London LASER 04 programme announced

London LASER 04
Tuesday 17 June 2014
6.30 – 9.00pm (registration from 6pm)
University of Westminster, Fyvie Hall, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

The fourth London LASER for 2014 hosts Rob La Frenais in conversation with Los Ferronautas, Cristina Miranda de Almeida on the Internet of Things, and Chris Freemantle on art and science collaborations in medicine and ecology.

The event is free but booking is essential: londonlaser04.eventbrite.co.uk

Los Ferronautas (Ivan Puig and Andres Padilla Domene) will be in discussion with Rob La Frenais, curator, about their project SEFT-1 Abandoned Railways Exploration Probe: Modern Ruins 1:220. Between 2006 and 2011, the artists travelled across Mexico and Ecuador in the SEFT-1 (Sonda de Exploración Ferroviaria Tripulada or Manned Railway Exploration Probe) exploring Mexico’s abandoned railways: http://www.seft1.com. This iconic railway infrastructure now lies in ruins, much of it abandoned due to the privatisation of the railway system in 1995, when many passenger trains were withdrawn, lines cut off and communities isolated. They will discuss how the SEFT-1 vehicle, coming to London in June, works as a ‘transmitter of stories’ about people lives and the way the are affected by infrastructure. The Arts Catalyst and Furtherfield present the project in Finsbury Park opening June 20, more details here: http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/ferronautas/

Cristina Miranda de Almeida holds a European PhD in Art (UPV/EHU, 2005), is Lecturer at the Department of Art and Technology, University of the Basque Country and a Visiting Scholar and external researcher at the Research Programme on Medi@ctions # Digital Culture Group (IN3/UOC), Barcelona.  She is collaborating with SEAD network and Project T₂EIA – Transdisciplinary Telematic Environment for Interactive Arts, with the University Federal of Rio de Janeiro/NANO, with the International Journal of McLuhan Studies and NoemaLab Journal. Her presentation in London Laser will focus on art and the impact of Internet of Things on the production of hybrid materialities and identities.

Chris Fremantle will focus on two current collaborations between arts and sciences: Nil by Mouth is a project involving emerging artists toggling between food producing communities and the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Programme Environmental Change, Food, Land and People (2013 ongoing).  The second is the residency programme between the MFA Art, Space and Nature at Edinburgh College of Art and the Cardiovascular Sciences Research Group at the Queen’s Medical Research Institute in Edinburgh (2009 ongoing). Chris works as a producer and researcher working with artists (and designers and architects) working in public.  In addition to the projects above, his current work is strategic: working on Scotland’s national public art development programme, and on Design in Action, an AHRC KE Hub, and on the ground: producing the Therapeutic Design and Arts Strategy for the New South Glasgow Hospitals.

LASER is a program of evening gatherings, which bring together eclectic guest speakers working at the intersections of art, science and technology. Running successfully in the US for several years, London LASER is the first of the series to take place in Europe. Free of charge and open to the public, London LASER encourages lively discussion in an informal academic setting.

London LASER is hosted by University of the Arts London (Central Saint Martins MA Art and Science and The Lens) and University of Westminster (Broad Vision art/science research and learning project and CREAM), in association with Leonardo/ISAST (the International Society for Art, Science and Technology). LASER is a project of Leonardo® /ISAST.