Q2: Mimicking Nature, May 28, 2025 at 2220 Art+Archives
Dear friends,
I am excited to share with you information on our next gathering of Quarterly, which will be held at the Poetic Research Bureau on Wednesday, May 28, 2025 at 7:30pm.
QUARTERLY
Q2: Mimicking Nature
The thin line between nature and everything else
May 28, 2025 at 7:30pm, The Poetic Research Bureau, 2220 Arts + Archives
"The rules which govern the birth and life and decay of living systems don't apply in the realm of technology. A washing-machine does not grow old gracefully. It still retains its youth, as it were, its bright chrome trim, when it's been junked. You see these technological artifacts lying round like old corpses — in fact, their chrome is still bright." — JG Ballard 1975
What exactly is nature and how closely can we capture it or replicate it through experiments? For our next gathering, we will have Yasaman Sheri, Tom Comitta, and N. Katherine Hayles in conversation, moderated by Joanne McNeil. We will discuss the thin line between nature and everything else, whether anything really is “nonhuman,” and what about the natural world can and cannot be replicated.
Featuring:
Yasaman Sheri is a Designer, Researcher and Writer exploring the creative and critical inquiry within science technology and culture. She has over 15 years of experience building novel computing inputs and interfaces, creating contemporary curricula in Design Interactions and writes on human perception of life sciences and culture. She is currently Principal Investigator of Synthetic Ecologies Lab at Serpentine Galleries, Professor of Media Design Practices at Art Center College of Design and Research Affiliate at NYU.
Tom Comitta is the author of The Nature Book and two fiction books coming out in 2025: People’s Choice Literature: The Most Wanted & Unwanted Novels (Columbia University Press) and Patchwork (Coffee House Press). Their fiction and essays have appeared in WIRED, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, and BOMB. Comitta lives in Los Angeles with their partner and child.
N. Katherine Hayles is the Distinguished Research Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the James B. Duke Professor Emerita from Duke University. Her research focuses on the relations of literature, science and technology in the 20th and 21st centuries. Prizes include The Rene Wellek Award for the Best Book in Literary Theory for How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Literature, Cybernetics and Informatics, and the Suzanne Langer Award for Writing Machines. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her most recent book is Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with our Nonhuman Symbionts.
Thanks to The Poetic Research Bureau for hosting.
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Please feel free to email me with any questions. And please enjoy this recording of our last panel!
Hope to see you there!
Joanne