Bio-Art Mixer 7

We will host our Bio-Art Mixer online. We believe it is important to talk about the things that we work on despite the general focus on the current extraordinary situation. Our lives continue along with all their elements and importancies. Therefore join us over zoom for talks by artist Kira O’Reily and biologist Margaret McCoy followed by a discussion moderated by Ed Morris. You will be able to ask questions in the chat, or live if you wish. We can’t offer a refreshment bar as usual, but we can offer a company:) !!!Join Zoom Meeting https://syracuseuniversity.zoom.us/j/97551502858Meeting ID: 975 5150 2858

Talks: 7.30-9.30 pm by Kira O’Reily (Alfred University, Arts)and Margaret McCoy (Syracuse University, Biology)Talks will be followed by discussion moderated by Ed Morris

Kira O’ReilyVisiting International Randall ChairSculpture/Dimensional Studies, Alfred University, NY

I wish to articulate the potentials and possibilities within the menopause experience.I have been approaching it as a transition that is very influenced by the work of younger artists such as Mary Maggic, and writers in the environmental humanities who discuss the effects and affects of hormone and endocrine systems across bodies, species, and environments.Inevitably the pandemic will enter the thinking, but more from the perspective of how to work with uncertainty, which is a theme in the menopause text. That menopause for many produces a period during which many cherished references fall away, and one finds oneself at sea, but in unchartered territories for which there are not easy or obvious navigatory marks. I think this aspect is profound and can be deeply empowering and emboldening.

Kira O’Reilly is a Helsinki based artist; her practice, both wilfully interdisciplinary and entirely undisciplined, stems from a visual art background; it employs performance, biotechnical practices and writing with which to consider speculative reconfigurations around The Body. But she is no longer sure if she even does that anymore.Since graduating from the University of Wales Institute Cardiff in 1998 her work has been exhibited widely throughout the UK, Europe, Australia, China and Mexico. She has presented at conferences and symposia on both live art and science, art and technology interfaces. She has been a visiting lecturer in the UK and Australia and U.S.A in visual art, drama and dance. Most recent new works have seen her practice develop across several contexts from art, science and technology to performance, live art and movement work.She has made movement works that she doesn’t like to call dances and has been increasingly informed by combat sports and martial arts as mode of investigating movement and embodied thinking, leading to running workshops that use grappling practices along side writing.She writes, teaches, mentors and collaborates with humans of various types and technologies and non-humans of numerous divergences including mosses, spiders, the sun, pigs, cell cultures, horses, micro-organisms, bicycles, rivers, landscapes, tundras, rocks, trees, shoes, food, books, air, moon and ravens.

Margaret McCoyDepartment of Biology, Syracuse University

While a female is pregnant the reproductive organs of her offspring are developing; this means that subsequent generations born from these offspring (ie, grandchildren) would also have been exposed to the anesthetic. While reproductive cells, often referred to as germ cells, undergo significant reprogramming to avoid passing on harmful properties, there are certain epigenetic (biological mechanisms that regulate and effect genes, but are not due to the actual DNA sequence of a gene), properties that are not reprogrammed. I am researching how general anesthesia administered while pregnant effects the reproductive organs of the offspring and the cognitive functioning of subsequent generations.Recordings of our Bio-ARt Mixers can be found here: https://bit.ly/2VwPeFlThe Bio-Art Mixer has been initiated by Heidi Hehnly, Ph.D. Biology, SU; Boryana Rossa Ph.D. Transmedia, SU in collaboration with Canary Lab.