Sk-interfaces: Exploding Borders - Creating Membranes in Art, Technology and Society

Skin represents a place where art, science, philosophy and social culture intersect. With a growing number of bodily extensions and the continuous discovery of new areas - physical, virtual and psychological - the clear distinctive lines between individuals, countries and even species are beginning to blur.Advances in bio-medical research together with deconstructivist theories in philosophy are reflected in the work of many artists using skin, materially or metaphorically, as an interface, whose work goes beyond the descriptive surface of the skin, to explore issues of xeno-transplants, trans-species and trans-racial exchanges. In recent years, a trend towards the analysis of skin, its functions and meanings, has emerged in the practice of many artists using wet biology, bio-architecture and self-experimentation.Jens Hauser has been involved in much of the development in this area and this book provides an engaging, critical and thought-provoking approach to how current technologies are changing our perceptions of the body, the self and the interactions between bodies.Hauser's book will accompany the landmark exhibition (of the same name) at FACT.

Jens Hauser's curatorial concept for the exhibition reflects that of the book, involving a multidisciplinary approach to the topic, involving art, science, politics, philosophy and architecture."Sk-interfaces" will be a milestone not just for the development of the specific new artists' work but also in the history of biotechnological art.This titles is a provocative examination of some of the most contentious moral and philosophical issues of our day. It is edited by one of the leading figures in biotechnological art. It includes contributions from a host of major international artists and critics in this field including Julia Reodica, ORLAN and Jun Takita.