Experimenta Social (Distancing) #37: Liminal Spaces

SPEAKERS: Helen Pynor and Sophie Kahn HOST: Jonathan Parsons, Experimenta Artistic Director - - - Professor Genevieve Bell describes our current lives as inhabiting a liminal space in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. A place in-between, housing old patterns from the past while wondering what new patterns may emerge post-pandemic. In this month’s Experimenta Social we have invited two artists whose practice investigates and inhabits liminal states. Helen Pynor’s work is informed by her academic research in biological sciences and art. Helen explores the porous borders between states that are typically viewed as opposing and distinct such as life and death, animate and inanimate. In her multi-disciplinary practice she often uses and adapts the tools of the medical sciences such as imaging technologies to realise her artworks. Sophie Kahn also draws on imaging technologies in her practice, in particular drawing aesthetic inspiration from the limitations of scanning technology to accurately portray the dynamics of the human body. She creates sculptures, moving and still images that draw attention to the liminal state between the promise of technological perfection and its everyday reality. Join us for this month’s Experimenta Social to hear from two artists for whom states of ambiguity are central to their practice. - - - - Dr Helen Pynor is an Artist and Researcher whose practice explores philosophically and experientially ambiguous zones, such as the life-death boundary, the inter-subjective nature of organ transplantation, and the animate-inanimate boundary in relation to prosthetics. Sophie Kahn is a digital artist and sculptor, whose work addresses technology’s failure to capture the human body. Her work explores the representation of the female-identified, ill or disabled figure. Her sculptures and prints owe their fragmented aesthetic to the collision of the unstable body with new imaging devices. - - - Curated by Experimenta, the 'Experimenta Social' series moves to a live online platform and continues to provide proximity to some of Australia’s most adventurous contemporary artists, researchers and creative technologists. This event was recorded: Wednesday 19 August 2020 For more info, https://experimenta.org/experimenta-social/