THE CYBORG GENESIS
by María Castellanos Vicente
María Castellanos Vicente
María Castellanos is an artist and researcher working at the intersection of art, science, technology and society. She is currently working as a postdoc researcher at Oslo Metropolitan University, in the framework of FeLT Project –Futures of Living Technologies–
She holds a Bachelor’s degree and a Doctorate in Contemporary Arts Practices from the University of Vigo (SP), with an Extraordinary Phd Award 2016. Her dissertation entitled “The bionic skin. Technological Membranes as Body Interfaces in Artistic Practice” focuses on technological prosthesis, more specifically in hybridizations between cyborgs and wearables as a paradigm of extending human sensorial capabilities.
Her artistic practice focuses primarily on the research about human sensory boundaries and the creation of complex systems that promote the communication and the understanding between humans and non human beings.
Her work has won awards like Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators by Fundación BBVA (2020), 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).
Her work was exhibited and performed at venues and festivals such as Ars Electronica Festival (AT), LABoral Art Centre (ES) , Athens Digital Arts Festival (GR), Onassis Stegi (GR), House of electronic Arts Basel(CH), La Gâite Lyrique Museum (FR), DRIVE Volskwagen (DE), Matadero Madrid (ES), Bozar Electronic Art Festival (BE), Arts Santa Mónica (ES), Touch me Festival (CH) MUSAC (ES), CEBIT. Europe's Festival for Innovation and Digitization (DE), V2_Lab (NL), Pompidou-Metz (FR), Antre Peaux (FR), Trondheim International Biennale for Art and Technology (NO), RIXC Festival (LV).
Contact info
Email: maria [at] mariacastellanos [dot] net
Instagram: @imperdiblewoman
The Cyborg Genesis is a speculative work about the future of human reproduction.
I have sought inspiration from Shulamith Firestone’s 1970 feminist manifesto, which encouraged women to take seizure of the control of human fertility, distinguishing between sex and reproduction.
Through this work composed of a piece of videoart and the object showed in the video –a wearable machine capable of monitoring a posthuman uterus- the possibility of creating external and portable uterus is posed. This, along with other medical advances, such as sexual cells procurement out of other body cells, would allow that human reproduction not be dependent on our biology or sexual orientation.
