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Science and Technology in Cultural Context

Program Scienceday

MORNING SESSION

Keynote:

Hackteria Network: Supporting Open Science and Citizen Science from Switzerland to Asia

Denisa Kera, Hackateria Switzerland (CZH/SIN)

Abstract:

Hackteria Network: Supporting Open Science and Citizen Science from Switzerland to Asia

Hackteria Network is a Swiss based organization which pioneered the use of open hardware to support open science and citizen science activities around the world and to connect Biohackers from Asia to Europe. The network is part of the larger DIYbio (Do-It-Yourself biology or garage biology) and Do-It-With-Others (DIWO) biotech subcultures, which have brought about novel forms of co-working as well as mobile labs as an alternative approach to innovation and research outside of academia and industry walls. Various forms of grassroots, open source models, and activities applied to emergent biosciences mark a trend that is challenges the meaning of science dissemination, communication and public participation in science. These "popular" forms of science research related to Hackerspaces and science community labs around the world directly connect politics with design, community building with prototype testing, and offer an experimental approach for discussing issues of ethics, policy and innovation. Communities of people monitoring, sharing and making sense of various "scientific" data and practices in their everyday lives are now exploring new and unexpected global networks around low-tech biotechnologies and biomedicine. Such low-tech strategies are making a global "pop" biotech movement possible that paradoxically refers back to EUROPE based squat cultures and art and science centers as much as to the American spirit of entrepreneurship.This global biotech underground is converging within informal networks between ASIA, USA and EUROPE and is enabling very different flows of knowledge and expertise from the official biotech industry.

Panel:

“Convergence in Arts and Sciences”

Moderator: Sunghoon Kim

Director and Professor Medicinal Bioconvergence Research Center Graduate School of Convergence Technology and College of Pharmacy Seoul National University

Abstract Panel:

Life is one of the most complex mechanisms that nature has created and throws a great challenge and insight to science, technology and arts. To understand the mystery and see the beauty of life, life science has been a melting pot to which other disciplines such as chemistry, physics and engineering can be converged. In the 21st century, the megatrend to “bio-convergence” is rapidly expanding to art and cultural area. In this panel, medical doctors, scientists, engineers and artists will discuss how they have merged their medical practice and research subjects with cultural and art activities. This panel will demonstrate how much science and arts are actually in close proximity and in many times, inseparable.

Moderator: Sunghoon Kim (KOR)

Panelists:

Tai Hyun Park (KOR), Advanced Institutes of Convergence Technology, Seoul Natl Univ

Catherine Young (PHL), Artist & Former FCL SEC Residency Holder

Tae-Sub Chung M.D. (KOR), Yonsei University School of Medicine

Min Suk Chung ( KOR), Ajou University School of Medicine

AFTERNOON SESSION

Keynote:

The Human Brain Project: An Overview

Sean Hill (CHE), Human Brain Project, EPFL

Abstract:

Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest scientific challenges of our time. Such an understanding will lead to fundamentally new computing technologies, transform the diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases, and provide profound insights into our humanity. The goal of the Human Brain Project (HBP) is to accelerate an emerging global collaborative effort to understand the human brain by integrating our existing knowledge about the brain in supercomputer-based models and simulations. The HBP is building a collaborative informatics infrastructure that will consist of a tightly linked network of six informatics platforms - Neuroinformatics, Brain Simulation, High Performance Computing, Medical Informatics, Neuromorphic Computing and Neurorobotics, which will operate as a resource both for core HBP research and for external projects. The HBP will drive innovation in computing, creating new technologies for interactive supercomputing, visualization and big data analytics; federated analysis of globally distributed data; simulation of the brain and other complex systems; objective classification of disease; scalable and configurable neuromorphic computing systems, based on the brain’s principles of computation and cognition and its architectures.

Panel:

“Neurasthenics in Science”

Mderator:Timothy Senior (GBR), Artist & Researcher, University of Bristol

Independent Scholar working as a consultant at REACT in Bristol (A Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy), Honorary Fellow with the school of Modern Languages at the University of Bristol (Medieval northern German architecture).

Abstract:

Historically, notions of art and science have fluctuated in the degree of their [in]compatibility. At present, we are seeing a surge of interest in cross-disciplinary and cross-practice work that contests these volatile boundaries as never before: In the emergence of ‘Artistic Research’ we see rich discursive, embodied and analytical ways of knowing brought to bear on the world around us; In the ‘Neuro Humanities’, we see Science tackle questions of ethics and aesthetics. This convergence of interests and passions lays the scene for a fundamental reshaping of what we consider Art and Science to be. In this panel: We will ask whether the aesthetic experience can be scientifically mapped and modelled, and whether such attempts change our understanding of the arts; we will ask whether this understanding can impact the way artists work, opening paths to target ‘the brain’ – rather than 'the person' – in creating artistic work; We will ask whether artistic work defies quantification, driving us towards diverse, and alternative modes of knowing that reach beyond traditional forms of practice and disciplinarity.

Moderator: Timothy Senior (GBR)

Panelists:

Jae-Seoung Jeong, Dept. of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST

E-Jung Baan, Art Critic Seoul

Ruedi Stoop (CHE), (INI, UZH)

Davide Angheleddu (ITL), Politecnico di Milano

Sean Hill (CHE), Human Brain Project, EPFL

PROGRAM

Copyright @ ETH Zürich

Page last modified on December 30, 2014, at 03:35 AM