[ISEA2023] Panel: Mariana Perez Bobadilla, Elizabeth Demaray & Carlos Castellanos — Cosmologies of Care: Epistemological and Ontological Repositioning of Symbiotic Relationships in Art and Living Systems

Panel Statement

Theme: Other Cosmologies Subtheme:  Symbiotic Organizations

Keywords: Bioart, collaboration, transpecies relations, symbiosis, parasitism, care, AI, posthuman.

Despite the often wide phenomenological and ontological divides between humans and non-humans (or indeed because of them), artists have experimented with a myriad of methods of “collaboration” with myriad different species. This panel will explore the tricky edges of collaboration, asking how art-making can be a way of understanding trans/inter/cross-species relationships; or as environmental  biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests, how can we learn
from instead of learning about the more-than-human world?

How do we understand the aims, desires and perceptual landscape of the non-human? We will discuss these questions as well as unpack terms such as symbiosis, parasitism, commensalism and mutualism. In doing so we hope to elucidate how the arts can contribute to an epistemological and ontological decentering, in order to open up possibilities for heretofore unconsidered collaborative relations.

  • Carlos Castellanos is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose work bridges science, technology, education and the arts, developing a network of creative interaction with living systems, the natural environment and emerging technologies. He is Assistant Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology (USA).
  • Mariana Perez Bobadilla (Maro Pebo), Mexico City, is an artist and art historian specialized in the cultural dimensions of the life sciences. Born in Mexico City. Ph.D. in Creative Media (City University of Hong Kong), MA in Critical and Gender Studies (Bologna University, Italy). http://maropebo.com
  • Elizabeth Demaray is a sculptor and interdisciplinary artist known for her inquiries into the interface between the built and the natural environment. Demaray is an associate professor of fine arts] and head of the sculpture concentration at Rutgers University–Camden. She lives and works in Brooklyn, USA. https://elizabethdemaray.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Demaray