Formal research, pseudo-science, science-fiction and paranormal events are some of the experimental terrains in which these authors navigate and materialise their works. An artist interested in the latest technology who applies it to his/her work to achieve aesthetic results is not the same as another one more inclined to research whose experiment is the artwork itself, with such research converting the artist’s studio into a laboratory and testing ground for error and results.

Both artistic and scientific devices transport us to places of change and discovery, whether it be with a real purpose or an imaginary one. We are referring to creation as a place for experimentation, and in this respect, science and art share a common aspiration: to conduct experiments that question our current knowledge, looking for a new frontier.

Science and art also share a common poetry. Where do they cross paths and where do they become separate? Ethics and aesthetics are concepts that separate and yet unite: convergence points that invite both the artist and the scientist to think and reflect. The latter works in a wonderful space of observation based on knowledge where rigourous procedures are followed in the obtaining and collecting of data. Artists delve into this limited field in a parallel way.

Throughout history an immense source of ideas has been investigated leading to breakthroughs or to nothing. Utopias and failures are commonplace in art and science.

Curated by: Andrés Mengs y Virginia Torrente
Coproduction: CA2M-Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo
Artists: Julio Adán, Guillem Bayo, Alberto Baraya, Luis Bisbe, Ingrid Buchwald, Carlos Bunga, Caleb Charland, David Clarkson, Björn Dahlem, Karlos Gil, Faivovich & Goldberg, O Grivo, João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva, Lyn Hagan, Ilana Halperin, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Esther Mañas and Arash Moori, Milton Marques, Alistair McClymont, Rivane Neuenschwander and Cao Guimarães, Jorge Peris, Paloma Polo, Rubén Ramos Balsa, Ariel Schlesinger, Alberto Tadiello, Jan Tichy, Ben Woodeson and Raphaël Zarka.

In collaboration with:

During the opening, O Grivo will perform a concert for the audience [+]

mapaSONORU is a sound cartography of Asturias, recording around the territory and geolocalizing audio files in an intereactive map.

This session will take place at Jove washing place, Gijón.

Targeting: 20 participants, ages 14 to 18 years old
Dates: every Saturday, beginning 24th March
Schedule: 12 am to 2 pm
Information and registration: educacion@laboralcentrodearte.org

The group works at Patio Sur, getting the space ready.

At lunch time, México-Spain conection with tortillas and guacamole.

At 5 pm, the group present the project to the general public.

The installation screens images of human epithelial cells known as HeLa. This cell line is traced back to Henrietta Lacks, an Afro-American woman born in the USA from whom cells were extracted without her consent, before her death in 1951. These were the first human cells that were able to be developed in a laboratory and they are still used today in the majority of biomedical research projects. The story of Henrietta Lacks lays bare the legal and ethical questions which biomedical research must face. At the same time, the installation screens footage of the dancer Sonia Gómez heavily pregnant during one of her rehearsals. It is a mise en scène of the process of construction of an improvised choreography at a specific moment in the dancer’s life. While, on one hand, the biological sciences present the human body as composed of separate and separatable parts and suggest an interchangeability of the organs without reference to the body as a unit, the dancer’s work, on the other hand, helps to reconstruct this body as a whole, underscoring the continuity of its vital functions.

In March, coinciding with International Women’s Day, an event will be held with the artist, plus a screening of a documentary on Henrietta Lacks’ story followed by a debate.

During the opening, Bitchez Wit Dikz will perform an instrumental Hip Hop demo, inspired and designed specifically for the project.

Credits:

Dancer and performer: Sonia Gómez (www.soniagomez.com)

Camera: LABoral / Ana F. García

Photographic material courtesy of: Marco Archinti / Instituto de Recerca Biomédica, IRB, Parc Cientific, Barcelona

During a workshop, held from 1st to 6th November, participants learn how to use the different technical resources available, experiment with script writing, working with audio files and they create projects to experiment with their new skills. Later, the obtained results in the workshop as well as three European locative media projects developed in Hangar, Barcelona, will be shown at LABoral.

Participating artists: Fred Adam and Verónica Perales; Escoitar.org; Isabel Espín; Julie Faubert; Cristina Moreno García, Olalla Hernández and David Aguilar Sánchez; Alejandra Pérez; Luca Rullo; Enrique Tomás; Helena Torres; Lilia Villafuerte

In collaboration with:

In collaboration with:

October 2011—May 2012
Place: Virtual Campus of UOC
Target: researchers in culture, arts and communication, creators, artists and social
and cultural innovators and professionals from cultural and artistic institutions and creative industries involved in the processes of management, production, planning, promotion and cultural dissemination.

Price: 2,395 euros

Further information and registration: 902 372 373; from Monday to Friday, from 9 am to 8 pm www.uoc.edu/masters.Project blog:  http://laboralcentrodearte.uoc.edu/

Study materials
The postgraduate courses of the UOC-Universitat Oberta de Catalunya may require the study of materials in printed or digital format. The materials are given to the students as the course progresses.

The materials are one of the great elements provided in this course, given that they comprise a careful selection of significant readings that deal with the course’s subject matter. In some cases they have been translated from English or taken from practical case studies especially for this programme. It is thanks to this meticulous selection that the course can enrich and improve the students’ understanding of the link that relates the arts, culture, technology and society.

Admission requirements  and degrees awarded
A legal university degree is required to enter the programme. In the case where an applicant does not have such a degree, an admissions committee will evaluate the knowledge and experience of the applicant on the basis of their resume.

Once the student has completed the programme and been evaluated, UOC-Universitat Oberta de Catalunya will grant a Postgraduate diploma in Cultural Innovation: arts, digital media and popular culture UOC-Universitat Oberta de Catalunya -LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial to those participants that already have a university degree considered legally valid in Spain. 
In the case where the particpant does not have such a degree, he or she will be granted a Certificate in Cultural Innovation: the arts, digital media and popular culture UOC-Universitat Oberta de Catalunya -LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial.

Directorate and Professors

Advisory Board
Rosina Gómez-Baeza, Director, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial

Derrick de Kerckhove, former Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, Professor, University of Toronto and Faculty of Sociology at the University of NaplesFederico II

Roger Malina, Executive Editor, Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, San Francisco; Director, Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence; Co-director of the art-science program of IMERA Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies

José-Carlos Mariátegui, investigator, London School of Economics, London; founder, ATA-Alta Tecnología Andina and Escuelab.org, Lima

Christiane Paul, Director of Media Studies Graduate Programs and Associate Professor of Media Studies, The New School, New York; Adjunct Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Benjamin Weil, Chief Curator, LABoral, Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón

Academic directorate
Pau Alsina, doctor in Philosophy (UB), Professor of Art and Humanities Studies at the UOC-Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, researcher in the group GRECS on Culture and Society and director of the magazine Artnodes on art, science and technology