Sensory Ecologies symposium

On Thursday, April 28, 2022, Pirelli HangarBicocca presents the symposium Sensory Ecologies as an appointment of the Public Program dedicated to Anicka Yi’s exhibition Metaspore conceived as a sensory experience through smells, fragrances, and biological elements that questions the boundaries between art and science, organic and synthetic, human and non-human.

The symposium Sensory Ecologies expands and develops the concepts and ideas generated by the exhibited works, by bringing together an interdisciplinary panel of speakers: Mόnica Bello, Curator and Head of Arts at CERN at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva; Jane Calvert, Sociologist of Science, Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Edinburgh; Harmony Holiday, multidisciplinary artist, writer and poet; Hsuan L. Hsu, Professor of English at the University of California Davis and the author of The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics (2020); Studio Klarenbeerk & Dros a design studio based on research of sustainable projects and new materials; Barbara Mazzolai, Director of the Bioinspired Soft Robotics Laboratory at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genoa.

They will address a central and urgent question of our times: can the biological sensorium (both human and non-human) be reconciled with contemporary technology? Through diverse perspectives, the symposium seeks to build a constellation of knowledge and navigational tools, drawing from the disciplines of art and design, media studies, science and technology studies, general and synthetic biology, and literature.

During the evening a special projection of Anicka Yi’s The Flavor Genome (2016) will be screened in a 2D version, conceived as a reference point for the discussion. The video is a techno-sensual journey into the unexplored threshold of adaptation, mutation and hybridization of living organisms. Under the conceptual premise of the “Flavor Genome” the work performs a mapping of perceptual worlds, taking reality as matrices of perceived unique essences, which could enable the potential for biodiverse intelligence sharing.

As enthusiasm rapidly mounts towards concepts such as Web 3.0 and the Metaverse, Sensory Ecologies asks invitees to scrutinize how the human sensorium is poised to be fragmented, extended, and controlled. What are the greater ecological and political consequences of choosing to leave the human sensorium primarily in the biosphere versus the technosphere? This symposium invites participants to assess the social and environmental stakes of this question and consider how power and capital operate within these spheres. In other words, who or what might stand to gain from the transformation or exclusion of the bodily sensorium?

Conversely, how might we resist a sense of Cartesian mind/body dualism and develop contemporary technologies in a more “biologized” way? Looking towards the biological sciences, art, sociology, literature and design, this symposium searches for model organisms and systems that might offer guidance, or even lines of flight, as we navigate an increasingly networked and machine-mediated perceptual world.

Moving beyond the universalizing approach of modern technology and into a creative space of multiplying and porous technodiversities, what new technologies, designs, networks, sensations, and approaches would we like to see proliferate?

The field of sensory ecology builds upon Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of the umwelt, which describes the world as it is experienced by a particular organism, according to its unique sensory capacities. If umwelt describes the perceptual experience of a single organism, then sensory ecology describes the sum total of these diverse and interacting umwelts.

With the participation of Anicka Yi, Mόnica Bello, Jane Calvert, Harmony Holiday, Hsuan L. Hsu, Studio Klarenbeek & Dros, Barbara Mazzolai. The symposium is curated by Giovanna Amadasi, Remina Greenfield and Anicka Yi.

Metaspore is the most comprehensive survey show devoted to the artist, featuring more than 20 installations. Curated by Fiammetta Griccioli and Vicente Todolí, it is on view at Pirelli HangarBicocca until July 24, 2022.

Admission to the event is free. Places are limited and booking is required.