ANNA DUMITRIU
Anna Dumitriu’s highly experimental work is involved with the nature of trans-disciplinary practice based research. She has collaborated with scientists on at least 10 major projects over the past twelve years and often tends to go very deeply into her chosen area of research, taking on, or attempting to take on the role of scientist, in an almost performative sense. Often raising paradigmatic questions in her work. Her installations, interventions and socially engaged performances use a range of digital and traditional media including, video projections, mobile phones, needlepoint and embroidery. Her work has been exhibited internationally including USA, Japan, France, Russia and Lithuania and is held in international public collections including the Science Museum, London. She is currently Artist in Residence at The Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at Sussex University and researching her Practice Based Fine Art PhD at The University of Brighton. Email for latest CV information here.
Anna is a also co-director of Unravelled, a project working with a diverse group of artists using ‘craft’ in extreme and conceptual ways, such as performatively or through bioart.
Current/Forthcoming Events
Anna Dumitriu is exhibiting Kryolab as part of the e-MobiLArt Project, in Katowice, Poland 28th October 2009 - 15th November, alongside a new collaborative work called Enactive Dialectics. The work was recently shown in Thessaloniki at The State Museum of Contemporary Art Warehouse B1 from May 20th - June 10th see here.
Anna Dumitriu will be discussing the relationship between Art and Science with her collaborator Blay Whitby at SUPSOC on 2nd December 2009.
Anna Dumitriu will be speaking at Alergic 9th December 2009.
Anna Dumitriu will co-curate and exhibit microbiologically inspired work as part of ‘Unravelled’ an exhibition of extreme and conceptual craft based artworks that will take the form of interventions within the collection of Preston Manor during the Brighton Festival 2010. The project is funded by Arts Council England.
Links
Bio-tracking
A mobile phone based exhibition created by Anna Dumitriu using GPS (Global Positioning System) and a leading edge new smart phone software (suitable for Nokia Series 60) called Socialight downloadable via www.socialight.com which enabled the placement of virtual sticky notes around various locations in Brighton. The exhibition was part of Brighton Photo Biennial Fringe in 2007. Visitors could download the software and wander around the sites receiving text messages, sound files and images straight to their phones, in fact due to the nature of Socialight the exhibition is still live and can be viewed now. Also join the Bio-tracking channel on the Socialight website.
An ongoing publicly engaged art project by Anna Dumitriu, which considers our relationship to the everyday microbial world we co-exist with. Artworks are developed collaboratively and participants take on the role of artist, researcher and scientist in a hands-on performative way, final outcomes emerge (taking the form of performative interventions, digital works, sound works and installations (often using craft based techniques such as embroidery)) in dialogue with the artist.
The Institute of Unnecessary Research
An international group of artists and researchers working in the field of practice-based research into science and technology directed by Anna Dumitriu. We believe Art can act as a form of meta-knowledge fusing the emotional and the rational and communicating those ideas to as diverse an audience as possible. As Einstein said: “If we knew what it was we were doing it would not be called research, would it?”
The Emergence of Consciousness
A project investigating the nature of consciousness through an epigenetic robotics persepctive (as part of the CCNR residency). The project is funded by Arts Council England.
The Sensitive Project Site
Anna Dumitriu’s earlier project with Varndean School looked at the emotional impact of allergy on the lives of young people. It links closely to the Normal Flora work through the notion of the ‘hygiene hypothesis.
The Self-organising Artist Blog
A project blog for Anna Dumitriu’s residency at CCNR (Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at Sussex University. Anna is meeting with researchers to learn more about what goes on there. She will also be attempting to develop new skills (such as her attempt to learn to code in Java) and detailing those struggles here too.
A transdisciplinary research project around ubiquitous computing and ‘shyness’ incorporating artistic methodologies and outcomes. The project is funded by the EPSRC.
Past Events/Other news
Dr Simon Park and Anna Dumitriu recently spoke at Virreina’s Talks: A GAZE BETWEEN ART AND SCIENCE at The Institute of Culture in Barcelona, Spain on 11th November 2009.
Anna Dumitriu co-organised and performed at Fortune Factory on 24th October as part of The White Night Festival in Brighton. This major experimental art event is co-curated by Anna Dumitriu and includes performances and talks by many IUR members.
A paper by Blay Whitby and Anna Dumitriu on the Emergence of Consciousness project was accepted for the British Psychological Society’s ‘Consciousness & Experiential Psychology Section Annual Conference 2009: Consciousness and Belief’. The conference took place at Oxford University between 11th and 13th September 2009. The title of the paper is “Beliefs, Learning and Embodied Experience”. The project is funded by Arts Council England.
