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Top nanotechnologist speaks at Super Human exhibition
Dr Amanda Barnard, recipient of the 2009 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical
Scientist of the Year, will present the address at the Artists’ Reception for the
Super Human: Revolution of the Species exhibition at RMIT Gallery on Sunday, 22
November.
Gallery visitors are invited to meet the exhibition artists, all active at the leading
edge of creative practice, and to hear Dr Barnard speak about her equally
innovative work with nanoparticles.
Dr Barnard, last year’s RMIT University Alumnus of the Year, received the award
for her work in modelling nanoparticles. She is a Queen Elizabeth II Australian
Research Council fellow and heads CSIRO’s Virtual Nanoscience Laboratory.
She said that the award recognised that nanoscience and nanotechnology were
making an important and valuable contribution to the physical sciences – and to
the community as a whole.
Similar themes are explored in Super Human: Revolution of the Species, currently
at RMIT Gallery until 5 December. The exhibition highlights collaborations between
artists and scientists and investigates what it means to be human, now and into the
future.
In her work Drift, exhibiting artist and RMIT lecturer Leah Heiss explores human
connectivity through small-scale interactive objects developed from materials
engineered at the nanoscale.
“I am interested in what happens when technologies and artefacts take on
personalities. While domestic appliances have computations that are premeditated
–
you know how your washing machine will behave – as an artist I can program
devices to do different things in the art sphere and this opens them up to emergent
outcomes,” Ms Heiss said.
Inspired by the 150th publication anniversary of The Origin of Species, Darwin’s
evolutionary treatise, the exhibition is part of a suite of events presented by The
Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT). The Super Human Symposium at
BMW Edge, Federation Square, on November 22-23 will continue the themes of
Augmentation, Cognition and Nanoscale Interventions.
Super Human: Revolution of the Species Artists’ Reception: RMIT Gallery, 6-8pm
Sunday, 22 November. Entry free. Bookings appreciated: (03) 9925 1717.
Super Human: Revolution of the Species symposium: visit
For media enquiries images and interviews: Evelyn Tsitas, RMIT Gallery: (03)
9925 1716 or 0418 139 015.
13 November, 2009
NEWS 
