Anna Dumitriu’s founded the IUR in 2005. Her 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.

Anna Dumitriu is part of the  e-MobiLArt project and her participation is funded jointly by Arts Council England and CULTURE 2007 European Funding.

Anna is deeply committed to making her research accessible and often offers talks, performances and exhibitions to raise debate (about microbiology, artificial life technology and the nature of research) and widen participation. She works in diverse settings including universities, businesses and festivals. Anna also teaches two accredited courses at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and is known for her lively (performative) conference speaking. To contact the artist click 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.

Links

The Normal Flora Project

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 Emergence of Consciousness

A project investigating the nature of consciousness through an epigenetic robotics persepctive (as part of the CCNR residency).

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.

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.

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.

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 performed and presented her work at Fortune Factory on 24th October as part of The White Night Festival in Brighton. This major experimental art event was co-curated by Anna Dumitriu and included performances and talks by many IUR members.

A paper by Blay Whitby and Anna Dumitriu on the Emergence of Consciousness project was presented at the British Psychological Society’s ‘Consciousness & Experiential Psychology Section Annual Conference 2009: Consciousness and Belief’. The conference took place at Oxford University in September 2009. The title of the paper was “Beliefs, Learning and Embodied Experience”.

“Cybernetic Bacteria 2.0” was shown at The Science Gallery in Dublin from 16th April to 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) were 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 presented a paper about “Cybernetic Bacteria 2.0” authored by herself and Dr Blay Whitby at Subtle Technologies in Toronto in June 2009.

Dr Blay Whitby (Head of Ethics) 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 was co-authored by Dr Whitby and Anna Dumitriu.

Anna Dumitriu spoke at Cranfield University on 12th November 2008 - details here.

Blay Whitby (Head of Ethics) and Anna Dumitriu 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 will be exhibited 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 is participating in the European Mobile Lab for Interactive Media Artists (e-MobiLArt), a project tailored around the process of collaboratively creating interactive installation artworks. The e-MobiLArt Project has been funded with support from the CULTURE 2007 Programme of the European Union and Anna’s participation is funded by Arts Council England.

Anna Dumitriu spoke at The Tesla Group at University College London on 5th November.

Anna Dumitriu extended her recent work with chemical communication and performed “Love is in the air” where she used the highly questionable technique of using human sex pheromones to engender love, for the White Night Festival.

Anna Dumitriu has recently become an Art in the Public Realm Adviser for AXIS (the artists database). Her recommended artists and critical writing will feature here.

The School Flora Project, commissioned by Brighton and Hove City Council, culminates in a special one evening only event on 15th July at 5:30pm at Varndean School in Brighton, see here for more information.

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.

Cybernetic Bacteria - 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 at 5:00pm. See recent press here.

Anna Dumitriu recently performed at Shunt Lounge in London see more information here.

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 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.