Science and art, hearts and minds – the essential ingredients of human advancement – are integrated at the annual Subtle Technologies Festival. And this year the festival tackles a very intriguing theme: Immortality.
Subtle Technologies will ponder resurrecting extinct species and even early hominids using DNA. And even as human life-spans increase, other angles present themselves – including digital preservation of consciousness and bold imaginings of scientifically accessing the afterlife. Put it all together, and you have the makings of one mind-expanding weekend at four different venues in Toronto. Sounds like my kind of convention, conference, and festival all wrapped-up in one!
Subtle Technologies is an internationally-known weekend-long think-tank featuring leading-edge artists and scientists. The provocative program of symposium presentations, workshop, film screening and art exhibition, kicks off June 7th with an opening reception at the Beaver Hall Gallery. The reception will feature works on immortality from The Beyond Category artists David Khang, Scott Kildall/Nathaniel Sterne, John Paul Robinson, and Alan Sondheim.
Festival highlights on Day 1 include DNA from Fossils, Time Travel and De-Extinction, a symposium by McMaster University Paleogeneticist Hendrik Poinar who will talk about the feasibility and the ethics of “bringing them back alive.” Followed by a similarly themed presentation, Undoing Forever, which is a live radio documentary about bringing extinct species back from the dead, with CBC Radio producer and biologist Britt Wray.
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| Artist’s impression of Gliese 667 Cb with the Gliese 667 A/B binary in the background. Source: Wikipedia |
Included in Day 1, space enthusiasts will be excited by the return of Tweets In Space, a project by San Francisco cross-disciplinary artist Scott Kildall to beam tweets toward GJ667Cc, a planet 22 light years away. Last year’s effort drummed up 1,500 texts, about a tweet-per-second, which were transmitted via high-powered radio telescope last November.
What about Day 2? You can continue with David Khang, a part-time Doctor of Dental Surgery at University of Toronto, as well as a faculty member of Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, who presents Amelogenesis Imperfecta / Beautox Me! that fuses the disciplines of art and dentistry with enamel sculptures, and botox, as seen through Dr. Khang’s spoken presentation and video demo.
“We Will Be Different”: Some Notes On Science Fiction and Immortality, closes Day 2 with a discussion of the politics and ethics of immortality against a sci-fi backdrop, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein onward. Trent University cultural studies professor Veronica Hollinger joins moderator Roberta Buiani for an existential discussion about our very natures.
The festival will also feature The Singularity; a film screening and talk with Doug Wolens. His thought-provoking documentary about the tipping point when computer intelligence exceeds that of humans. Will we become more machine-like? The event will feature a presentation on AI and brain interfaces by Randal A. Koene and a panel discussion moderated by Greg Van Alstyne.
These are but highlights of what’s in store at the two-day festival. Having an avid interest in neuroscience, science in general, arts, and culture, I am delighted to see a festival that is sure to get our mind juices flowing.
