Sciart and Science on Stage & Screen symposium

Part of the Liverpool Biennial Events programme

31 July

The Wellcome Trust and sciart consortium in partnership with Liverpool School of Art and Design, Liverpool John Moores University

Symposium, 26 - 27 September 2002, Liverpool School of Art and Design at the Liverpool John Moores University, 68 Hope Street, L1 9EB
Tickets: £30 two-days, £15 one-day. To book a place and discuss travel and accommodation arrangements contact: Claire Griffiths at the Wellcome Trust on 020 7611 8777 or email c.griffiths@wellcome.ac.uk

Other Art and Science Events open to the public are:-

• Outdoor Screening of three new art & science films at sunset on Wednesday 25 September at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Mount Street. FREE.

• Soundless Music, a concert of live experimentation with piano, electronics and infrasonic pipes at 7:30pm on Thursday 26th September at the Metropolitan Cathedral, Mount Pleasant. Tickets £2 from Cathedral Bookshop, tel: 0151 707 2109 or at the door on the evening. Information contact: 0207 611 7367.

The symposium offers an exceptional opportunity for artists, scientists, curators, facilitators, arts, health and science organisations, bio-ethicists, science communicators and students to share ideas and view new work. Sessions will focus on award winning art and science projects from both the sciart and Science on Stage & Screen schemes, that explore the impact of scientific knowledge on the lives of individuals, their immediate family and wider communities as well as interdisciplinary explorations of space, perception and the environment. Other themes explored range from the relationship between smell and memory to the lived experience of illness, and perceptions of what is normal and abnormal.

Speakers and Chair include Stephen Wilson, Professor of Conceptual Design and Information Arts at San Francisco State University and author of the recent Leonardo/MIT publication Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology; Ruth Chadwick, Professor of Bioethics, Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy at Lancaster University, and Antonia Payne, freelance curator, researcher and consultant. Artists include Jacqueline Donachie, Andrew Kötting, Alistair Skinner & Katharine Meynell, Helen Paris & Leslie Hill, Zarina Bhimji, Dorothy Cross and Lucy Skaer. Scientists include Dr Roz McCarthy, Dr Catherine Minto, Professor Michael Horton and Dr Richard Wiseman.

The outdoor screenings include Eye-See, a two-minute 'film bite' exploring visual agnosia, by filmmaker Sal Anderson working in collaboration with neuropsychologist Dr Roz McCarthy. The project results from working creatively with people whose vision is affected by brain disorders and aims to challenge how we 'see' people with neurological conditions. Combining experimental imagery, scientific information with personal accounts of individuals living with osteoporosis. Bone Orchestra by filmmakers Polly Nash and Jocelyn Cammack of Spectacle Productions presents an insight into recent research in osteoporosis being undertaken by Professor Michael Horton and his team at the Bone and Mineral Centre, University College London. Jellyfish Lake, 2002 a film by Dorothy Cross results from investigations into the biomechanics of Chironex fleckeri, the box jellyfish. The artist worked with Professor Tom Cross who had samples of tissue of Chironex sent from Professor James Seymour at James Cook University in Cairns Australia to begin the process of developing micro-satellite DNA primers for 'genetic fingerprinting' - a presentation will be made on Friday 27 September.

Receiving its premier at Science Museum Imax and a second date at The Purcell Room in May 2003, Soundless Music is at this stage a work in progress, combining a highly unusual live experiment and performance in the dramatic surroundings of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. Resulting from a collaboration between Sarah Angliss, Mark Jiggins, Ciaran O'Keeffe, Dr Richard Wiseman and pianist GéNIA, some of the music has been laced with infrasound - sound that is so bassy - that it is too low in frequency to hear. Fascinating theories about our response to infrasound touch on acoustics, psychology and even the scientific study of the paranormal. This is a preview of a series of concerts that will put some of these theories to the test. The project features the works of several composers from Claude Debussy to Philip Glass and includes a new semi-infrasonic musical piece.

Media contact: Nick Hallam on 0207 439 0972 or media@nickhallam.demon.co.uk

Notes to Editor:

The following are some of the award winning projects that will make presentations during the two-day symposium.

Mapping Perception. Filmmaker Andrew Kötting (who's daughter Eden, who suffers from the rare condition, Joubert syndrome) and child neurophysiologist Mark Lythgoe collaborating to create an installation that explores the perception of impaired brain functions.

Research Station for Antarctica. This project incorporates an artist / scientist living experiment destined for remote environments, ultimately Antarctica. The Makrolab is a hexagonal, cylindrical pod the size of a space station that will house three scientists and three artists in any isolated area.

On the Scent: Artists; Helen Paris and Leslie Hill, working in collaboration with olfactory scientist Dr Upinder Bhalla to investigate the emotive and cognitive influences of smell, and in how it acts as a trigger for memory and emotions.

Midge Bait captures spectacular images on film of the movement, swarming patterns and attacking behaviour of the Highland midge (Culicoides impunctatus). These film sequences of attacks will then be subjected to scientific analysis to determine the mechanisms involved in the process of midge host-seeking. A collaboration between artist Alison Hayes and scientist Dr Alison Blackwell.

The Psychology of Magic. Scientists Dr Richard Wiseman and Peter Lamont explore the psychological techniques employed by magicians to deceive their audience. They have undertaken a project with magician Mac King and ten of the world's greatest sleight-of-hand artists in Las Vegas, to test some of the psychological theories that emerged from their past work.

Gender Trouble. In this experimental documentary by filmmaker Roz Mortimer of Wonderdog Productions, four British intersex women talk about the taboo and secrecy that surrounds their conditions. The current campaign to change the way intersex people are medically treated has led these women to speak out for the first time about gender, surgery, disclosure and their families.

Eye to Sky. Artist Mary Lemley, filmmaker Peter Anderson and composer Graeme Miller will work in collaboration with Gabriel Miller to produce a unique piece of film that provokes and questions our understanding of Autism.
Red and Wet on the Iron Air. In the context of malaria vaccines, artist Zarina Bhimji and Dr Anthony Holder from the Division of Parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research aim to explore the spaces between laboratory and fieldwork, the synergy between science and humanity, and the link between abstract science and real lives.

Originally conceived in 1996 by the Wellcome Trust, the sciart consortium -supported by the Arts Council of England, the British Council, the CalousteGulbenkian Foundation, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), and the Wellcome Trust - encourages partnerships between artists and scientists to work creatively on projects that have a public impact. For more information, visit www.sciart.org

The Wellcome Trust is an independent, research-funding charity, established
under the will of Sir Henry Wellcome in 1936. The Trust's mission is to
foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. The Trust invested £810,000 in art that has public and scientific impact in 2001. For more information, visit www.wellcome.ac.uk