[artinfo] Kaunas University of Technology hosts Zooetics, a lecture and seminar series

[Art&Education]

"Zooetics: Cross-disciplinary Approaches to 
Interspecies Ecology in Art, Science and 
Technology"

December 5-20, 2014

<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=2690&N=10722&L=20699&F=H>Kaunas 
University of Technology 
KTU Santaka Valley
59 K.Bar”ausko Street
51423 Kaunas
Lithuania

www.zooetics.net


National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre 
of Kaunas University of Technology and Jutempus 
Interdisciplinary Art Research Program launches 
"Zooetics," a five-year-long exploration of 
future environmental fictions and models.

"Zooetics" is a notion in progress to explore new 
ways to engage human knowledge and research with 
other forms of life-from mammals to microbes to 
mollusks-and to imagine designs, prototypes and 
interfaces for future interspecies ecologies. 

The "Zooetics" research aims to address the 
crisis in human relationships with the 
environment by unpacking notions of anthropocene, 
nature and inter-species, and looking at new 
conjunctions across these concepts. Part of the 
"Zooetics" process will involve finding a common 
language across disciplines in the sciences and 
arts. Another part will engage the frontier site 
of disconnection between human knowledge and the 
knowledge of other life, by using fiction 
(literary and visual) as a method to engage with 
the unknown, unknowable and apparently insoluble.

With its initial event-a series of public 
lectures and seminars in December 2014-"Zooetics" 
addresses the paradigm shift in science, culture 
and society proposed in post-humanist research 
and in arguments for the anthropocene age. This 
discourse is inspired by and situated within the 
site of the historically negotiated border 
between Kaunas University of Technology and the 
Lithuanian National Zoo.

On this border a new terrain for hi-tech 
scientific research and innovation infrastructure 
is being projected. "Zooetics" looks at the 
possibilities of innovation on the conjunction of 
the arts and sciences that rethink the human 
impact and responsibility towards the 
environment. Leading thinkers and practitioners 
from the cross-disciplinary fields engaging 
science, technology, art, design, and 
architecture will converse in a three-week series 
of keynote lectures.

Schedule of public lectures & registration

December 5, 6-8pm
<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=2690&N=10722&L=20697&F=H>More 
info & registration
Christian Schwägerl: "Sense, Sensors and Sensitivity" 
Natalie Jeremijenko: "BiodiverCITY: Organism-centric Urbanism"

December 12, 6-8pm 
<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=2690&N=10722&L=20696&F=H>More 
info & registration
Skylar Tibbits: "Self-Assembly & Programmable Materials"
Caleb Harper: "Future of Urban Food Research: CityFARM"

December 19, 1-4pm 
<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=2690&N=10722&L=20695&F=H>More 
info & registration
Timothy Morton: "I Believe in Coral"
Jae Rhim Lee: "The Infinity Burial Project"
Territorial Agency (John Palmesino & Ann-Sofi 
Rönnskog): "From Cold War to Warm Wars: 
Territorial Transformations in the Anthropocene"

The research process in-between actual meetings 
will be facilitated with an evolving online 
glossary and reading group initiated by Jutempus 
and available on 
<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=2690&N=10722&L=20692&F=H>www.zooetics.net. 
The outcomes of the "Zooetics" exploration will 
be presented through an exhibition and symposium 
in 2017 and will instigate further research to be 
followed up in a series of incubators in Finland, 
Iceland and Lithuania in 2015-2016.