Body Enhancement and Interspecies Communication Through Artistic Practice by Maria Castellanos
Today in the context of DXARTS 472 Mechatronic Art, Design and Fabrication II we had a virtual artist talk by artist and researcher Maria Castellanos entitled Body Enhancement and Interspecies Communication Through Artistic Practice.
María Castellanos is a Spanish artist and researcher, she has a Degree and a Doctorate in Fine Arts from the University of Vigo, Spain, with an Extraordinary PhD Award 2016. She researches about technological prosthesis, focusing on hybridizations between cyborgs and wearables as a paradigm of extending human sensorial capabilities. And the creation of complex systems that promote the communication and the understanding between humans and plants.
Her work has won awards like VERTIGO STARTS (2017), a prize granted under the aegis of EU-Horizon 2020, an initiative led by Centre Pompidou and IRCAM Paris, and the Fraunhifer. Gesellschaft, Germany, to foster collaboration between art practitioners and R&D projects. In 2016 she was awarded the Antón Scholarship for Sculpture Research from the Museo Antón in Candás (Sp). Also in 2016 she was nominated for the STARTSPrize' 16 at Ars Electronica, Linz (Austria) and the Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo (Japan).
During the last years she has been artist in residence at OsloMet University, in the framework of the FELT Project –FuturEs of Living Technologies–, 2019; a research stay at CITA– Center for Information Technology and Architecture–, in the context of VERTIGO STARTS 2017. Copenhagen; a research residency at SoftLab at Sliperiet, Umea Universitet (Sweden); and the Next Things residency at LABoral Centro de Arte (Gijón) and Telefonica I+D (Barcelona), 2015.
Her work has been featured in a number of exhibitions, including Jardín Cyborg, at Matatero Madrid, 2019; the solo exhibition Open Environmental Kit at MUSAC –Contemporary Art Museum of Castilla & Leon–, Spain, 2019; Eco-Visionaries at Hek, Basel, 2018; Look Forward Fashion Tech Festival, at La Gâite Lyrique Museum, Paris 2017; Human Factor, organized by Ars Electronica at DRIVE Volskwagen, Berlin, 2016; Ars Electronica Festival 2016, Linz; Bozar Electronic Art Festival, Brussels, 2016.
