National Science Week 2024 – Art working with Science 

Three perspectives: artists Jimi DePriest, Santiago Rentería Aguilar and Makaela Rowe-Fox in conversation with Ionat Zurr

Wednesday 14 August, 1–2pm

Three recent graduates from Fine Arts in the School of Design, UWA will share information about their current work and discuss the role of science in their art practices with artist and researcher, Associate Professor Ionat Zurr of the Fine Arts Discipline, in the School of Design, UWA.

Santiago Rentería Aguilar has been deeply engaged in the realm of sound production and interactive art for over a decade. Multidisciplinary in spirit, his most recent work delves into ecological and media-archaeological domains, unearthing the intersections of technology in the study and manipulation of animal sounds with computational systems. Within this emerging field, he employs sound art as a research methodology to investigate machine listening systems’ regenerative and creative possibilities. His goal is to advance our comprehension of automated sound-event detection systems and applications in artistic expression. His fascination with songbirds motivates a personal commitment to the scrutiny of acoustic automation in biodiversity monitoring. Santiago’s creative work has been showcased in Australia at Now Or Never Festival and in Mexico at Laboratorio de Arte Alameda, Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco, Carnaval de Bahidorá and Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Jimi DePriest is an MFA student with a bachelor's degree in Anthropology who composes Marxist and anti-imperialist analyses of military technologies and examines the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on modern warfare. By exploring the history and philosophy of computation, communications networks, algorithms and robotics through the critical lens of war, Jimi seeks to trace the rapidly evolving trajectories of these technologies in terms of military expansion propelled by the profit motives of the defense industry and imperial political agendas.  His current project involves a research based artistic practice aimed at investigating biomimicry used in autonomous weapons systems such as drones, robotic dogs and swarms. The work focuses on the ethical dimensions of integrating artificial intelligence with autonomous weapons systems engineered to asymmetrically conduct warfare.

Makaela Rowe-Fox is an emerging interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Boorloo. She has exhibited at Bus Projects (VIC, 2019), Cullity Gallery (WA, 2021-23) and has presented performance work December Project at AGWA (2020). Her writing credits include; two new plays for Black Swan (WA) and ATYP (NSW) for their Fresh Ink initiative (2024); co-writing and performing in Seven Sisters (Perth Festival, 2023); Jellyfish Business (ATYP National Studio residency in NSW, 2023); and The Pelican (WAYTco, 2022). Currently, she is also making a new film called Actional Attempt that will be exhibited by PS Art Space and Cool Change Contemporary in September 2024.

In her current artistic practice, she explores resistance and human-animal alliance in response to the crisis of the Anthropocene. In the recent speculative research project Familiar, Rowe-Fox draws on emergent scientific discoveries by marine biologists on bioluminescent signalling among the Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas). Rowe-Fox identifies parallels between the deep-sea squid and the figure of the witch; both simultaneous embodiments of marginalisation and subversion. Crafting speculative concoctions and hexes, Rowe-Fox playfully envisions how the human might serve as ‘familiar’ to the deep-sea squid.

Ionat Zurr

Associate Professor Ionat Zurr is an artist and a researcher who formed theTissue Culture & Art Project in 1996 which led to the establishment of SymbioticA Laboratory the Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2000.

She is working at the Fine Arts Discipline, School of Design UWA. Zurr is considered as one of the pioneers in the field of Biological Art (AKA Bioart).  She often works in collaboration with other artists and scientists and has developed a body of work and projects which reach beyond the confines of art;  her work is often cited as an inspiration to diverse areas such as new materials, textiles, design, architecture, ethics, fiction, and food. Zurr exhibited in places such as Pompidou Centre in Paris, MoMA NY, Mori art Museum, AGWA and more. She published extensively and her recent co-authored book:Tissues, Cultures, Art was published by Palgrave McMillan in 2023.

Unfortunately Sarah Douglas has had to pull out of this event and is being replaced by Ionat Zurr.

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Campus Partnership: Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery,  School of Design UWA

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Images: (left - right)

Makaela Rowe-Fox, Familiar #1. 2023. Photographic print; bioluminescent material (tonic water, saliva and turmeric/galangal roots) and Victoire Hemedi. 50x76 cm

Jimi DePriest, Critical Mass (detail)

Santiago Rentería Aguilar, Spectral (De)Compositions: Dadamining Datamining, 2023, multichannel soundscape, duration: 10 min