GRZINIC: SYMPOSIUM: BIOTECHNOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY and SEX IN LJUBLJNA

[Marina Grzinic]

BIOTECHNOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY and SEX
Conference on Trans-sexuality, New Mediatechnologies & Gender

10-13, October 2002, Ljubljana



CONCEPT: Marina Grzinic, Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki



TOPICS: cyberfeminism, cloning, global culture/global nature, 
politics, gender strategies, extraordinary bodies, aesthetics

The international conference/symposium is about philosophical and 
interdisciplinary (artistic, cultural, political) re-consideration of 
science and technology, biochips and organs, male and female 
(trans-sexuality). The development of various forms of observation in 
space in connection with very special forms of human perception tend 
to efface the duality of body and mind. The relationship between the 
body, the machine, the sexual and prosthetical opens an array of 
epistemological and philosophical questions. Today we see a process 
of fostering disembodiment within new media technologies, opening 
crucial questions regarding the politics of representation and the 
semiotics of articulation of different bodies in different spaces. 
Last but not least we will have to further question implications 
concerning specific representational strategies that focus on the 
human body, developing systems and paradigms, structures and matrices 
of representations of historically, gender and class-determined 
bodies.

PARTICIPANTS:

Marie-Luise Angerer (Germany)

Caroline Bassett (Great Britain)

Sarah Franklin (Great Britain)

Marina Grzinic (Slovenia)

Amelia Jones (USA)

Maria Klonaris/Katerina Thomadaki (France)

Marie-José Mondzain (France)

Claudia Reiche (Germany)

Karin Spaink (Netherlands)

Jackie Stacey (Great Britain)







CONFERENCE AND FILM PROGRAM

THURSDAY, 10, October, 2002

FILM PROGRAM

At 20.00, Slovenian Cinematheque, Ljubljana

A HOMAGE TO SANDRA LAHIRE (1950-2001)
Curated by Maria KLONARIS & Katerina THOMADAKI

The Sylvia Plath Trilogy by Sandra Lahire:

1. Lady Lazarus, 16 mm, colour, 25 min, 1991

2. Night Dances, 16 mm, colour, 15 min, 1995

3. Johnny Panic, 16 mm, colour, 40 min, 2000





FRIDAY, 11, October, 2002

CONFERENCE

Place: CLUB CANKARJEV DOM, Ljubljana





14.00 Welcoming note by Marina Grzinic


14.15 -15.00 Caroline Bassett: STRETCHING BEFORE AND AFTER (THE BODY 
OF NARRATIVE)

15.00-15.45 Marie-Luise Angerer: THE BODY BYTES BACK



15.45-16.30 Karin Spaink: CYBORGS: BEYOND DICHOTOMIES

16.30-17.00 coffee break

17.00-17.45 Maria Klonaris/Katerina Thomadaki: DISSIDENT BODIES IN 
THE DIGITAL ERA

17.45-18.30 Marie-José Mondzain: FIGURES OF OTHERNESS AND DIFFERENCE 
IN KLONARIS' & THOMADAKI'S WORK



FILM PROGRAM

At 20.00, Slovenian Cinematheque, Ljubljana

Maria KLONARIS / Katerina THOMADAKI
"L'ANGE AMAZONIEN. Un portrait de Lena Vandrey " ("THE AMAZONIAN ANGEL").

>From "THE PORTRAIT SERIES," 16mm, colour & b/w, sound, 92min., France, 1992

SATURDAY, 12, October 2002

CONFERENCE

Place: GALLERY KAPELICA, Ljubljana



15.00-15.45 Marina Grzinic: RUPTURE

15.45-16.30 Amelia Jones: FLÂNEURIAL BODIES: RECIPROCAL MAPPINGS OF 
THE ARTIST AND URBAN SPACE

16.30-17.00 coffee break

17.00-17.45 Claudia Reiche: THE VISIBLE HUMAN PROJECT: ACCESSING AN 
OBSCENE IMAGE BODY

17.45-18.30 Jackie Stacey: IMITATION OF LIFE: HOMOEROTICISM AND THE 
NEW GENETICS IN THE CINEMA

18.30-19.15 Sarah Franklin: DOLLY'S BODY: GENDER, GENETICS AND THE 
NEW GENETIC CAPITAL



Marie-Luise Angerer is Professor of Gender & Media at Academy of 
Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. Her teaching and research areas are 
New Technology, Media and Gender Studies, Body, Psychoanalysis, Art 
and Philosophy.

