PROJECT


Title:
    Data as companion species


While Dona Haraway explored the dichotomy of our relation with machine and animal,both with envy and a sense of their possible similarity; this project deals with our unique data, both the one that we produce atevery movement in our digitalenviironment and our own biological data that is included in our DNA, this one also is sometimes considered as one of the possible references to identity but it can only be examined and rendered via sophisticated technological means. We want to address the uncanny relation one can develop to something that is diverted from the physical self, asking in what way  it can stand on an equal relation to our persona.
 
On an other hand while DNA seems to use a very achieved and mysterious data storage process it could be almost qualified as noble in contrast to our current very heavy archaic, /clumsy/maladroits digital processes, it is with this understanding that artists coming from the digital environment want to approach the wetlab as an explorative environment for divergent data  visualization models. That both relate to the material itself and to our perception of it in relation to our sense of identity. 

We plan to explore the simple version of DNA barcoding that is offered as a DIY proposiion developed by the biohacklab la paillasse in Paris (http://lapaillasse.org/la-version-quick-and-dirty-du-dna-barcoding/) and use it to grasp an idea and axplore a possible visual associated to the complexity of our own DNA. By this mean we would first like to get more familiar with this uncanny companion of ourseves, in a way that was promoted by critical art ensemble when they publicly performed such processes intending to demistify them for the public. 

However this data is ourself but not quite so; it can somehow be separated and reused by unexpected instances, and this project aims to explore the contrast that could be presented in confronting our own personal dna encoding and reinstalling it in space via different processes and experiments that would function as many  narratives. This proposition functions as a narrative translation of those discoveries starting from the magical dna information-"data" we want to translate it through different protocols, visual sound performative. We will explore both live and digital renders building a hosting environment for this data-self, doing justice to the properly amazing complexity of this natural organisation,  but equally acknowledging in our representations are triggered by social processes that are the reference points of our representation models.

To this aim, we will build on previous knowledge where we rendered computational processes and information would it be sound installations (www.walker.domainepublic.net ), or to game environment for the quantified self (www.lesoiseaux.io), or textile via hacked knitted machines ( http://www.xxx-clairewilliams-xxx.com  )


Quick presentation,  why us :


For this project we will build on a common experience of computational practices and data representation accross different mediums. Our projects have explored an embodied relation to information, and how this digital environment can be perceptually active, via either from participative projects, or through fostering a different relation to different type of body related information and caption devices, exploring physical materialisation of information in textile rendering or street performance, and sound perception; more recently creating a exploratory environment for self quantification practices. Furthermore  we both have been very much involved in critical making and DIY movement and different looking also into communities revolving around hackerspaces that have allowed to develop unique knoledge and working methods in computational practices and equally hauting bioart labs in Brussels and Paris, we believe in public  access to technological processes via collective endavours accessible docuentation and open experimentation.

How do we comply with the badawards aims:
       We are glad to submit this proposition in a programme that aims to foster dynamic and creative relations between arts and science in a way to trigger mutual enrichement between artistic and technological viewpoints associating strengh that address many shared issues such as the relation from body to technology, while sharing interrrogations and methodologies. We are eager to put our experience as digital artists designer to the service of a new perspective on what is considered our biological  identity. Natacha Roussel has specifically  supported her Phd in a research group dedicated to fostering art and science collaborations: art and sciencededicated research group: http://www.institut-acte.cnrs.fr/art-sciences/equipe/ ,  and she is extremely motivated to bring her practice in domains previously reserved to a science only perspective.
   and she is well aware of the benefits and the difficulties of working in a multisciplinary environment specifically a STEAM context. Furthermore, our experience as performance artists allows us to problematize biotechnology processes with regards to a long history of art dealing with body related issues.  
   The multidisciplinary approach that we have choosen is directly related to our art and science experience and aims to emphasise DIY experimentation, focusing on a pedagogical approach that present the laboratory processes as accessible, and understandable for a broader public. We strongly believe that in our actual technological society, demistification of scientific processes are a matter of democracy in a way as a knowledge of those processes is needed to allow for public debate.
    Our project by addressing a very active field of biotechnology that is currently triggering many issues, from intimacy to social organization and privacy aims to foster an alternative perspectivethat values creativity and experimentation to imagine a different relation to biotechnogies.
    Rather than looking at a possible technoutopian or dystopian world we choose to focus on the processes themselfs would they be the extraordinary organization our biological selves our the clumsy technological response we formulate, and set creative and visual experimentation tools.
    
    bio:
Claire Williams lives in Brussels. She  graduated from ENSAV La Cambre with a master degree in Textile Design.  She works on personal projects and collaborations with other artists,  researchers, hackers and non profit organizations. Involving open source  textiles,floss software & hardware, hacked knitting machines and electronics.  Her work explores data as an artistic matter by translating it through different processes such as  textile, machines, sonification and visulaisation.
 website: www.xxx-clairewilliams-xxx.com/ . 
 research : https://xxxclairewilliamsxxx.wordpress.com/
     



     Idées en vrac:
    - Le rapport avec l'imagerie médical déjà existante, les outils, mais aussi la manière dont les données sont appréhendés de manière purement scientifique.dans ce milieu. Qu es ce qui se passe si ont tente de visulaiser ces données avec un regard artistque, sensible? Qu es ce que ces image représenentent pour nous? De quelle manière elles nous décrivent? Ces sont en plus les seuls représentations que nous avons de nous mêmes, de notre intérieur, empreinte génétique. VF mémoire de Baptiste Tosi (graphiste qui a fait un mémoire sur l'imagerie médicale)
 b_tosi@hotmail.fr
 
     -empreintes digitales /doigts et digital numérique
     -Le textile comme 2ème peau contenant quels données en plus de celles de notre empreinte adn? 
     
     Liens :
         L'amplification en chaîne par polymérase,  il s'agit de fabriquer de nombreuses copies de cet ADN pour que celui-ci soit « visible » à la fin de l'analyse.  https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9action_en_cha%C3%AEne_par_polym%C3%A9rase
         https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/PCR.svg
               
    Bouses/appels etc..
     http://www.ctm-festival.de/projects/encac-european-network-for-contemporary-audiovisual-creation/

Questions a éclaircir:
    - Distrib financière de la bourse..