Tomorrow, June 2, at Stockholm will take place program of lectures and performances, dedicated to biotechnologies and renewable energy. Latvian and swedish artists and scientists together will discuss art art as connector between science and society. This is one of closing events of Latvian presidency in European Parliament, which is organized by the Embassy of Latvia and Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology.

Program:

14.45 BIOART: Art and Science Join Forces in Building Techno-Ecological Perspective 

Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits are artists, network researchers and cultural innovators, working with science and emerging media technologies. They are key founders of RIXC – Riga based center for new media culture. Since 2009 they are engaged in building Renewable Network – art and science collaboration platform that fosters art and science collaboration and supports “techno-ecological” art practices. Their artwork Biotricity – Bacteria Battery, created together with Voldemars Johansons, is currently displayed at Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology.

15.50 BIOFUEL: Using biotechnology to produce the next generation of liquid fuels

Paul Hudson is Assistant Professor in the School of Biotechnology at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. His research group works on the genetic engineering of bacteria to produce liquid biofuels. In particular, he is interested in using photosynthetic organisms such as blue green algae to capture CO2 and convert it directly to fuel using sunlight. Paul will talk about the current state of biofuels in Europe and the most promising new technologies currently at demonstration or laboratory scale.

16.35 BIOHACKING: Brain boosting with a 9 volt battery

One of the current hot topics in brain science is transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS). Biohackers Maria Kareliusson and Sina Amoor Pour will attempt to boost their brain power with some wet sponges and a 9-volt battery.