Caroline Bassett is a member of faculty in department of media and 
cultural studies at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. She has 
written extensively on digital technology, as a journalist and now as 
an academic. She is currently working on The Arc and The Machine, a 
book on narrative and new media.

Sarah Franklin is Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology of 
Science at the Lancaster University, Great Britain, and as well as 
researcher at the Centre for Science Studies, at Lancaster 
University. In 2001 she was the recipient of a Leverhulme Fellowship 
to complete a project on cloning, Dolly Mixtures, which extends her 
interests in theories of kinship and gender, the embodiment of 
progress, and new forms of genetic capital.

Marina Grzinic Mauhler is researcher at the Institute of Philosophy 
at the ZRC SAZU (Scientific and Research Center of the Slovenian 
Academy of Science and Art) in Ljubljana. She also works as a 
freelance media theorist, art critic and curator.

Amelia Jones is associate professor of art history at the University 
of California at Riverside. Her last book is Body Art/Performing the 
Subject (2001) which represents a reconception of the subjectivity of 
the artist and the historian calling into question both the 
production and interpretation of art.

Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki are media artists and 
filmmakers, curators and theorists of Greek origin. Established in 
Paris since 1975, they produce films, videos, multi-media 
installations, performances, photographic pieces, sound and texts. 
Katerina Thomadaki is Maître de conférences associé at the department 
of Visual Arts and Aesthetics, University Paris I-Sorbonne and a 
researcher at the Collãge Iconique (Inathãque de France), and at the 
Centre de Recherche sur l'Image (Ecole doctorale, University Paris 
I-Sorbonne). <http://mkangel.cjb.net/>http://mkangel.cjb.net

Marie-José Mondzain is a writer and a philosopher. Director of 
Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 
she was also the co-founder, with Régis Debray and Francis Denel, of 
the research center "Collãge Iconique" at the Institut National de 
l'Audiovisuel (INA).

Claudia Reiche is culture and media theorist, artist, curator and 
member of the Women's Culture House Thealit Bremen. Reiche research 
is focused on medical visualisation, artificial life and electronic 
entertainment and especially on the Visible Human Project 
(http://www.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/koerperbilder).

Karin Spaink is a writer and essayist. She's fascinated by the 
intersection between physical presence (bodies) and social and 
technological surroundings. She has written about the Internet, 
cyborgs, gender, pornography and trans-sexuality. Other important 
subjects are the right to suicide, the relief that horror films 
provides, and the overall importance of freedom of speech. 
<http://www.spaink.net/>www.spaink.net

Jackie Stacey is Professor in Women's Studies and Cultural Studies, 
Department of Sociology, Lancaster University. She is Co-Editor of 
the film and television studies journal Screen. Her recent book is 
Global Nature, Global Culture (written with Sarah Franklin and Celia 
Lury, Sage Publications, 2000).

Sandra Lahire (1950-2001), a major British avant-garde filmmaker, 
died unexpectedly in July 2001. A deep thinker and a delicate 
imagist, brilliant and vibrant, she left a cinematic legacy 
culminating in the Sylvia Plath Trilogy.

PRODUCTION: MASKA, Ljubljana within the Seminar for contemporary 
performing arts in collaboration with Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana

PARTNERS:
Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana and the Department for Humanity and 
Education at CD (Barbara Rogelj)

CITY OF WOMEN, Ljubljana (Koen van Daele)
CNVOS - Fundation Center for information, collaboration and 
development of the non-govermental organisations, Ljubljana (Natasa 
Sukic)

Gallery Kapelica, Ljubljana (Jurij Krpan)
Slovenian Cinematheque

ZRC SAZU- Scientific and Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of 
Science and Arts (dr. Oto Luthar, Director)

FI ZRC SAZU- Institute for philosophy ZRC SAZU

L'Institut Français Charles Nodier/French Institute Charles Nodier, 
Ljubljana (Bernard Micaud, Director )

AFAA, Paris

Ministry for Information Society of Republic of Slovenia

Ministry of Education, Science and Sports of Republic of Slovenia

Goethe Institute, Zagreb

The Netherlands Embassy, Ljubljana

Maska
Metelkova 6
1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
phone/fax +386 1 4313122
<http://www.maska.si/>www.maska.si