Technologies Of The Living
14th Creation - Art and Science Encounter - Suratómica Network
Unusual conversations - Maloka
13.04.2023
5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Maloka - Cra. 68d # 24A - 51
FREE ENTRY WITH REGISTRATION
[ HYBRID EVENT WITH LIVE STREAMING ON YOUTUBE ]
TECHNOLOGIES OF THE LIVING
This encounter will be about the diverse ways of understanding, using, creating, relating to and imagining technologies. In the processes of creation in art and science, in the processes of social resistance, of recognition, understanding and approach to nature, in processes of care for the earth, among others, we find many other ways of approaching technology/technologies, which go beyond what we understand as an extension of the body or human abilities. Our ideas about technologies in Latin America, or in divergent spaces globally, have become much more open, and in dialogues with many creatives and collectives, and in their creative works, we have been able to see how alternative and even contesting understandings cross us. It is these other understandings that we want to explore.
Technologies as that which makes life possible.
We also ask ourselves about technologies that have not been produced by human beings, is photosynthesis a technology, is echolocation a technology, is Quorum Sensing of bacteria a technology? Technologies built by communities of diverse living organisms that through them find a way to break through, resist, challenge, decolonize and free themselves and their environments from that which oppresses them, that limits life. Technologies that allow us to live symbiotically with other species and forms of existence. Technologies developed with the objective of caring for the soil, the land, native agriculture and seeds. Technologies that are not necessarily mechanical, digital, electrical or electronic, they are also analog, even abstract, felt, imagined, experienced; that are forms of existence at the same time.
We are looking for works, processes, projects and ideas that in different ways approach, work with, or propose other understandings of technology/technologies. That question the meanings, uses and technological systems in a critical way.
PARTICIPANTS
Carolina Páez
Carolina Páez studied Chemistry and Microbiology at the Universidad de Los Andes and during her master's degree in biological sciences she worked at the Microbiological Research Center (CIMIC). Her graduate work consisted in the study of Lysinibacillus sphaericus and its ability to capture gold from aqueous solutions while immobilized in different matrices. During this period her passion for microorganisms grew and she is currently a professor at the Universidad de Los Andes and accompanies the development of the Microbiological Collection of the Natural History Museum.
Relaciones Ancestrales
Through the exploration of symbiotic relationships between plants and microorganisms, such as fungi and bacteria, we are invited to reflect on our conception as individuals and to prioritize networks of collaboration and care with all the different forms of life that inhabit this planet with us.
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Edgar Pérez Saborío
Edgar is an architect, sociologist and master's student in philosophy. He is a member of Biomímesis Costa Rica Network and the Latin American Biodesign platform BioDis. Edgar Perez's professional and academic work develops in a transdisciplinary practice that seeks to bring design closer to the study and understanding of nature and the social sphere; particularly in some fields within science and technology, the politics of technical artifacts, socio-urban studies, political ecology, biomaterials, digital technologies and biomimicry. He works at the University of Costa Rica as a teacher, is an independent researcher and works in the private sector.
Ecologías tecnológicas: una mímesis de la vida desde la diversidad latinoamericana
At present, technology moves in the tenuous balance between being the cause of an emerging ecological crisis, while at the same time presenting itself as the "salvation" of such a complex conjuncture based on neo-developmentalist narratives. However, it is clear that more of the same would not produce different effects. If we recognize then the need to diversify the approach to the predominant idea of technology, the question is, from where to promote such diversification? Despite its harsh history, Latin America continues to be one of the most exuberant regions of the planet, full of contrasts and contradictions, of different cosmovisions, complex ecologies and biological intelligences. I propose to assume the hybridizations of such different localities as a transforming force to face the present challenges. This implies bringing the gaze from the distant horizons of progress to the very immediacy of the near, capturing and transforming modern drifts into other narratives and forms of knowledge. Biomimicry emerges from the global north as a design tool that seeks to understand biological technologies as guides and mentors for the production of human ones. However, it does not question the constellation of overlapping ideas that are necessary to overcome according to Latin American critical perspectives: the very idea of technology, sustainability, development, functionalism, rationality and instrumentalization that end up reproducing suffering. The talk develops the notion of biomimicry under a critique and reorganization of its premises to generate deviations in the ways in which we think and produce technologies from the Latin American region according to the proposal of seeking a technodiversity understood within ecological systems of inter-species collaboration.
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Natalia Rivera
Natalia works with emerging digital and bio media, currently exploring the possibilities of digital technologies as a means of mutual support between living entities. In the context of indeterminate/queer knowledge creation, her processes are undisciplinary, open, collective, collaborative and communitarian, through the Mutante Lab (Bogota) and the global Suratómica Network of creation - art and science.
Hyperconnected Bacteria
Hyperconnected Bacteria is a speculative fabulation about the emergence of a non-human cyborg between bacteria and the internet. An experimental proposal that fictionalizes the takeover of the internet by these microorganisms, while approaching the development of this biotechnology.
The project immerses itself in - and contributes to - the enormous amount of new/other ways of understanding the Living, that today in the biocentric turn are emerging. Among them also, other ways of relating to the living organisms with which we co-inhabit / co-constitute the earth's biosphere and which shape us ourselves, such as bacteria.
The interconnectedness of bacteria would allow them to perform horizontal gene transfer through the Internet. The DNA shared by certain bacteria in a soil would be instantly available worldwide. Lynn Margulis (1995) described how bacteria could, through horizontal gene transfer, recover quickly after a natural disaster, something that would take humans, for example, much longer or even fail. What could access to a global network created by humans with the infrastructure of the Internet of Things mean for such an impressive collaborative process of bacteria?
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Carlos Acosta Yaver
Architect Designer from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, with emphasis in Aesthetics and Biodigital Architecture. Researcher in self-organization for the computational design of biocomputational architecture, evolutionary landscapes, habitats and artificial ecosystems through swarm intelligences and technological tools of various interfaces and sensors. Creator of Estudio Hypha with emphasis on the exploration of new materialities.
Alejandro Serrano
Architect designer from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana with a master's degree in Architecture and City Construction from Politecnico di Torino, Italy.
Professional interest focused mainly on the design of architectural projects with biomaterial bases. Creator of Alejandro Serrano Studio and Estudio Hifa with emphasis on the exploration of new materialities.
Hypha: Biosemiotic fungi landscapes
The paper describes how fungi are organisms that connect and recycle life at different scales. They are enablers of convergences and relationships, diluting frontiers and complexifying life. Fungi are decentralized networks of information that generate life and transform their environment. They are compared to the internet of ecosystems, associating with other forms of life to generate mutualisms and solve problems. These common and differentiating characteristics of fungi generate aesthetics, signs and codes to communicate and relate. The project seeks to escape from classical geometries and use the logics of fungi to produce interfaces that link the digital world with biocomputing, addressing problems of the aesthetics of complexity and materiality. Fungi are seen as technologies of life that can transform themselves and explore new landscapes.
COMPLETE RECORD OF THE ENCOUNTER
Videos edited by Juan FM.
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Organized by the Suratómica Network - Juan Diego Rivera, daniela brill estrada, Natalia Rivera, with the support of Maloka and Juan FM.
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