Science. Art. Film.: Crimes of the Future + Panel
Wed
6
Wed 6 Nov 6:00 PM
Arc Cinema
Allocated Seating
108 Mins | Science.Art.Film
2022 | DCP |CAN, GRE | D: David Cronenberg
In a synthetic future without physical pain, celebrity performance artists Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and Caprice (Léa Seydoux) showcase bodily mutations and live surgery for audiences. While a mysterious group pursues Tenser to understand this next phase of human existence, a government agency tries to exploit him for their own agenda.
Directed by body horror master David Cronenberg, this critically acclaimed international co-production offers an unsettling lens on art, humanity and spectacle.
Join us after the film for a wide-ranging and thought-provoking panel discussion exploring industrial environments and the future of human evolution; the aesthetics and limits of exploring the body as, and through, art; and what, if anything, natural, artificial and synthetic mean for our techno-biological futures.
‘The ideas that Cronenberg puts forth are powerful and poignant; his subject is the effort to make art amid a despoiled cultural environment and debased cultural consumption’ – New Yorker
Presented in collaboration with the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology and the ANU Synthetic Biology Initiative.
Panellists:
Dr Keren Hammerschlag is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Curatorship in the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at The Australian National University (ANU). Her research focuses on nineteenth-century British art and visual culture, and the many intersections and frictions between art and medicine during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. She is the author of Frederic Leighton: Death, Mortality, Resurrection (Ashgate, 2015) and The Chosen Race: Troubling Whiteness in Victorian Painting (forthcoming in 2026). In 2020, she was the recipient of a four-year ANU Futures Scheme Award to develop the Visual Medical Humanities.
Associate Professor Ionat Zurr is a collaborative artist and a researcher at the University of Western Australia (UWA) School of Design. Ionat’s interest is Life; more specifically, the shifting relations and perceptions of life in the light of new knowledge and its applications. Ionat formed the Tissue Culture & Art Project in 1996, which led to the establishment of the SymbioticA Centre for Excellence in the Biological Arts at UWA. Her work has been exhibited and collected by museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, Mori Art Museum, Ars Electronica and the National Art Museum of China, and cited as an inspiration to diverse areas such as new materials, textiles, design, architecture, ethics, fiction and food.
Moderator: Dr Dan Santos
Dr Dan Santos is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science. His interests span the social, economic and environmental dimensions of emerging biotechnologies, especially questions around innovation, public engagement and openness in science. Recently, this has included biohacking, synthetic biology and stem cells. He is also a film buff and former reviewer.
In a synthetic future without physical pain, celebrity performance artists Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and Caprice (Léa Seydoux) showcase bodily mutations and live surgery for audiences. While a mysterious group pursues Tenser to understand this next phase of human existence, a government agency tries to exploit him for their own agenda.
Directed by body horror master David Cronenberg, this critically acclaimed international co-production offers an unsettling lens on art, humanity and spectacle.
Join us after the film for a wide-ranging and thought-provoking panel discussion exploring industrial environments and the future of human evolution; the aesthetics and limits of exploring the body as, and through, art; and what, if anything, natural, artificial and synthetic mean for our techno-biological futures.
‘The ideas that Cronenberg puts forth are powerful and poignant; his subject is the effort to make art amid a despoiled cultural environment and debased cultural consumption’ – New Yorker
Presented in collaboration with the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology and the ANU Synthetic Biology Initiative.
Panellists:
Dr Keren Hammerschlag is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Curatorship in the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at The Australian National University (ANU). Her research focuses on nineteenth-century British art and visual culture, and the many intersections and frictions between art and medicine during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. She is the author of Frederic Leighton: Death, Mortality, Resurrection (Ashgate, 2015) and The Chosen Race: Troubling Whiteness in Victorian Painting (forthcoming in 2026). In 2020, she was the recipient of a four-year ANU Futures Scheme Award to develop the Visual Medical Humanities.
Associate Professor Ionat Zurr is a collaborative artist and a researcher at the University of Western Australia (UWA) School of Design. Ionat’s interest is Life; more specifically, the shifting relations and perceptions of life in the light of new knowledge and its applications. Ionat formed the Tissue Culture & Art Project in 1996, which led to the establishment of the SymbioticA Centre for Excellence in the Biological Arts at UWA. Her work has been exhibited and collected by museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, Mori Art Museum, Ars Electronica and the National Art Museum of China, and cited as an inspiration to diverse areas such as new materials, textiles, design, architecture, ethics, fiction and food.
Moderator: Dr Dan Santos
Dr Dan Santos is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science. His interests span the social, economic and environmental dimensions of emerging biotechnologies, especially questions around innovation, public engagement and openness in science. Recently, this has included biohacking, synthetic biology and stem cells. He is also a film buff and former reviewer.
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