Dr. Dalila Honorato, member of the Interactive Arts Laboratory, will talk for the 'Semiotics of the Uncanny', followed by a discussion facilitated by Isabel Burr Raty, at a.pass Research Cente, Saturday October 21st 2017, 16h-19h, 4th floor.

'Semiotics of the Uncanny' will approach alternative bodies in art, sexuality and pop culture, that conjugate body alteration, medical fetish, disability aesthetics and creative ritualistic behavior, touching on subjects such as: phobia, paraphilia, teratology, prosthetics and acrotomophilia.

If the body is defined as the sum of all physical parts then individuality is composed by the uniqueness of this structure and the qualities of its elements. In a time when plastic surgery is considered a commodity within the cosmetic industry and the hype for symmetry has reached post-standardized levels, the borders between mass production and eccentricity, in what beauty is concerned, become more obvious. But it is when health issues occur that the equation changes. How can a body be defined if a physical part is missing or if it is supernumerary in the sum? Unlike some types of lizards, starfish, sea cucumbers, earthworms and salamanders, humans have a very limited capacity of self-healing. What happens to a physical part that is removed from a body separated either due to an accident or due to its dysfunction? And how does one cope with this separation as an individual and as a social being?

After Dalila’s talk, Isabel Burr Raty, performance artist, independent filmmaker and associated researcher in a.pass Research Center, will offer some tea and will support a co-learning conversation.

At first, the focus of the conversation will be on the Hybrid Art contemporary positioning (a phenomenon that mixes multiple art forms crossing borders between art, science and technology), that contributes to hybrid narratives in performing arts and creates new alternative technological materials and objects aimed to serve as empowering tools for autonomy from the high-tech capitalist imperialism. Then, Isabel and the public will prolong the discussion with Dalila to bring her approach to a broader artistic research context.

Dr. Dalila Honorato’s research focuses on embodiment at the intersection of performing arts and new media and, as a curator, she is interested in exploring the outlines of art and biology. Dalila is currently Assistant Professor in Aesthetics and Visual Semiotics at the Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece. She is one of the founding members of the Interactive Arts Lab where she coordinates the Art & Science Research Group. She is the head of the organizing committee of the conference "Taboo-Transgression-Transcendence in Art & Science" and conceptor-developer of the Corfu Summer School in Hybrid Arts. She is a guest faculty at the PhD studies program of the Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis in Alma Mater Europaea, Slovenia, and a guest member of the Center of Philosophy of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal.
ionio.academia.edu/DalilaHonorato

Isabel Burr Raty explores the ontological crack between the engineered and the native, between the official facts and the unlicensed knowledge of the resettled, the relocated; in order to think about the memory of the future and dig out chapters left out of scientific and history books. Her artistic research is design based and semiotic, interweaving live/body art, participatory performance, biology and DIY technologies, and is based on the question of how to write in situ Sci-Fi narratives that remain alive, alive as they rely on the participative audience’s faculty to propose dispositives of liberation from a commodified life/body.
www.isabel-burr-raty.com