"Techno Ecologies" Participants

ABSTRACT
Artists are entering the fermentation game, engaging in the culture of science and appropriate technologies. The research phase of art works may include methodologies that could be recognised as science, as ethnography, as archaeology and sociology, but most importantly, it seeks to embed itself in community. Artists becoming artisans for the sake of research, of connection with the materiality of their media, or of creating media for their experiments. As much as net culture promoted the idea of immateriality, it seems perfect for transferring information that can be made real through 3d printing, sets of instructions to grow things, to make things, to cook, to brew, to ferment, to set up experiences. It was also pivotal in allowing dunbar and sub-dunbar number communities that would never be physically present in one place ever, or only once on a blue moon. We see artists making products, food, events, and although this is not new, we can recognise a motivation to explore resiliency and the problematics of sustainability. This ‘undefined’ movement weaves itself through networks such as the Finnish Bioart Society, Critical Art Ensemble, Preemptive Media, hackteria.org, fo.am, life.patch, HONF and bricolabs and places like SERDE and Medialab Prado. On these blue moon events, what is needed? a meal, drink, the techniques of our grandmothers and grandfathers bread baking and wine making. This paper catalogues the artist-fermenters, from finland to indonesia and beyond and maps events and networks involved in this remaking of art.

BIO
ACADEMIC EDUCATION:
1996-2002 PhD Student (Molecular Biotechnology) Queensland University of Technology, Garden Point, Brisbane and CRC for Tissue Growth and Repair, Adelaide, South Australia
1992-1995 Bachelor of Biotechnology with Honours
Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide

RECENT RESEARCH RESDENCIES AND WORKSHOPS, and CONFERENCES
2012 Cooking for the Apocalypse(workshop) and Mutamorphosis(Conference), Prague, Czech Republic DIYBio meets FBI , San Fransisco, USA Science Festival(Workshop), Manchester, UK Revolution will be biobased, Edinburgh, UK Workshopology, SERDE, Azpute, Latvia
2011 Field Notes , Finland/Lapland Laboratory Life, Brighton, UK Hackterialab2011, Switzerland Coding Workshop DIYBIO, London, UK
2010 Interactivos’10, MediaLabPrado, Madrid, Spain

EXPERIENCE:
2012 WaterMonsters, Centre for Life, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2011 ANGRY snowboarders, Centre for Life, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2010 UK School Games Display Newcastle, UK Business Mentor to Sonodrome and White City, Middlesborough, UK
2009 Digital City Fellow Digital City/ IDI Teeside University, Middlesborough, UK
2008 p/t Lecturer New Media and the Arts Module Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK Artist Liaison to Tetsuo Kogawa, Avfest08, Newcastle, UK
2006-7 Computer Instructor Bytesize, New Deal for Communities, Newcastle, UK
2006 Artist liaison to Ken Rinaldo, AVFest06, Sunderland, UK
2002 Web Editor, N-Space, Adelaide, UK Biology Demonstrator Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:

2008 LightResponsiveDevice – Connecting Principle-Dialogue (group)Newcastle Fine Arts Fermata(group) – Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK Speculative Research(exhibition) Waygood Harker Hanging Space, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2007 Glowbikes as part of the GlowMobile parade NYE, Newcastle,
2004 Frames and Sequences, Downtown Arts Space, Adelaide I like Frank in Adelaide, Adelaide

SELECTED PUBLISHED PAPERS
2012 SpotOn NYC: DIY Science – An Alternate Approach to Scientific Experimentation?
2008 ISEA2008 proceedings location! Location? Location!! Fibreculture issue 11 “Technology transfer present and futures in the electronic arts”

“Brian worked with us for about two months on developing, designing, testing, implementing and performing I Like Frank, a mixed reality game for 3G phones in Adelaide, South Australia. Brian was dedicated, hard working, versatile and fun to have around. He had good technical skills and a mathematical facility for problem solving. I really enjoyed having Brian on our team.” January 10, 2008
Matt Adams, Artist, Blast Theory