Japan). Expansion of technologies that involve the design and creation of biological systems that do not naturally exist and are able to speed up natural evolutionary processes million-fold raises a whole number of ethical issues, particularly, whether the man may interfere in the processes of creation of living organisms in such a radical way. These issues will be discussed at the international workshop conference Synthetic Biology Technologies in Actual Art: Aesthetical and Ethical Aspects. Participants of the conference will include philosophers, art critics, representatives of natural sciences as well as artists, including those who use synthetic biology technologies in their practice.

The choice of the subject of the third international science art exhibition as research of integration of ecology and art was not accidental: 2013 was announced the Year of Environmental Protection in the Russian Federation.

More informtion on : www.science-art.ru