Ectopia

Ectopia is a laboratory hosting artists from different backgrounds interested in exploring the intersection of art and science. It fosters the development of collaborative projects involving artists and researchers.

Ectopia provides resident artists access to the research being conducted at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência – a leading Portuguese biological research institute. During the residency, the artists are exposed to the research through seminars and informal discussions with the scientists, being encouraged to develop collaborative projects. In addition, the researchers are also exposed to the artists and invited to take advantage of those collaborations in their scientific projects.

The projects being developed at ectopia will be made public through regular exhibitions, lectures and publications. In addition, the development of each particular project will be documented, and will be available through the ectopia website.

We welcome expressions of interest from Portuguese and foreign artists interested in developing a residency within ectopia.

Project

1. Decon: Deconstruction, Decontamination, Decomposition
The Project Decon aims to explore biotechnology methods and materials as artmedia, in order to create paintings that are literally alive and changing while exhibited. Reproductions of Piet Mondrian’s geometric paintings will be created on bacterial solid growth medium supplement with azo dyes (the largest and most versatile class of dyes recalcitrant to degradation) . The colors from those paintings will be progressively degraded by the bacteria Pseudomonas putida MET94. During the development phase of the Project the artist will work alongside the scientists researching the conditions to adapt bacterial action to exhibition conditions at Art Galleries. These paintings will be artworks that will only exist while they are being degraded. Thus, one can interpret those paintings as a process of death and decomposition of the artwork.

HYBRID MEETINGS

hYbrid meetings were created to gather artists, scientists, social scientists, philosophers, and the general public from around the globe to meet once a year in a public event to share ideas on the cross sections of science and art.

Each event has a central theme and the hYbrid team tries its best to gather an interdisciplinary group of people to share their thoughts and experiences on the subject.

Its current format encompasses one-day event held at Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis (MNSR), Porto, usually late Spring or early Summer.

These meetings are the result of the collaborative effort of the Ectopia project and the Associate Laboratory IBMC.INEB, especially the Office for Science Communication (OSC) team, and all the other partnerships we develop every year that help funding these events.

hYbrid: Reflections on Science and Art is the second meeting of a series of Science and Art meetings we are planning to organise. Last year’s meeting, Culturas de Fronteira ou Intersecções de Arte e Ciência, promoted the creation of an international network aiming to exchange experiences and know-how within these areas.

In this year’s edition, we are focusing on different ethical perspectives of Science and Art collaborations, particularly in relation to the Life Sciences. We have thought of 3 distinct moments of reflection to discuss the differences, similarities, cross sections, juxtapositions in artists and scientists’ objectives, sensibilities and background knowledge:

1) Hybrids will present some projects that deal with different subjects, a portrait of life, and human, animal and cellular interactions

2) Reflections will be centred on laboratory experiences

3) Boundaries, will focus on the impact of Art and Science interactions in society

Additionally, we are organising an exhibition to display works of some of our guest speakers and other artists, aiming at reflecting the central theme of this year meeting and bringing closer to the public science and art creations.