[ISEA2022] Paper: Maria Manuela Lopes — Hybrid Art: technology and nature in arts practice and mediation

Abstract

Short paper, theme: Natures and Worlds: Ecosystems and hibryd agencies
Venue: CCCB, date: June 15

Keywords: Hybrid Arts Research, Art/Science, Nature, Memory, Mediation

Hybrid Art: technology and nature in arts practice and mediation, reflects on a series of installations produced in 2021 and 2022 for the “Hybrid Culture” exhibitions (3 different ones in distinct locations as part of “Viver ao Vivo” project) and for the “Contingency” exhibition (ARTECH 2021). The text highlights the complex entanglement of producing and mediating art with technology and nature elements.

These installations arise from the focus on images produced in scientific laboratories and my ethnographic exploration of the relation between what I considered to be different virtual archival spaces (i.e. the natural environment, the studio, the art gallery, the laboratory, my body). Its main aim was to establish a critical link between the scientific imaging process and practices and visual arts, in a highly technical society where the experience of nature is somehow mediated, as well as memories, and there is a sense of technically constructed nature.

  • Maria Manuela Lopes is a visual artist whose practice is transdisciplinary, investigating relations of memory and iden-tity informed by the biological sciences and medical research; her work appears in a varied format within the visual arts re-sulting in multimedia installations, drawings and performances. She studied sculpture at FBA-UP and MA at Goldsmiths Col-lege in London. She has a Doctorate in Fine Arts and New Media at the University of Brighton and UCA-Farnham in the UK. She did a Postdoc Art Research Project at the University of Aveiro and Porto – i3S Institute of Research and Innovation in Health. Lopes is Visual Arts Adjunct Professor at ESE – Institute Politech of Porto IPP and a researcher at i3S as co-responsible for the Cultural Outreach Art/Science interface. Maria Manuela Lopes has curated several international exhibitions and her work has been shown nationally and internationally. She is also co-founder and Deputy Director of Portu-guese artistic residency programs: Ectopia – Laboratory of Artistic Experimentation and Cultivamos Cultura. https://hybrid.i3s.up.pt/team/maria-manuela-lopes