CHAIRED BY: Profa. Dra. Clarissa Ribeiro
Theme: Porous Borders
The theme of this Laser focuses on borders and how we interact with them. Borders go by many names: boundaries, frontiers, skins, and limits. The border is a live thing, it thins and thickens, never does quiet what we want which, is perhaps to break and let the other in or perhaps to remain impenetrable and keep the other out. The artists and scientist presenting at this LASER highlite the interactions happening on the border of media, technology, art, science, and therapy. Heloisa Escudero's media installations consider the boundaries between anxiety, affect, and thearpy. Lorenzo Cardim's sculptures and performances deal wiht the relationship between the skin and the interior. These sensorially rich works occupy a space where shifting borders between class, identity, and interpersonal interactions come into focus. Angélica Piedrahita works with site and sensation. Her interactive media works traverse technology, the biology of percieved sensation, and the psychological space created by our perceptions. Fabíola Fonseca's work with fungi crosses the borders between art and biology. Her performances with mycological material ask us to consider the frontier of interspecies interaction. Renato Lenz Costalima's Live Editing Agents cross the border between developer and user ask us to actively participate in structuring the web.
FEATURED ARTISTS AND SPEAKERS’ SHORT BIO:
Lorenzo Cardim
Born in Brazil, heceived a BFA in Fine Arts from the Corcoran College of Art + Design and an MFA from California College of the Arts. His work has been featured nationally and internationally in museums, galleries, universities, and film festivals in San Francisco, Oakland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, New York, and Milan. At the core of Cardim’s multi-media practice is a commitment to making work that questions social and political structures. His works express themes of social injustice through sculpture, video, and performance. Cardim’s work looks at how society perceives those who exist outside culturally dominant norms. Specifically, he is interested in how queers, people of color, and other minority groups question the status quo. His sculpture and time-based works explore how social constructs ultimately inform political ideology, legislation, and actions.
Website: https://www.lorenzocardim.com/
Contact: lorenzocardim@me.com
Renato Lenz Costalima
Holds a degree in Telematics from the Federal Center of Technological Education of Ceará (2006) and a Master's Degree in Computer Science from the State University of Ceará (2009). He is currently an professor at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Ceará. He has experience in the area of Computer Science, with emphasis on Web Systems, working mainly on the following topics: web systems, cloud computing and intelligent agents.
Website: https://tiia.com.br/
Contact: macaroots@gmail.com
Heloisa Escudero
Grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, but relocated to the United States in 1987 where her interest in Fine Arts developed. She obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. She holds American, Italian and Brazilian citizenships. She is interested in conceptually based art that is both tactile and interactive. Her most recent art projects focus on art that emphasizes the participation of the viewer. In 2007 she moved to Sweden where she worked as a full-time artist, creating four successful projects and exhibiting in Sweden at the Uppsala Art Museum and in Spain at the University of Valencia. While in Sweden she built the first of three BackPack Gallery Sculpture Units, starting the BackPack Gallery Project. One of her BackPack Gallery exhibitions/ performances was held at the popular urban park, The High Line.
Website: http://www.heloisaescudero.com/
Contact: heloisa.escudero@gmail.com
Fabíola Fonseca
With a B.A. in Biological Sciences, wse is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Culture and Art of the Federal University of Ceara (UFC). She has a PhD in Education from the Federal University of Uberlandia with a period as a visiting researcher at the Harvard University supervised by George Church and Joe Davis, Master in Science Education and Mathematics and a B.A. in Biological Sciences from the Federal University of Goias (UFG). She proliferates along lines that zigzag across science, art and philosophy.
Website: https://www.webstagram.one/tag/protocolofungo
Contact: fsrfonseca@gmail.com
Angélica Piedrahita
Is a Colombian multimedia artist, living and working in Monterrey, Mexico, where she is a Professor at the Universidad de Monterrey UDEM. She received an MFA in Media Art Production from SUNY University at Buffalo with the support of a Fulbright Scholarship. Her work has been exhibited in the Bauhaus – Universite at Weimar, The New School for Social Research and video festivals such as Pixel Point Slovenia, Loop Barcelona, KLEX Malasya, Megapolis NY, Videograma and Festival Internacional de la Imagen, at Colombia. As a researcher, she had collaborated in the edition of books and district programs in Art, Science and Technology in the US and Colombia. She worked as assistant professor at Javeriana University in Bogotá Colombia for 10 years. Her research interests focus on the history of the interconnection between many senses, the extension of the human body across time and space, and the new communication structures and processes that arise from the use of technology. Her last work is built around the relationship between images, perception, geography, tourism and visual technologies.
Website: http://lapiedrahita.com/
Contact: lapiedrahita@gmail.com
Liz Lessner
Is a sculptor whose work combines traditional fabrication techniques and emerging technologies to create sensory experiences that reframe common occurrences and routine encounters. She is currently a Fulbright Scholar affiliated with the University of Fortaleza in Ceará, Brazil. Lessner has had solo shows at Honfleur Gallery in Washington, D.C.; Big Orbit, a Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts Project Space in Buffalo, NY; and The University of Oregon’s Eric Washburne Gallery in Eugene, OR. She has exhibited nationally and internationally including the Guapamacátaro Center for Art and Ecology in Michoacán, Mexico, A.I.R. gallery in Brooklyn, NY, and Everard Read’s Circa Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa. Her research into embedded electronics ability to create novel sensory experiences has been supported by grants like the Mark Diamond Research Fund, fellowships like the Eyeo Artists Fellowship, and awards like a 2019 Fulbright Research Award to Brazil.
Website: https://lizlessner.com/
Contact: liz.lessner@gmail.com
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LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Talks is Leonardo's international program of evening gatherings that bring artists and scientists together for informal presentations and conversations. LASER Talks were founded in 2008 by Bay Area LASER Chair Piero Scaruffi and are in over 30 cities around the world. To learn more about how our LASER Hosts and to visit a LASER near you please visit our website.
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