16th Annual Subtle Technologies Festival June 2013 GAT PR Press Summary
Interviews completed
Saturday June 1 Wednesday June 5 Thursday June 6 Friday June 7 Saturday June 8
Live Radio Newstalk 1010 – Saturdays with Ted Woloshyn Interviewed: Jim Ruxton, Trevor Haldenby Pre-‐recorded TV Space TV Interviewed: Jim Ruxton, Trevor Haldenby, Willy LeMaitre Live TV Global TV – The Morning Show Interviewed: Jim Ruxton Online Huffington Post – Blogs Featured: Jim Ruxton, David Khang, Ryan Jordan Live Radio CBC Metro Morninig Interviewed: Hendrik Poinar Print Interview The Epoch Times Interviewed: Scott Kildall
'De-‐extinction' of woolly mammoth possible in 30 to 50 years
McMaster Univesity prof Hendrik Poinar explains process CBC News | Posted: Jun 7, 2013 10:34 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 7, 2013 3:20 PM ET http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2013/06/07/hamilton-‐poinar-‐wooly-‐mammoth.html
https://soundcloud.com/cbc-‐hamilton
Q: Could extinct species be brought back to life? That was the fantasy of the classic film, Jurassic Park, but a Hamilton researcher thinks it can actually be done. Hendrik Poinar, professor of evolutionary genetics at McMaster University, is working on a process called "de-‐extinction." He's mapped the genome of the woolly mammoth. Friday morning he spoke with CBC Radio's Matt Galloway before his appearance at a Toronto festival called Subtle Technologies. Here's an edited and abbreviated transcript of that interview. You can also listen to the interview by clicking the play button on this page.
Q: Without getting too technical, describe what you're doing to bring back animals like the woolly mammoth? A: We're interested in the evolutionary history of these beasts. These lumbering animals lived about 10,000 years ago and went extinct. We've been recreating their genome in order to understand their origins and migrations and their extinction. That led to the inevitable discussion about if we could revive an extinct species and is it a good thing. Q: Why is this so interesting to you? There are reasons why these animals went extinct. It could be climate, it could be human-‐induced over-‐hunting. If we can understand the processes that caused extinction, maybe we can avoid them for current endangered species. Maybe we need to think about what we can do to bring back extinct species and restore ecosystems that are now dwindling. Q: Is it possible to bring these things back to life? Not now. We're looking at 30 to 50 years. Q: How would you do something like that? First thing you have to do is to get the entire blueprint. We have mapped the genome of the woolly mammoth. We're almost completely done with that as well as a couple other extinct animals. We can look at the discrete differences between a mammoth and an Asian elephant. We would take an Asian elephant chromosome and modify it with mammoth information. Technology at Harvard can actually do that. Take the modified chromosomes and put them into an Asian elephant egg. Inseminate that egg and put that into an Asian elephant and take it to term. It could be as soon as 20 years. Q: Is this such a good idea? That's the million-‐dollar question. We're not talking about dinosaurs. We'll start with the herbivores — the non-‐meat eaters. We could use the technology to re-‐introduce diversity to populations that are dwindling like the cheetah or a wolf species we know are on the verge of extinction. Could we make them less susceptible to disease? Is it good for the environment? We know that the mammoths were disproportionately important to ecosystems. All the plant species survived on the backs of these animals. If we brought the mammoth back to Siberia, maybe that would be good for the ecosystems that are changing because of climate change. Q: You are tinkering with the evolutionary process? Yes, but would you feel differently if the extinction was caused by man like it was with the passenger pigeon or the Tasmanian wolf, which were killed by humans? Even the large mammoth, there are two theories on their extinction, one is overhunting by humans …and the other is climate. Do we have a moral obligation?
What happens when our machines get smarter than we are? (No, don’t ask Siri) GEOFF PEVERE | Special to The Globe and Mail | Published Thursday, Jun. 06 2013, 12:50 PM
HTTP://WWW.THEGLOBEANDMAIL.COM/M/ARTS/FILM/WHAT-‐HAPPENS-‐WHEN-‐OUR-‐ MACHINES-‐GET-‐SMARTER-‐THAN-‐WE-‐ARE-‐NO-‐DONT-‐ASK-‐SIRI/ARTICLE12381018/
On Saturday night, various scientists, professors, futurists and philosophers will gather as part of the 16th-‐ annual Subtle Technologies festival at Toronto’s OCAD University to discuss yet another end of the world as we know it. The difference between this end and others we have already faced – like killer bees, Y2K or the mystic oblivion of the Mayan and Nostradamic variety – is contained in the word “know,” for this end anticipates the end of human knowledge, or at least the point where the machines are smarter than we are. The discussion will follow a screening of a documentary called The Singularity, filmmaker Doug Wolens’s intense, idea-‐packed account of techno-‐futurist Ray Kurzweil’s theory that by 2045, technology will have reached the point where it can out-‐think its creators, at which point the Wile E. Coyote metaphor will prevail: We’ll have run over that cliff with our legs pumping hell-‐for-‐leather above open space, not even aware of the abyss below until we finally look down. And plummet. Silly humans.
