Be-wildering
by Jennifer Willet & Kira O'Reilly, Waag Society, Amsterdam

During the final performance of Trust me I'm an artist O'Reilly and Willet will bring (or perhaps smuggle) a variety of living materials to the Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag building in Amsterdam, questioning which species are allowed in which ecologies, the laboratory as ecology and the wilderness as lab. A specially formed local ethics committee will react.

Schedule
Friday May 12th 2017 - 19h30 - 22h00

Location
Waag Society, Nieuwmarkt 4, 1012 CR Amsterdam
Free event, but registration required (from link below)

Link for the event
http://waag.org/nl/event/performance-be-wildering-jennifer-willet-kira-oreilly

The performance
Questions will be raised on bio-safety, public health, pollution and toxicity. The work will be presented too the committee. While following the rules and procedures typical for the Netherlands, the ethics committee will debate the proposal and come to a decision. The artist will be informed of the ethics committee's decision and, together with the audience, enters into a discussion about the result.
Willet and O'Reilly have performed together before and for Trust Me I'm an Artist their work will again intersect, this time in a faux ethics review of different but parallel practices escaping the studio, the laboratory, and into the wilderness. Part performance, part lecture, part bureaucratic response and procedural rebellion O'Reilly and Willet will propose a series of real and imagined attempts at 're-wilding' their art/science practices. They will propose to enact twin sets of installations in Canada along the coastline of the Great Lakes, and in the forests of Finland. Unruly laboratory and performance practices will challenge notions of pollution, invasiveness, toxicity, and discrete national boundaries in interspecies dispersal actions; calling into question the possibility of a wilderness at all.

Artists websites
Jennifer Willet : http://www.jenniferwillet.com/
Kira O'Reilly : http://www.kiraoreilly.com/

The project 'Trust Me, I'm an Artist: Developing ethical frameworks for artists, cultural institutions and audiences engaged in the challenges of creating and experiencing new art forms in biotechnology and biomedicine in Europe' is led by artist Anna Dumitriu in collaboration with ethicist Professor Bobbie Farsides. The project is run by Waag Society in collaboration with Brighton and Sussex Medical School, The Arts Catalyst, Ciant, Kapelica Gallery / Kersnikova, Medical Museion, Capsula and Leonardo/Olats.

The Trust Me, I'm an Artist project is supported by funding from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Le ArtSciLab du département ATEC de l'Université du Texas à Dallas soutient et participe à Trust Me, I'm an Artist par le biais des projets de publication expérimentale des Leonardo Initiatives qui incluent la chaîne Meta-Life sur la plateforme Creative Disturbance associée à Audiolats ainsi que le site web du projet Meta-Life.

The UT Dallas ATEC ArtSciLab supports and participates in the Trust Me, I'm an Artist project through the Leonardo Initiatives projects in Experimental Publishing including the Creative Disturbance platform channel on art and biology associated to Audiolats and the Meta-Life project website.