A handful of scientists around the world are experimenting with animals in artificial wombs. In each study, the technological system is constructed slightly differently with the aim to provide an ex-vivo surrogate environment for infants born 22 to 28 weeks premature – a healthy gestation is 40 weeks. In September 2023 the US Food and Drug Administration met for two days to discuss the regulations, ethics and possibilities of creating an artificial womb for this purpose. To date, this is the most novel example of huMans’ endeavor to mimic, control, and “improve” on nature, continuing our aspiration to mechanize and automate the mysteries of “creation.” “Ectogenic Desire: Stories of Placentas, Mothers and Machines from the Past, Present, and Future” explores stories, biologies, and technologies of reproduction in humans and beyond. The presentations will consider placenta rituals practiced in different cultures over time; stories about biological and artificial wombs; the history of the Artificial Mothers and other ectogenic desires.

The exploration of technical artworks termed "artificial wombs" involves physically placing the viewer inside the work, incorporating touch, vibration, body position, and temperature experiences. This immersive approach aims to evoke primal sensations akin to being in a safe womb. Exam-ining projects like "Nemo Observatory," "Sound Capsule," and "Haptic Field," where participants encounter artificial environments, the study delves into psychological drivers of tactile and bodily immersion. While some projects aim for calming environments, others introduce surprising disturb-ances. Notably, these differ from VR experiences, emphasizing a physical separation from surroundings. Examples like "Optofonica Capsule," "Iso-phone," and "Waterwalk" engage kinesthetic and proprioceptive senses, challenging partici-pants physically and mentally. The study explores the genu-ine, sensory "inside" experience in these artworks, distinct from metaphorical immersion.

"Digital Flesh – Scar in Data" is a multimedia performance that combines live cinema, computer vision with reactive sound, and augmented reality (AR) to challenge and reimagine the representation of the female body, particularly the South Korean female body. This project reshapes the Korean female body as a dynamic interface and instrument, blurring the boundaries between physicality and virtuality. This practice-based research delves into questions about how digital technology objectifies and represents our bodies and explores methods for re-mediating corporeality within performative practice us-ing new media.

Faces is a network of female media artists that was founded in Austria in 1997. After a series of conversations on the fringes of the major European media art festivals, the question was raised: “Where are the women?”

Many informal meetings and dinners were arranged to discuss ideas and challenges. At one of these, the mailing list was inaugurated. The Faces list created a forum that marked a fundamental change in the practice of some women and the feeling of limitless communication has opened up new possibilities for creative online projects. In 1997, it served as the organizing platform for the Cyberfeminist International at the Documenta X. Since then, many Faces have self-organized informal and public meetings, dinners, presentations and exhibitions.

FACES at ISEA 2024 is the opportunity to share the diversity and variety of the international community. Using the platform UpStage, an online tool for real-time storytelling, allows for an online audience to join, observe and interact via live chat. Coordinated by Eva Ursprung and Kathy Rae Huffman in a live, online Open Mic session, members of the list will have short presentations of their works.

Faces is ‘moderated’ by list co-founders Valie Djordjevic, Diana McCarty and Kathy Rae Huffman. http://www.faces-l.net/

From Lilith to Mary, the monstrous to the virtuous; the mother image is an enduring cultural artifact that reifies heteronormative systems of care and mothering. Many within, and without, these systems- namely the non-compliant, are rendered alien-other and in-turn denied interdependent modes of care. This creative practice research project offers sci-fi speculations of care that neuroqueer the mother image, imagining collective care and kin making, beyond the mother.
A photographic (expanded) research method that begins with material/textural soft sculptures and moves through to virtual, experiential outcomes will be used to imagine, propose, and speculate. This creative research defines and explores the mother image and the cyborg-mother; specifically, as represented in contemporary science-fiction film. In response, creative outputs propose divergent soft-cyborg speculations for systemic multi-species care; postmother.
Working with an autoethnographic approach, as a neuroqueer mother/child and underpinned by a crip/queer/feminist manifesto-as-method, this research and resultant soft-cyborg imaginings reclaim the cyborg as a neuroqueer site of generative speculation. Beginning with Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, this research aims to propose technologically mediated modes of care for non-compliant bodes; meaningfully holding our othered, alien bodies and our more-than-human kin.