For Kurzweil himself, who is interviewed while sitting in front of conspicuously displayed copies of his best-‐selling books, the event he calls “The Singularity” is nothing to get too anxious about. It was inevitable that the technologies the human mind created to function in its own image would reach the point where they can think even faster than we can. And what then? This is The Singularity: the horizon in which our tools start thinking for, and reproducing, themselves. As future events go, this may be one of the most well-‐visited already, at least for anybody who has considered tomorrow through the speculative lenses of science fiction and popular culture. As the writer Bill McKibben points out in Wolens’s film, no realm has prepared us quite so much – nor as dramatically, skeptically and cautiously – for The Singularity than our stories of what fate might befall us if we let our inner gods take the wheel. It’s the Promethean myth rendered as microchip reckoning, a timeless tale because there’s something in it fundamental to the human spirit. From the moment we realize blocks can build or crayons can colour, we’re doomed to remake reality as we imagine it ought to be. Playing God is hard-‐wired in human folly. For a movie that ponders what the future of human intelligence in the technological might be, Wolens’s film demonstrates a decidedly old-‐school faith in the spectacle of smart people talking their not-‐so-‐fool heads off. If you can imagine that a director like Errol Morris (A Brief History of Time, The Fog of War) might lighten the conceptual load with old movie clips or a more mundane TV hack might resort to cheeseball re-‐enactments, Wolens is perfectly happy to just let his subjects yak away ad infinitum, with only the rare graph or chart to break up the torrent of crashing brainwaves. But this, in a way, provides a fascinating subliminal undercurrent to the film’s concern with the possible implications of a HAL 9000 world, because when you’re watching people talk you’re doing something no machine can yet do, and which might well mark the most impregnable boundary between human and artificial intelligence: We’re feeling as well as thinking, assessing the experience of absorbing information as well as processing the raw data. Thus, while Kurzweil might be discussing the exponential nature of AI’s development versus the linear nature of human thinking, I’m struck by the note of vague testiness in his response to critics, or the slightly impatient, slightly pedantic way he explicates theories in layperson’s terms, and wonder if he or someone else arranged those books displayed behind him. At the same time, I’m also fascinated by the number of neo-‐hippie, unkempt longhairs in the futurist realm, as though thinking so much about the future had vaulted them straight from 1971 to 2045 without any stops for fashion retrofits on the way. As I watch, I also register the way Wolens’s movie almost imperceptibly casts the thoughtfully cautionary McKibben as its voice of humanitarian reason, a role as much emphasized by the decision to keep the author dressed in black against a neutrally undressed dark background as it is to place all other speakers in much busier, visually complex environments. By sheer dint of this suggested state of atmospheric calm and clarity, McKibben comes across as The Singularity’s most reasoned, hopeful and human presence. Kurzweil might compel you to think about his ideas, but McKibben makes you feel his. This would seem to be a perfect corollary of the film’s distinction between consciousness and intelligence, the former being our experience of the latter, or what, as humans, we make of what we know. Our machines might well become smarter than we are, and the consequences of that remain open to considerable debate. Will they take us over and make prophets of Mary Shelley, Isaac Asimov, Stanley Kubrick, James Cameron or anyone else who has told tales of getting burned by our own fire? Or will they lead us to hitherto unimaginable heights of experience, knowledge and even spiritual fulfilment? Most importantly, will they laugh when the Coyote finally looks down and realizes he’s screwed things up yet again, and get the joke?
Music docs rock the Bloor North by Northeast fills the venue with music and comedy films. By: JASON ANDERSON Special to the Star, Published on Thu Jun 06 2013 http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2013/06/06/music_docs_rock_the_bloor.ht ml THE SINGULARITY: Crossing the rarely spanned gulf between the worlds of science and the arts, Subtle Technologies returns for a new edition on June 7. This year’s program includes a screening of The Singularity , a new American doc about the ways that artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and bioengineering are about to transform the future of humankind. Feel free to expand your consciousness when Doug Wolens’ film plays OCAD on June 8 at 7:30 p.m. with a panel discussion to follow.
Interviewed Festival Director Jim Ruxton and Trevor Haldenby live on Saturday June 1 – No archive available online
Thursday, June 6, 2013 on The Morning Show
http://globalnews.ca/news/618638/thursday-june-6-2013-on-the-morning-show/ EXPLORING IMMORTALITY — Jim Ruxton is on The Morning Show to preview this weekend’s Subtle Technologies 2013 conference in Toronto. This year’s theme is: Explore the Art and Science of Immortality. Toronto Show Only.
Interviewed Festival Director Jim Ruxton, The Beyond Category Curator Willy LeMaitre and Trevor Haldenby on June 5, aired June 6 – no archive available online
Thu, Jun 6: Jim Ruxton is on The Morning Show to preview this weekend’s Subtle Technologies 2013 conference in Toronto. This year’s theme is: Explore the Art and Science of Immortality. http://globalnews.ca/video/618964/exploring-‐immortality#
'De-‐extinction' of woolly mammoth possible in 30 to 50 years CBC | Posted: 06/07/2013 12:44 pm EDT | Updated: 06/07/2013 3:46 pm EDT http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/06/07/de-‐extinction-‐of-‐woolly_n_3403651.html That was the fantasy of the classic film, Jurassic Park, but a Hamilton researcher thinks it can actually be done. Hendrik Poinar, professor of evolutionary genetics at McMaster University, is working on a process called "de-‐extinction." He's mapped the genome of the woolly mammoth. Friday morning he spoke with CBC Radio's Matt Galloway before his appearance at a Toronto festival called Subtle Technologies. Here's an edited and abbreviated transcript of that interview. You can also listen to the interview by clicking the play button on this page. Q: Without getting too technical, describe what you're doing to bring back animals like the woolly mammoth? A: We're interested in the evolutionary history of these beasts. These lumbering animals lived about 10,000 years ago and went extinct. We've been recreating their genome in order to understand their origins and migrations and their extinction. That led to the inevitable discussion about if we could revive an extinct species and is it a good thing. Q: Why is this so interesting to you? There are reasons why these animals went extinct. It could be climate, it could be human-‐induced over-‐ hunting. If we can understand the processes that caused extinction, maybe we can avoid them for current endangered species. Maybe we need to think about what we can do to bring back extinct species and restore ecosystems that are now dwindling. Q: Is it possible to bring these things back to life? Not now. We're looking at 30 to 50 years. Q: How would you do something like that? First thing you have to do is to get the entire blueprint. We have mapped the genome of the woolly mammoth. We're almost completely done with that as well as a couple other extinct animals. We can look at the discrete differences between a mammoth and an Asian elephant. We would take an Asian elephant chromosome and modify it with mammoth information. Technology at Harvard can actually do that. Take the modified chromosomes and put them into an Asian elephant egg. Inseminate that egg and put that into an Asian elephant and take it to term. It could be as soon as 20 years. Q: Is this such a good idea? That's the million-‐dollar question. We're not talking about dinosaurs. We'll start with the herbivores — the non-‐meat eaters. We could use the technology to re-‐introduce diversity to populations that are dwindling like the cheetah or a wolf species we know are on the verge of extinction. Could we make them less susceptible to disease? Is it good for the environment? We know that the mammoths were disproportionately important to ecosystems. All the plant species survived on the backs of these animals. If we brought the mammoth back to Siberia, maybe that would be good for the ecosystems that are changing because of climate change. Q: You are tinkering with the evolutionary process? Yes, but would you feel differently if the extinction was caused by man like it was with the passenger pigeon or the Tasmanian wolf, which were killed by humans? Even the large mammoth, there are two theories on their extinction, one is overhunting by humans …and the other is climate. Do we have a moral obligation?
Jim Ruxton | Electronics Engineer and Media Artist
Where Art Meets Science http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jim-‐ruxton/post_4934_b_3405245.html?just_reloaded=1 Toronto based organization Subtle Technologies has been playing a role in breaking down barriers between art and science for the past 16 years. As Director of Programs, I have had the opportunity over these years to meet a number of extremely fascinating, intelligent, and creative people. When my friend Pamela Brown and I started Subtle Technologies in 1998, I assumed artists and scientists were as far apart in terms of thinking as one could imagine. Over time I have grown to appreciate the similarities far more than the differences between the disciplines. Artists and scientists share an intense curiosity and interest in the world around them. I now see both camps as explorers uncovering the hidden, whether it be a concept unspoken in society or an unseen mechanism in a cell or galaxy. Each spring when we bring a roster of artists and scientists together at our annual festival, sparks fly. While artists and scientists may have different tools, language and skills, they share the common bond of curiosity. It's been far easier to convince artists to participate in a dialogue with scientists than scientists with artists. In fact attracting scientists to participate in our festival is probably one of the most challenging aspects of my job. On the other hand those scientists who do come out of the lab to spend a weekend of creative exchange with artists tend to be extremely generous and open to collaboration with other disciplines. Scientists who may have been skeptical about the event leave transformed by the experience having learned how interested artists and the general public are in their research and what high levels of technical sophistication some artists employ in creating their work. Each year we have a theme for our festival, one which is applicable to both art and science. Previous years we have investigated light, sustainability, medicine, physics, networks, and more, all through the lens of both artists and scientists. Last year I had just given the festival opening remarks when I received an urgent call. Our soon to be born baby was on her way. It was quite appropriate that the festival theme was biology, and rather than hearing all the wonderful presentations that year I witnessed a most incredible biological event, the birth of our daughter Frida.
One of last year's highlights was a discussion around the story of Henrietta Lacks and the immortal cell line that was unknowingly extracted from a tumor on her cervix in 1951. The story of Henrietta Lacks is a sad and complex one of racial discrimination and systemic abuse. Henrietta's immortal cell line became known in medical and scientific circles as HeLa cells. They are considered immortal because when given the proper nutrients these cells grow and multiply outside the body indefinitely. They have been used around the world since 1951 for important scientific and medical breakthroughs. This year we are taking a deeper look at the concept of immortality and have themed our festival around it. This seemed an appropriate theme in terms of my life experience considering last year I took my own baby steps towards immortality by passing along my genes to Frida. One of the ways in which our organization strives to introduce artists to scientific techniques, tools and culture is to bring artists into science labs. Keeping in mind the theme of immortality we felt it would be appropriate this year to introduce artists to a tissue engineering lab where not only did they have the opportunity to grow tissues in a petri dish, they would be exposed to working with HeLa cells along with other immortal cell lines. Three weeks ago 16 artists donned lab coats and with the guidance of Australian bioartist Oron Catts learned the intricacies of tissue engineering. Oron is the director of SymbioticA, the Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, within the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia. Oron puts great emphasis on understanding the ethics behind this work, how the cells are derived, who owns them, and the source of the nutrients that sustain their life. The workshop took place in scientist Andrew Pelling's biophysics lab at the University of Ottawa. Andrew recognizes the value of working with and supporting artists to be involved in science based practices. His own work is pushing forward our knowledge of cells, cell structures, and how they respond to external forces. The artists came away with new skills and insights into how they might incorporate live tissues into their art practice. One of the artists who participated had MRI scans of his spine, printed a section on a 3D printer, and then during the workshop commenced to grow skin cells over the vertebrae. We are determined to look into some of the distant places and crevices each festival theme can take us. There are numerous other ways to think about immortality and the festival will provide a window into them via workshops, screenings, exhibitions, and presentations. I would never have imagined sixteen years ago that we would still be running a festival today. Sixteen years doesn't make us immortal, but for me, it's all about the baby steps even if they become exponential. This year's Subtle Technologies Festival will take place June 7 to 9, 2013. It will kick off with the opening of "The Beyond Category" at Beaver Hall Gallery (29 McCaul Street). Presentations will be at Ryerson University LIB 72 (350 Victoria Street) on Saturday and Sunday. For more information, please visit subtletechnologies.com/festival
| Ryan
Jordan | Electronic Artist
The Weird and Wonderful World of Retro-‐ Death-‐Telegraphy http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ryan-‐jordan/retro-‐death-‐telegraphy_b_3412940.html Paddling erratically through the stagnant backwaters of the scientific occult, retro-‐ death-‐telegraphy clumsily bumps into spectres mumbling schizophrenic voices through fraudulent crystal mediums. Maverick scientists explain in the best way they can messages received from the Unknown. The hidden has been revealed and radiates its crackles and hiss through the air and the earth, spiralling through electromagnetic currents to disturb its targets in the aether. There is a coded message inside the noise of the earth. Retro-‐death-‐telegraphy was initially devised as an experimental workshop exploring and building a range of technological devices which have at some point been believed to have the potential to aid in communication with the afterlife. It refers to the pre-‐cursors of digital technology and wireless communications of the Victorian era as these then new devices were situated within a popular spiritualist religious context with many scientists of the day regularly attending seances. For some the new devices being developed held potential spiritual powers, where others were determined to expose the mediums as fraudulent. The materials used to make these devices are mainly elements such as copper fillings, chunks of germanium crystals and galena crystals with their signals being amplified into audible frequencies. Some of these techniques were explored previously in the The Crystal World, a project in collaboration with Jonathan Kemp and Martin Howse which examined the material make up of contemporary digital culture. Exploration of the pre-‐cursors of digital technologies uncovered devices such as the coherer, a primitive radio receiver made with two electrodes and metal fillings (copper
for example). The coherer was in turn a pre-‐cursor to crystal radios which used materials such as germanium and galena. These devices were developed during the Victorian era, a time when spiritualism and mesmerism were popular beliefs. Many scientists of the day were regular attendees of seances and mediums, such as William Crookes and Oliver Lodge, both of whom were distinguished scientists but also belonging to groups and organizations such as The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and the The Ghost Club, with Crookes also belonging to the Theosophical Society and an initiate of The Golden Dawn. Their spiritual and scientific beliefs were intertwined. This infusion of science and spiritualism holds a specific interest and appeal as the beliefs may not be scientifically valid but the technological advances were of great importance to the development of modern day technologies. Following the trail of Crookes, Lodge, and the SPR, we stumble across a group who appeared more recently in the 1990's in a small village in the county of Norfolk, U.K. They were known as the Scole Experimental Group and carried out hours of experiments and seances which allegedly provided many physical objects appearing in the room, images and texts appearing on blank film, balls of light appearing and two-‐ way conversations taking place via a technological device constructed by the group but dictated to them from a "spirit team." The experiments are reportedly one of the most scientifically scrutinized and observed projects to attempt to prove the existence of life after death. Of specific interest is the Scole Experimental Group's Germanium Trans-‐Dimensional Communication Receptor; a technological device constructed to aid in two-‐way communication with the afterlife. This device consists of a piece of germanium crystal with a point contact attached to two 5000 ohm coils and the signal of this is passed through a battery powered amplifier to loudspeakers. Through this device they reported having many conversations with the "spirit world." This device was recreated last year and was one of the devices built in this year's workshop at the Subtle Technologies Festival. As yet there has been no communication with anything, merely static howls and screams of white noise. The reader is also encouraged to look up simple examples of germanium crystal radios and compare them with the Germanium Trans-‐Dimensional Communication Receptor. Were the Scole Group a case of the modern day fraudulent medium? Instead of spewing ectoplasm and levitating tables, are they revisiting early technology and misinterpreting the signal? Or perhaps it really does work and we have yet to decode the message hidden inside the noise of the earth. This year's Subtle Technologies Festival will tale place June 7 to 9, 2013. For more information, please visit subtletechnologies.com/festival
| David
Khang | Biological Artist
When Art and Dentistry Mix, You Get This http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-‐khang/botox-‐dentrisy-‐art_b_3413003.html
When occasions dictate, I introduce myself as "an artist whose favourite hobby is dentistry." I came to dentistry as a result of what I call "an accident of migrant experience" -‐ a common path for children of immigrant families facing pressures to establish cultural, economic, and emotional security within certain professions. After reaching some of these benchmarks, my intellectual curiosities would lead me to professionalize in multiple vocations, beyond the safety of disciplinary borders. Phillip Roth, the American novelist, commented that he needs reality to write: "I need two sticks of reality to rub together, to write something new." In my current research, art and dentistry become two sticks of reality, in search of something new and insightful across disciplines. Amelogeneis Imperfecta and Beautox Me, two of my recent projects that combine art and dentistry, were presented at Subtle Technologies 2013 festival under the theme of Immortality. Amelogenesis Imperfecta (How deep is the skin of teeth) is a project that achieved modest success in its failure. It is a "bio-‐art" experiment conducted at SymbioticA Centre for Biological Arts, University of Western Australia, in Perth. Utilizing their research facilities, I attempted to replicate bioresearch that explores growing enamel from stem cells. My objective as an artist, however, was to produce what are in effect tiny enamel sculptures, the shapes of which would be determined by the shapes of bio-‐scaffolds upon which the stem cells grew. Given the modest success achieved-‐to-‐date by major international institutions (Harvard University and University of Tokyo), a successful outcome for one
