At the Table - Narratives on the Technological,
the Imagined, and the Dead Body
Saturday, 5th December, Sesc Consolação, São Paulo
Hanging (detail) Aya Ben Ron
The
project assembles narratives of the ongoing conglomeration between
bodies and implantations, between humans and devices, of the interfaces between the human body with artefacts and different technologies. Technological
modifications to and transformations of the body seem sensible and
legitimate whenever they have a therapeutic or socially integrative
character. Nevertheless, the question inevitably arises as to where the
boundary needs to be drawn regarding this self-reshaping. At what point
should the problems of resources and social justice take priority over
the right to self-optimization? Does – ultimately – the desire for
self-transformation correspond to the logic of a global ideology of
growth that fantasizes itself into an intricately networked, neoliberal,
appallingly unjust future? Or can we imagine fantastic techno-bodies,
who propagate a recognition of difference and are able to coalesce
machines, the organic, desire, and the imagination?
Experts from
different disciplines take a seat at the table and tell of the transformative
potential – through technology and fictions – of our bodies. We begin with the
dead, the bodies forgotten and unidentifiable, in which our future lies buried.
This is followed by dialogues on bodies with disabilities which challenge our
technological and social possibilities. And we end with the desires for and the
imagining of bodies that are on the threshold to something different, a nascent
form of existence that potentially fuses with other humans, animals, gods, and
machines. Take a seat at the
table.
15:00 The narration of the bones: The body as a mnemonic device by Clara Ianni & Luiz Fontes
16:15 The 2006 Disability Act and the 2010 Anti-Inclusion Manifesto - How the right to
imperfection is challenging society by Marta Almeida Gil & Estela Lapponi
17:30 Deep Brain Stimulation I: Neural
prostheses for Parkinson’s disease by Victor Rosetto Barboza & Erich Fonoff
18:30 Deep Brain Stimulation II: Neural
prostheses for depression by Erich Fonoff & Christian Dunker
19:30 Shamanism as a Technology of the Body: How
to approach virtual worlds and information by Fabianne M. Borges & Laymert Garcia dos Santos
20:45 Current speculations and anticipations on
a future body by Laerte
Coutinho & Amara Moira &
Jean Wyllys
Every dialogue is followed by a 20 minute
discussion with the following hecklers and guests:
Max Hinderer Jorge Cruz, Rodrigo Maltez Novaes, Benjamin
Serroussi, , Marcia Tiburi, and Rita Wu.
Dialogues and discussion in Portuguese with simultaneous
translation into English.
A project by Mobile Academy Berlin presented by Goethe-Institut
and SESC.
Participants:
Victor Rossetto Barboza is a neurosurgeon at Hospital das Clínicas de São
Paulo. He is currently working with deep brain stimulation (DBS) in
cases of epilepsy, pain in traumatic spine lesion and Parkinson’s disease.
Fabiane M. Borges has a PhD in
clinical psychology and is an essayist and artist. Her research focuses on
Space-art, art and technology, shamanism, performance and subjectivity.
Laerte Coutinho is a recognized and respected cartoonist
and caricaturist who, at age 57, started gender transitioning, opening a
profound discussion on gender identity in Brazil.
Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz works as a writer, cultural critic, and
translator specializing in materialist aesthetics, Latin American Studies,
colonial economy, and Brazilian 20th century art.
Christian
Ingo Lenz Dunker is a psychoanalyst and professor at the
Department of Clinic Psychology at the Institute of Psychology of the
University of São Paulo. His research centers on clinical psychoanalysis of
Lacanian orientation and its relations to Language Sciences and Philosophy.
Clara Ianni is
an artist
whose work uses several medias such as video, installation,
intervention, sculpture and texts. Her research focuses on the relationship
between art and politics, exploring its ideological implications.
Erich Fonoff is Associate
Professor in the Neurology Department at the Faculty of Medicine at the
University of São Paulo. His current work is based on functional neurosurgical
treatment for neuropsychiatric diseases and the anatomical and physiological mapping of the nervous system.
Luiz Roberto de Oliveira
Fontes is both a doctor of
Obstetrics/Gynecology and Forensic Anthropology. As a forensic anthropologist
his interest lies in diagnosing the cause and the approximate time of death,
and the human identification in cases that are hard to solve by
conventional methods.
Marta
Almeida Gil is
a sociologist who has set up the Saci network of information (www.saci.org.br) whose aim is to develop the knowledge
necessary to understand the extent and nature of the varying disabilities
affecting so many of Brazil's citizens.
Estela Lapponi
is a São Paulo based artist who creates authorial works in contemporary dance,
performance, and visual arts. She investigates artistically and conceptually
the terminology she created – “Corpointruso” - in which she advocates taking a
different stance regarding everything that is outside normalizing standards. In 2010 she wrote
the ANTI-INCLUSION Manifesto.
Amara Moira
is a writer, transgender prostitute, and activist. She is the author of the
blog What if I was a Prostitute in which she writes about her
experience as a prostitute, and raises questions related to transphobia and
prostitution.
Rodrigo Maltez Novaes is a visual artist,
designer, and translator, who now heads the long-term project of the
translation and publication of Vilém Flusser's work from Brazilian-Portuguese
into English
Laymert
Garcia dos Santos is an essayist and university lecturer in the field of sociology and
technology at the University of Campinas, in São Paulo state, and he has
published on the topics of art, culture and technology
Benjamin Seroussi is
the director of Casa do Povo
and curator at Vila Itororó. These
projects focus on developing cultural institutions based on collective
management techniques, in a close dialogue with their respective surroundings
and with wider urban issues.
Marcia Tiburi has
a PhD in Philosophy and is a writer and professor at Mackenzie University in
Sao Paulo. She was one of the hostesses of Saia
Justa at GNT television channel and she has written several books on
philosophy, biopolitics, aesthetics and ethics.
Rita Wu is an artist, designer
and programmer. She explores the relation among body, space and technology,
investigating the expansion that technology can bring to our space perception
through wearable interfaces.
Jean Wyllys
is lecturer, journalist and politician and is a member of the parliamentary
front in defense of LGBT rights.