On 5th and 6th September The British Festival of Science at The Austen Pierce Building, University of Surrey features “Microbes: Invisible, Influential and Inspirational” curated by Simon Park. Featuring “Bacteria Tourism: A Performance by Anna Dumitriu including photographs by John Paul”
“Cybernetic Bacteria 2.0” was shown at The Science Gallery in Dublin from 16th April until 22nd July 2009. The chemical communication of bacteria and the live data streams of our own digital networks (the wireless/bluetooth/RFID activity taking place in and around the gallery) are combined in real time to generate a brand new artificial life form. This installation explores the layers of complexity in both digital and organic communications networks and investigates the relationship of bacteria to artificial life. By Anna Dumitriu (IUR - Director), Dr. Simon Park (IUR -Physarum Dynamic), Dr Blay Whitby (IUR - Head of Ethics), Tom Keene and Lorenzo Grespan U.K.
Anna Dumitriu (plus others) spoke at “Science and the Nation” at E:vent, 96 Teesdale Street E2 6PU on Friday 29th May 2009, doors open at 7pm.
Anna Dumitriu presented a paper about “Cybernetic Bacteria 2.0” authored by herself and Dr Blay Whitby at Subtle Technologies in Toronto in June 2009. The paper was also presented at Biodigital Lives at The University of Sussex.
Dr Blay Whitby presented a paper entitled “The Institute of Unnecessary Research: Public Engagement in Science through Art and Performance” at Fourth Annual Science and the Public Conference, University of Brighton, June 13th and 14th 2009. The paper is co-authored with Anna Dumitriu.
Anna Dumitriu spoke at Hybrid Encounters in Munich, Germany on 19th June 2009.
The June 2009 issue of AN Magazine features a profile of Anna Dumitriu and a review of the “Is Design Good for You” symposium she organised and spoke at.
Anna Dumitriu spoke at Cranfield University on 12th November - details here.
Blay Whitby and Anna Dumitriu will be presented a poster entitled “The Myth of Consciousness” at The British Psychological Society event :Conscious Intention, Agency and Free Will: Neuroscientific and Experiential Perspectives”. See here.
Anna Dumitriu showed 3D bacterial Auras (in collaboration with Dr Simon Park) and other work at the Dana Centre (Science Museum in London) on 26th November. Details here.
Anna Dumitriu spoke at The Tesla Group at University College London on 5th November.
School Flora by Anna Dumitriu and Science Students at Varndean School Evening view event for one night only, 15th July 2008 5:30 -7:30pm. All welcome. At Varndean School, Brighton (location details here)
An entire school becomes a major conceptual artwork for one evening only, featuring installations, interventions and performances by Anna Dumitriu and science students at Varndean School in Brighton.
As part of 'Normal Flora', her major ongoing art project about our sublime microbial world, artist Anna Dumitriu has taken over an entire secondary school in Sussex in the largest event in the science-art programme to date.
The giant one evening only art event is open to the public and will take over Varndean School in Sussex, involving students and staff. The art works are all based on the laboratory findings of bacteria, moulds and yeasts collected in the school and include: digital works, performances, interventions, bacterially inspired food and music.
Anna Dumitriu is an award-winning artist with an international reputation. Recently selected for the prestigious European-wide e-MobiLArt project, she has worked closely with the science students at Varndean for this event. The students took swabs of microbes all over the school - from the drinking fountain to the books in the library - these were then taken to a lab, placed in agar jelly and cultured. Working closely with Anna Dumitriu, the students then created artworks inspired by the microbes. The project goes far beyond a typical school art project and stands as a major work in its own right. These art installations set out to reveal the secret beauty of the microbial eco-system that surrounds us.The project is funded by Brighton and Hove City Council.
Cybernetic Bacteria 1 - Anna Dumitriu 'talked' to bacteria around the globe using their own communications networks in the Friese Greene Garden, Brighton Media Centre. The event Included a performance, discussion and time for questions, in collaboration with Dr Simon Park. 15th May 2008. See recent press here.
Anna Dumitriu was recently commissioned by Brighton and Hove City Council to develop a school project called Robot Sound Detectives Algorithm March, described as complex systems theory and evolutionary robotics for 7-11 year olds. Find out more here.
Anna Dumitriu recently performed at Shunt Lounge in London see more information here.
A piece entitled “Cwtsh, The Myth of Consciousness” was recently created and is being developed in collaboration with The Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics as part of Anna Dumitriu’s residency there.
Anna Dumitriu was artist in residence for a night commissioned by AXIS see the work produced here.
The Normal Flora Project was featured as part of Intimacy - Beyond Visceral and Digital Culture. Anna Dumitriu has recently completed a book chapter coming from this conference. The book published shortly.
Anna Dumitriu recently curated a one day Digiville event for Lighthouse in Brighton, looking at Forms of Life (from bacteria to Artificial life) featuring an Arduino Physical Computing Workshop.
Anna Dumitriu’s project Bio-tracking is featured on the website We Make Money Not Art, see the interview by Regine Debatty here.
Alexanda Kokoli has interviewed Anna Dumitriu for the July Issue of the International Feminist Art Journal n.paradoxa
A short BBC film tour around Anna Dumitriu’s studio was recently shown at The Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius Lithuania, more details here.
Biography