clinical dentist fumbling through intricate multi-‐step research protocols was highly improbable. Of course I already knew this; my aim was rather philosophical in nature. Enamel is technically a non-‐living, inorganic tissue that exists in living bodies. I sought to create a relic-‐like object that reminds us of the life-‐death continuum, produced from the very stem cells that entice us with the promise of immortality. Then there is the un(der)stated and sober reality of what life form provides these pluripotential stem cells that enable such bioresearch worldwide. After all, stem cells don't just materialize out of thin air. Just as we rarely think deeply about the sources of packaged meat products on store shelves, many of us are oblivious to the ubiquitous usage of fetal bovine serum in bioresearch. Whether we like it or not, we are implicated in these interdependent inter-‐species relations of living, dying, and killing. Beautox Me, on the other hand, has strictly intra-‐species, human implications -‐ unless, of course, we count the bacteria specie Clostridium botulinum, from which the Botulinum toxin is produced (can we imagine brushing our teeth in the morning as killing bacteria?). When British Columbia became the first province that licensed dentists for therapeutic Botox injections in 2007, my art project began its gestation. While indications for Botox include bruxism, headaches, and muscle spasms, we most commonly know it as a quick fix, if not for immortality, then at least towards the appearance of eternal youth. Opportunistically, I signed up for a Botox workshop with a local dermatologist. Rather than using a canvas to paint on, I asked, what if an actor's face becomes the surface upon which to sculpt away wrinkles? In an era of High Definition media, we come to scrutinize, and to desire the smooth, pore-‐less skin of actors and celebrities, and then rush to fulfill these mimetic desires. I worked with two actors whose experimental practices made them ideal collaborators for this project that included facial Botox injections. The actors then posed for "before" and "after" video shoots while reciting highly affective Shakespearean soliloquies. The resulting two-‐channel HD video highlights the uncanny (perhaps even creepy?) differential appearance as the result of Botox-‐induced muscle paralysis. Both projects, I believe, act as mirrors to some of our enduring as well as shifting cultural values, and the subtle technologies that are quietly and busily at work under our skin. This year's Subtle Technologies Festival will took place June 7 to 9, 2013. For more information, please visit subtletechnologies.com/festival
Toronto Technology Symposium Discusses Tweets to Aliens, Superhumans By Kristina Skorbach, Epoch Times | June 16, 2013 http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/111334-‐toronto-‐technology-‐symposium-‐discusses-‐tweets-‐ to-‐aliens-‐superhumans/ Sending out tweets to an exoplanet 22 light years away and the ever increasing role of science and technology in our lives were some of the topics featured at the Subtle Technologies Symposium last weekend in Toronto at the Ryerson University campus downtown. This June, the annual event that went into its 16th year, picked up from last year’s topic on immortality and gathered scientists, artists, and filmmakers from around North America to talk about the recent advances in the field of technology, as well as art work merging with science. Tweets in Space San Francisco-‐based independent artist, Scott Kildall, has a vision to combine science and art and involve public participation. He partnered with Nathaniel Stern, an art and design professor, for their first project which involved the launch of a Wikipedia Art page. The idea was to upload art on a Wikipedia page that anyone would be able to edit. After the page was created, however, it was taken down by Wikipedia after 15 hours of its inception. The two artists then turned their attention to another project: Tweets in space. Under this project, tweets with the hashtag #tweetsinspace were collected on Sept. 21, 2012 and were sent out as messages to aliens later that year in November. The two artists rented a high amplitude and high frequency radio telescope and the tweets were transmitted via analog and digital signals. They chose to send the tweets to exoplanet GJ667Cc, a planet 22 light years away from us, said to be the closest planet that most likely supports life form. “I think a lot of people have fascinations with extraterrestrials and aliens in space,” Kildall said at the Subtle Technologies talk. “There’s no question that it’s out there and there’s no question that eventually we’ll have some sort of contact. “Sending Twitter messages is a way of getting people to participate in a very easy way and a very democratic way,” he said. And people could even do so with an anonymous Twitter account. According to Kildall, it could take all of a thousand years to have a conversation with lifeforms outside our planet, but people like to think of time in terms of their immediate lives, so it was important to introduce the idea that if one day we can extend our lives, we can still participate and witness this ongoing conversation. What stood out most about the project for Kildall was the content of the messages. Some of the messages were simple greetings and references to pop culture, but many were focused on
