Ingeborg Reichle talks at the symposium „Matter(s) in Motion“ at Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan

On June 7, 2019 Ingeborg Reichle will talk at the symposium “Matter(s) in Motion: symposium on art, self-organized matter, material agency and proto-aliens” at Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan. The symposium will bring together scholars and artist from the fields of art, philosophy, chemistry, astrobiology and the life sciences to discuss the active behavior of matter and reflect upon intermediate states between the living and non-living; agency, self-organization and material performance; and the likelihood of discovering active matter and alien life beyond the earth.

Novel techno-scientific advances in chemistry, synthetic biology, astrobiology, material science and nanotechnology are opening up radically new perspectives by bringing about soft, active and intelligent systems with life-like properties. Some of these capabilities include movement, growth, self-division, reproduction, adaptation and proto-metabolisms. The current design and development of nanomachines, genetic networks, microswimmers, wetbots and protocell models all yield a glance of these advances and latest technologies. At the same time, contemporary artists are beginning to exploit material principles and design methods based on self-assembly, molecular interactions and physicochemical processes; going from inanimate to autonomous soft systems. These artworks compel us to reflect upon where do alive and not alive separate; reimagine the built and the grown; and consider what life might look on other planets. Overall, the issue at stake is not whether these soft systems are living or not, but whether they are more or less alive, and what makes it so.

Matter(s) in motion will examine the self-organizing ability, morphogenetic tendencies and active behavior of matter as well as the ways in which these processes and capabilities are manifest in the work of contemporary artists. The symposium will include three sessions of talks and a panel discussion on the related subjects of art and intermediate states between the living and non-living, material agency, and alien biochemistry.

Speakers (Confirmed): Prof. Ingeborg Reichle (University of Applied Arts Vienna) – Prof. Akihiko Yamagishi (Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences) – Prof. Akihiro Kubota (Tama Art University) – Prof. Yasuhito Sekine  (The Earth-Life Science Institute of Tokyo Institute of Technology) – Dr. Jens Hauser (University of Copenhagen) – Assoc. Prof. Taro Toyota (The University of Tokyo) – Assoc. Prof. Juan M. Castro (Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences)