Current/Forthcoming Events

Anna Dumitriu, Dave Lawrence and Antti Tenetz are exhibiting Kryolab as part of the e-MobiLArt Project, in Katowice, Poland 28th October 2009 - 15th November. Also on show is a new collaborative work called Enactive Dialectics. Kryolab was recently shown in Thessaloniki at The State Museum of Contemporary Art Warehouse B1 from May 20th - June 10th see here. John Holder recently presented a paper entitled “Enactive Dialectics: Inter-subjective Emotional FeedbackThrough an Embodied Approach” at ISEA 2009. The paper is co-authored by the collaborating team (Anna Dumitriu, Pia Tikka, Blay Whitby).

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. See the development of the work here.

Check out our “Which Unnecessary Researcher Are You?” quiz.

ABOUT THE IUR

Artists are innovators, if a new piece of technology or a new medium, becomes available; artists want to try it, to experiment with it, to push the boundaries. Some artists take on the role of a scientist in almost a performative way and some scientists equally take on the role of artist. Attitudes to science, medicine and art have changed over the last five hundred years, in that whilst Science has become more formalized, Art has become increasingly less so. By stepping outside the testable hypothesis artists are free to go off at tangents, to get bogged down in aesthetics and be mavericks.

The IUR is a hub for researchers and artists working experimentally and deeply engaged with their specific research areas. We present our research through performative and experiential methods, engaging the public and new audiences.

We organise performance events (many of which can be seen here) in art galleries and other non-traditional settings (including: universities, businesses and festivals) to engage the public in our research and meta-research. We also create participatory workshops, where participants become the researchers and learn about our work experientially.

We are specialists in our specific research fields and deeply committed to making our work accessible. We offer talks and organise symposia and are able to suggest speakers for events.

 

To organise a special IUR event, get involved with our work, be kept informed about events or for permission to use images please contact us.

 

Past Events and Recent 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.

The IUR were an integral part of 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.

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”.

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 recently 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 recently exhibited new bacterially inspired work from The Third Woman/Vienna Underground Project and the Kyrolab project as part of e-MobiLArt, in the Thessaloniki Biennale at The State Museum of Contemporary Art Warehouse B1 in May 20th - June 10th see here and  the work will be also shown in Katowice, Poland in October 2009 (dates to follow).

Kira O’Reilly and 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. This paper was also presented at Biodigital Lives at The University of Sussex.

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 is co-authored by Dr Whitby and Anna Dumitriu.

Signed copies of Blay’s book “"Reflections on AI, the legal, moral, and ethical dimensions" are also now available at a special price of £10 each, to make a purchase contact him by email here.

Anna Dumitriu gave a talk and performance at Hybrid Encounters in Munich, Germany on 19th June 2009.

Anna Dumitriu performed “The Myth of Consciousness” at Shunt Lounge on 6th and 7th March.  See here.

Anna Dumitriu and The Vienna Underground Team presented their work at The Kunsthalle Project Space in Vienna on 18th February 2009. More information here.

Anna Dumitriu gave a Christmas Lecture entitled “The Self-organising Artist, Her Unnecessary Research and Why She Talks to Bacteria” in Vienna on 19th December 2008.

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 showed 3D bacterial Auras (in collaboration with Dr Simon Park -The Physarum Dynamic) and other work at the Dana Centre (Science Museum in London) on 26th November 2008. Details here.

Anna Dumitriu spoke at The Tesla Group at University College London on 5th November 2008.

Night-time Fixations

The Institute of Unnecessary Research participated and curated performances in "Night-time Fixations" at Phoenix Brighton for the White Night Festival on 25th October 2008. We offered an array of experimental art, including performances, music and installations.

Between Life + Mind + Art

On 29th October 2008 at InQbate, Pevensey III, Sussex University, Falmer

Organised by Matthew Egbert (CCNR) and Anna Dumitriu (Director of the IUR and Artist in Residence CCNR)

Many researchers whose work is linked to that of the Life and Mind seminar group http://lifeandmind.wordpress.com have found that as part of their output the spontaneous production of art is occurring, sometimes intentionally and at other times more organically. This event seeks to investigate this phenomenon and invites researchers to share their artworks and experiences alongside artists working in similar areas. Features an exhibition, a keynote presentation by Pia Tikka and a debate chaired by Tom Froese.

As part of 'Normal Flora', her major ongoing art project about our sublime microbial world, artist Anna Dumitriu recently took over an entire secondary school in Sussex in the largest event in the science-art programme to date. 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. See 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 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 was recently selected for the prestigious e-MobiLArt project and her participation is funded jointly by Arts Council England and CULTURE 2007 European Funding. The Arts Council England will also fund a short residency at Symbiotica Lab at the University of Western Australia, in Perth.

The Institute of Unnecessary Research participated in Brussels Meets Brighton. Between Wednesday 30th April and Saturday the 3rd of May 2008 London’s exciting Shunt Lounge (an incredible labyrinth of caves and arches underneath London Bridge station which serves as an artistic playground, a concert venue and a gallery) hosted a massive exhibition involving Arts Collectives from Brighton, Brussels and London. The event incorporated a feast of fascinating performance including: live music, puppetry, dance and physical theatre, video and sound installations, photography, slam poetry, scientists, robotics and more. The themes for the show were: metacommunication, real-time improvisation and inter-cultural understanding. The exploration of these themes was facilitated by the MetaHub.

See here for more information about the work created for the event and photos.

Anna Dumitriu was Artist In Residence for a Night for Axis’s (the Artists’ Database)  Cafe Artistique event. The event took place in Portsmouth at Le Cafe Parisien, Lord Montgomery Way, Portsmouth on Wednesday 19th March. See the work produced here.

Catalyst Club - Institute of Unnecessary Research Night for Brighton Science Festival took place on Tuesday 26th February at 7. 30pm

Joogleberry Theatre, 4-17 Manchester St, Brighton

the event featured: Monia Brizzi (Head of Joy) discussing the part emotion plays in science. Blay Whitby (Head of Ethics) talking about the ethics of art and science interaction and Anna Dumitriu on The Institute of Unnecessary Research. For more information see here. The event was featured on the Guardian’s Technology weekly podcast

 

Anna Dumitriu’s project Bio-tracking (with Luciana Haill (Head of Neurofeedback) and others) is featured on the website We Make Money Not Art, see the interview by Regine Debatty  here.

 

And Alexanda Kokoli has interviewed Anna Dumitriu for the July Issue of the International Feminist Art Journal  n.paradoxa.

 

Brighton and Hove City Council are funding a continuation of the Normal Flora Project taking place at Varndean School in Brighton, Anna’s previous project ‘Sensitive’ (funded by the Wellcome Trust) with the school can be seen here.

 

There is an article in the August issue of Microbiology Today on bacteria and art by Dr Simon Park, featuring Anna Dumitriu’s work and discussing the sublime qualities of bacteria, read it here.

 

The Institute of Unnecessary Research has a myspace page too

http://www.myspace.com/unnecessaryresearch why not add us as a friend?

And we are a group on Facebook too.

13th October 2007

The Institute of Unnecessary Research - Karaoke Research Event took place on 13th October 2007 at 6:30pm at The Phoenix Gallery in Brighton see here for more information.

1st September 2007

Anna Dumitriu 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 see here for more details.

12th July 2007

Anna Dumitriu recently presented a paper on the IUR at Digital Arts Week at ETH in Zurich on 12th July 2007.

6th July 2007

Anna Dumitriu (Director of the IUR) and Frank Jay (new Head of Ontology) ran a succeesful workshop at the Phoenix Gallery about ‘Nothing’ on 6th July 2007. The workshop was aimed at anyone interested in the nature of creativity and how you can make something happen out of nothing. For more information click here.

 

24th May 2007

There was a participatory performance event at the Freeman Centre at Sussex University on 24th May 2007 details here

 

14th April 2007

The Institute of Unnecessary Research performed as part of Brighton Children’s Festival on 14th April 2007 at The Sallis Benney Theatre, University of Brighton. Children experienced DNA extraction and Genetic Fingerprinting with Anna Dumitriu and Hannah Lewis, Neurofeedback Music with Luciana Haill and Science Magic with Richard Robinson. The event was a complete sell out, all forty places filled up up in just a few days and we unfortunately had to turn away another 80 people. Hopefully we’ll do more events of this kind in the future so watch this space or join our mailing list. Check out what went on here.

 

The Institute of Unnecessary Research appeared at the Whitechapel Gallery in London on 17th November for the Wormhole Saloon Performance event. See here for more information.

 

In October Anna Dumitriu collaborated with sound artists on Bio-tracking a project for Brighton Photo-biennial Fringe, a performance walk on 14th October 2006 starting from the Phoenix Gallery in Brighton. Also a spectacular performance at Brighton Marina took place at dusk on 1st September. The Institute of Unnecessary Research - Food Research Programme launched the Brighton Food and Drink Festival.

Click here to go to the Bio-tracking Site

Click here to go to the Normal Flora Project Site

Click here to go to the Sensitive Project Site

Click here to go to the Emergence of Consciousness Site