asking the extraterrestrials to pardon the state of the human society and apologizing for our behaviour. Kildall said people also sent out jokes asking aliens “please don’t eat us.” “If anyone out there reads this, please don’t judge humanity by our wars, carelessness, & reality tv, but by moments of good,” wrote Twitter user @ohlauren on September 21. “Hey we just found you and this is crazy but we’re from Earth. Call us, maybe?” wrote 2020@Astro. “Saying that we’ve really messed up a lot of times in history, but we at heart are good species … almost that idea of redemption, forgiveness was expressed,” Kildall said. Assuming an immediate response from the aliens, Kildall said, a reply from aliens would arrive in 44 years, considering the transmission time. While acknowledging that the chance of receiving a reply is slim, Kildall said the thought of communicating with alienist sparks people’s imagination. With advances in science and technology, it’s also likely humans will find new, more effective ways of communicating with aliens in the near future, Kildall said. Creating Superhumans The symposium also featured the screening of the documentary The Singularity. Singularity refers to the point in time when computer intelligence exceeds human intelligence. Producer Doug Wolens, along with others, commented on some questions raised after the film from the audience. Some scientists and policy makers were confident that humans are still in control of machines and that we wouldn’t let technology reach a stage where it could potentially take the reigns and cause us harm. Some others argued however that we’re heading in the direction of technology holding a dangerous grip on us. Noted futurist and Google’s Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, said that technology is moving at an exponential pace towards a singularity, a term coined by Kurzweil in his bestselling book The Singularity Is Near. For example, imagine microchips floating inside one’s blood stream, being able to detect any abnormality in the human body or wound and repair it from the inside out. “It’s awesome that we try to figure it out, but at the same time have some humility and go ‘we won’t know it till we get there’,” said Wolens. It took the Chicago native some 10 years to compile the documentary. Questions about pros and cons of using advanced technology were also raised by thinkers from around the world. Bill McKibben, author and environmentalist who was also featured in the film, gave the following example to the audience: A couple wants to conceive a child and tinkers with the DNA to make the child taller and smarter. Three years down the road the couple wants to have another child, but now technology is better, they again want to choose which genes are expressed in the child’s makeup and want the child to be even smarter, better looking, etc. Will this mean that the first child is now running Windows 95? Based on his interviews with scientists, futurists, and philosophers for over a decade, Wolens concluded: “There are certainly forces that are scientific or technological that we might not be able to stop.” He noted, however, that issues such as corporate and marketing influence can still be contended with.
'De-‐extinction' of woolly mammoth possible in 30 to 50 years http://ca.news.yahoo.com/extinction-‐woolly-‐mammoth-‐possible-‐30-‐50-‐years-‐154432961.html CBC – Fri, 7 Jun, 2013 That was the fantasy of the classic film, Jurassic Park, but a Hamilton researcher thinks it can actually be done. Hendrik Poinar, professor of evolutionary genetics at McMaster University, is working on a process called "de-‐extinction." He's mapped the genome of the woolly mammoth. Friday morning he spoke with CBC Radio's Matt Galloway before his appearance at a Toronto festival called Subtle Technologies. Here's an edited and abbreviated transcript of that interview. You can also listen to the interview by clicking the play button on this page. A: We're interested in the evolutionary history of these beasts. These lumbering animals lived about 10,000 years ago and went extinct. We've been recreating their genome in order to understand their origins and migrations and their extinction. That led to the inevitable discussion about if we could revive an extinct species and is it a good thing. There are reasons why these animals went extinct. It could be climate, it could be human-‐induced over-‐ hunting. If we can understand the processes that caused extinction, maybe we can avoid them for current endangered species. Maybe we need to think about what we can do to bring back extinct species and restore ecosystems that are now dwindling. Not now. We're looking at 30 to 50 years. First thing you have to do is to get the entire blueprint. We have mapped the genome of the woolly mammoth. We're almost completely done with that as well as a couple other extinct animals. We can look at the discreet differences between a mammoth and an Asian elephant. We would take an Asian elephant chromosome and modify it with mammoth information. Technology at Harvard can actually do that. Take the modified chromosomes and put them into an Asian elephant egg. Inseminate that egg and put that into an Asian elephant and take it to term. It could be as soon as 20 years. That's the million-‐dollar question. We're not talking about dinosaurs. We'll start with the herbivores — the non-‐meat eaters. We could use the technology to re-‐introduce diversity to populations that are dwindling like the cheetah or a wolf species we know are on the verge of extinction. Could we make them less susceptible to disease? Is it good for the environment? We know that the mammoths were disproportionately important to ecosystems. All the plant species survived on the backs of these animals. If we brought the mammoth back to Siberia, maybe that would be good for the ecosystems that are changing because of climate change. Yes, but would you feel differently if the extinction was caused by man like it was with the passenger pigeon or the Tasmanian wolf, which were killed by humans? Even the large mammoth, there are two theories on their extinction, one is overhunting by humans …and the other is climate. Do we have a moral obligation?
