MARIBOR, SLOVENIA
SLOVENJ GRADEC, SLOVENIA
NOVEMBER 14−DECEMBER 15, 2012

Lectures/Workshops

DNA Sequencing: Referential Probability Structures
Maja Smrekar and Špela Petrič (Slovenia)
November 29–30, 2012
MAJA SMREKAR IN SPELA PETRIC
Maja Smrekar & Špela Petrič (SLO). DNA Sequencing workshop. Photo by Miha Fras

Day 1: Thursday, November 29 (10 a.m.–6 p.m.)
Day 2: Friday, November 30 (12 a.m.–3 p.m.)

Conceptual frame of the workshop is based on demistification of power positions in an era of overexpanding populism of science which is serving public with hermetic information which disable options of equal dialogue levels. Using one of the popular maneuvers in a workshop by executing the saliva collection which is routinely being used for forensic and human identity samples at the field of molecular biology, the workshop content is focussed on a disclosure of the specific gene as one of the source files of decoding one’s own body to understand certain consequences of its operational system. However the genetic profiling test results are coded within the specific system of knowledge which is based on the principles of references and probability. We would like to disclose to the visitors some of those specific systems of knowledge and at the same time critically examine the probability principles which modern science uses within the approach of discovering the ultimate levels of “the truth”. At the same time an interdisciplinary collaboration between an artist, a scientist and other technological experts is being addressed to the broadest public sphere since the position of establishing an objective point of view, with the interest of general public in mind, which is being generated by informed (non)experts, could have a profound impact on the discourse of the processes and final products in the field of science. Within this frame it is important that society gets an overlook over life science structures too, by raising the awareness that every view on “the truth” can be some kind of a manipulation based on an operational system of a specific device.

Information:
Tanja Grosman
E: tanja.grosman@kibla.org
T: 059 076 371
M: 031 682 579

Biography

Maja Smrekar (b.1978, Brežice) in 2005 graduated at the Sculpture Department of Fine Art and Design Academy in Ljubljana, currently finishing MA at the Video and New Media Department. Among others, she has been collaborating with Kapelica Gallery in Ljubljana for the last five years and Aksioma Institute in Ljubljana for the last three years where she has executed projects by researching frequency phenomena through biofeedback and thelematic presence, molecular biology and neuroscience in relations to body and (inter)subjective perception of space. In 2010 she organised International Intermedia Art Festival HAIP10/New Nature which took place at Multimedia Centre Cyberpipe in Ljubljana where she has been active as an artistic director (2008–2010).

Špela Petrič (b. 1980, Ljubljana), PhD, is a researcher and artist, currently studying Transmedia at Sint Lukas School of Art and Design. Until recently she was employed as an assistant at the Institute for Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana. Her creative practice takes shape at the interface of science and art. She collaborates with Kapelica Gallery and several Slovenian and international artists and is an active member of Hackteria (hackteria.org).