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The Finest Art Seminar Series Tonight (FASST 2016)

PanOptic Press | Little Tokyo Two | SoFA, Sunday, 20 March 2016 from 12:00 midday to 3:30 PM (AEST), LT2 Substation, Petrie Tce Brisbane, QLD.

‘Motivated by the question: How might we ‘fashion’ our bodies in the future? this paper will reflect on a range of examples from cosmetic surgery and extreme body modification, scientific breakthroughs such as the successful bio-fabrication of human flesh, through to the design of wearable organs hosting synthetic life. In taking this discursive approach, Dr Laini Burton presents a talk that urges us to consider the ethical, material and aesthetic aspects of (re)designing ourselves.

By looking more closely at these fringe developments, then, we can begin to come to terms with the inevitable evolution of the human form that is appearing in the wake of a techno-scientific revolution. In doing so, we can acknowledge the materiality of the body as unstable, and address the fears that accompany the mutable body. Laini argues that, should we be so bold, we may yet

configure a relational economy with synthetic life toward an unfixed, evolving politics of species-being. Dr Laini Burton is a Lecturer at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University where she convenes Studio Art and Honours within the Bachelor of Digital Media. Her research centres on body politics, bio-art and design, fashion theory, performance and body/spatial relations. Laini’s professional activities work across practice and theory where she both exhibits and publishes. Recent publications include essays in Fashion as Masquerade: Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty (University of Chicago Press) – co-edited with Professor Efrat Tseëlon, UK, and Professor Emerita Diana Crane, US, and The Body Beautiful: Identity, Performance, Fashion and the Contemporary Female Body (InterDisciplinary Press). She has forthcoming publications through InterDisciplinary Press, UK, and Power Publications, AU’.

Header Image: Dr Laini Burton, Dr Courtney Pederden, Michelle Xen, PostHumanism, FASST, 20 March, 2016.