Life is not what it used to mean
INAUGURAL LECTURE BY VISITING PROFESSOR ORON CATTS IN COLLABORATION WITH VIAD
NADINE GORDIMER AUDITORIUM, LIBRARY BUILDING, UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG, CORNER KINGSWAY AVENUE AND UNIVERSITY ROAD, AUCKLAND PARK, JOHANNESBURG
26 August 2025
In many languages there is only one word to describe the concept of life in all of its manifestations. This poverty of languages might limit the ways human culture can relate to the growing knowledge about different aspects of life (sciences), and even more importantly it can impact the directions this newfound knowledge can be employed. Some of the most radical shifts in our understanding of the concept of life happen in labs by mission driven researchers in confined epistemological silos and tend to be culturally analysed by other researchers with no firsthand and direct experience of the actualities and impacts of research on life itself.
Artwork credit: Victimless Leather- A Prototype of Stitch-less Jacket grown in a Technoscientific “Body (2024), The Tissue Culture & Art Project (Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr); Biodegradable polymer skin and bone cells from human and mouse, custom-built bioreactor. This project was hosted, researched and developed at SymbioticA, The University of Western Australia.
ABOUT PROF ORON CATTS
Prof Catts is an artist, researcher, designer and curator, and a world-renowned expert in the field of bioart and design. He was recently appointed Academic Lead and Director of the Institute of Advanced studies at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Prior to this appointment, Catts was the Director of SymbioticA – The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, School of Human Sciences at UWA, which he founded in 2000. SymbioticA was the first research laboratory of its kind, enabling practitioners to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department. The Centre enabled a pioneering means of creative practice, where artists and designers use the tools and technologies of science (specifically, biotechnology) to explore the creative possibilities of art-science collaborations. Under Catts’s leadership, SymbioticA won the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) and the Western Australia Premier Science Award (2008). In 2024, SymbioticA transitioned out of UWA to become and independent research institute.
