LASER Talks: Signoids Event

Part 1: Sign systems as living actuators
Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab

The distinction between human culture and the natural world is more of a linguistic artifact than a conceptual separation. SIGNOIDS is a lecture series that delves into the symbiotic, mutual, or parasitic existence of dominant human sign systems as living materials. It raises questions about reciprocal benefits, challenges outdated anthropocentric notions of binarism, norms, and normativity. How can we reconfigure dominant sign systems as living actuators and contemplate their desired transformation within the biopolitics and body politics of the Post-Capitalocene?

The lectures bring together artists who perceive the presumed separation of sign systems from nature in the Anthropocene as an illusion. They recontextualize signifiers such as language, patterns, and algorithms by relating them to characteristics of life, such as autopoiesis and growth. This exploration leads to an emerging mediation towards a post-anthropocentric commons and novel forms of transversal subjectivity. Instead of treating signs as problems to be solved, the lectures also emphasize productive untranslatability as a means of communication.

LASER Talks are a collaborative Art&Science lecture format with Leonardo MIT Press, associated with 40 universities globally. The Vienna LASER is currently hosted by the Medical University in partnership with the Department of Media Theory, University of Applied Arts. Funded by PEEK AR 687/Austrian Science Fund. / LASER Chairs: Klaus Spiess, Jens Hauser

Contributors:

Verena Friedrich (DE) is an artist creating time-based installations in which organic, electronic and sculptural media come into play. She received the International Media Award for Science and Art from ZKM Karlsruhe 2005; an honorary mention in the Prix Ars Electronica 2015; a jury mention in the Japan Media Arts Festival 2015.

Agnes Meyer-Brandis (DE) is a Berlin based artist with a background in sculpture and new media, She creates works on the fringes of science, fiction and fabulation. She works in fields such as climate research, environmental studies, meteorology, as well as synthetic and artistic biology. Meyer-Brandis’ work has been awarded with many prizes, including two Prix Ars Electronica Awards of Distinction & the European Kairos prize.

Cecilia Vilca (PE) is a Peruvian transartist, feminist chola techno-witch and language activist Her artistic work is made with technology in concept and realization exploring its relationship with gender, society, and nature. From a decolonizing vision it develops in the borders of art and science, connecting ancient technologies with the new ones. She was Committee of ISEA2020 Member. Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts Reviewer and has exhibited worldwide.