Subtle Technologies http://news.ca.msn.com/ontario/toronto/subtle-‐technologies Science and art, hearts and minds – the essential ingredients of human advancement – are integrated at the annual Subtle Technologies Festival. And this year sees the Festival tackle the ultimate theme: Immortality. The Festival will ponder resurrecting extinct species and even early hominids using DNA. And even as human life-‐spans increase, other angles present themselves – including digital preservation of consciousness and bold imaginings of scientifically accessing the afterlife. Put it all together, and you have the makings of one mind-‐expanding weekend at four different venues in Toronto.; Location: Ryerson University Library, 350 Victoria St., Toronto, ON Starts: 6/7/2013 10:00:00 AM, Ends: 6/7/2013 11:59:59 P
Subtle Technologies Festival 2013 http://www.blogto.com/events/77513
Science and art, hearts and minds – the essential ingredients of human advancement -‐ are integrated at the annual Subtle Technologies Festival. And this year sees the Festival tackle the ultimate theme: Immortality. http://subtletechnologies.com/festival/ The Festival will ponder resurrecting extinct species and even early hominids using DNA. And even as human life-‐ spans increase, other angles present themselves – including digital preservation of consciousness and bold imaginings of scientifically accessing the afterlife. Put it all together, and you have the makings of one mind-‐ expanding weekend in Toronto.
Subtle Technologies -‐ Explore the Art and Science of IMMORTALITY http://hyemusings.blogspot.ca/2013/06/subtle-‐technologies-‐explore-‐art-‐and.html
Science and art, hearts and minds – the essential ingredients of human advancement -‐ are integrated at the annualSubtle Technologies Festival. And this year the festival tackles a very intriguing theme: Immortality. Subtle Technologies will ponder resurrecting extinct species and even early hominids using DNA. And even as human life-‐spans increase, other angles present themselves – including digital preservation of consciousness and bold imaginings of scientifically accessing the afterlife. Put it all together, and you have the makings of one mind-‐expanding weekend at four different venues in Toronto. Sounds like my kind of convention, conference, and festival all wrapped-‐up in one! Subtle Technologies is an internationally-‐known weekend-‐long think-‐tank featuring leading-‐edge artists and scientists. The provocative program of symposium presentations, workshop, film screening and art exhibition, kicks off June 7th with an opening reception at the Beaver Hall Gallery. The reception will feature works on immortality from The Beyond Category artists David Khang, Scott Kildall/Nathaniel Sterne, John Paul Robinson, and Alan Sondheim. Festival highlights on Day 1 include DNA from Fossils, Time Travel and De-‐Extinction, a symposium by McMaster University Paleogeneticist Hendrik Poinar who will talk about the feasibility and the ethics of “bringing them back alive.” Followed by a similarly themed presentation, Undoing Forever, which is a live
radio documentary about bringing extinct species back from the dead, with CBC Radio producer and biologist Britt Wray.
Artist's impression of Gliese 667 Cb with the Gliese 667 A/B binary in the background. Source: Wikipedia Included in Day 1, space enthusiasts will be excited by the return of Tweets In Space, a project by San Francisco cross-‐disciplinary artist Scott Kildall to beam tweets toward GJ667Cc, a planet 22 light years away. Last year’s effort drummed up 1,500 texts, about a tweet-‐per-‐second, which were transmitted via high-‐powered radio telescope last November. What about Day 2? You can continue with David Khang, a part-‐time Doctor of Dental Surgery at University of Toronto, as well as a faculty member of Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, who presentsAmelogenesis Imperfecta / Beautox Me! that fuses the disciplines of art and dentistry with enamel sculptures, and botox, as seen through Dr. Khang’s spoken presentation and video demo. “We Will Be Different”: Some Notes On Science Fiction and Immortality, closes Day 2 with a discussion of the politics and ethics of immortality against a sci-‐fi backdrop, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein onward. Trent University cultural studies professor Veronica Hollinger joins moderator Roberta Buiani for an existential discussion about our very natures. The festival will also feature The Singularity; a film screening and talk with Doug Wolens. His thought-‐ provoking documentary about the tipping point when computer intelligence exceeds that of humans. Will we become more machine-‐like? The event will feature a presentation on AI and brain interfaces by Randal A. Koeneand a panel discussion moderated by Greg Van Alstyne. These are but highlights of what's in store at the two-‐day festival. Having an avid interest in neuroscience, science in general, arts, and culture, I am delighted to see a festival that is sure to get our mind juices flowing. Subtle Technologies -‐ Explore the Art and Science of IMMORTALITY 16th Annual Festival Bringing Together Leading Edge Thinkers of Science & Art June 7 – 9 | Toronto, Ontario | Various Venues For details on Venues, Ticket Prices, and Schedule visit subtletechnologies.com/festival
We have uploaded all the pictures we took during the festival to Flickr for your use, click on the collage to access them.
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