Sk-interfaces: Exploding Borders - Creating Membranes in Art, Technology and Society - Hardcover

Jens Hauser

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846311497 ISBN 13: 9781846311499

Publisher: Liverpool University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Skin represents a place where art, science, philosophy and social culture intersect. With a growing number of bodily extensions and the continuous discovery of new areas - physical, virtual and psychological - the clear distinctive lines between individuals, countries and even species are beginning to blur. Advances in bio-medical research together with deconstructivist theories in philosophy are reflected in the work of many artists using skin, materially or metaphorically, as an interface, whose work goes beyond the descriptive surface of the skin, to explore issues of xeno-transplants, trans-species and trans-racial exchanges. In recent years, a trend towards the analysis of skin, its functions and meanings, has emerged in the practice of many artists using wet biology, bio-architecture and self-experimentation. Jens Hauser has been involved in much of the development in this area. Bound in a unique thermochromic cover (designed by artist Zane Berzina), this book provides an engaging, critical and thought-provoking approach to how current technologies are changing our perceptions of the body, the self and the interactions between bodies. Edited by one of the leading curators in (bio)technology based art and including contributions from 25 major international artists, scholars and critics in this field, this provocative art and text book examining some of the most contentious moral, aesthetical and philosophical issues of our day will complement the exhibition and encourage debate within this exponentially growing field.

About this title

About the Author

Jens Hauser is a Paris-based art curator, writer, cultural journalist and film-maker. His curatorial work deals with perceptional aspects of technology-related art forms. He has written a number of journal articles about the interaction of film culture, video games, and on contemporary music. He is the director of creative radio pieces, sound environments and documentary films which have been shown in festivals worldwide. Hauser has also been a regular contributor to the European cultural channel ARTE since 1992.

Edition details

• Publisher: Liverpool University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1846311497
• ISBN 13: 9781846311499
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 164
• Editor: Jens Hauser