Aisen Caro Chacin: Assistive Device Art

The Center for Innovation, Research, and Creativity in the Arts (CIRCA) presents Aisen Caro Chacin, who will discuss Assistive Device Art: Transformation of Ability and Perception, The Plasticity of the Mind, and Human Expansion.

Seeing through your tongue, listening through your teeth, navigating space through sonic vision, and mechanical ventilation are interfaces that are functional and assistive, yet can serve as interactive portals to gain new cross-modal perceptual abilities. Assistive Device Art and BioArt aesthetically and conceptually apply materials and methods from bioengineering, health sciences, synthetic biology, and medicine as a form of artistic inquiry into bio-systems and the human condition. In a time of conscious evolution, this work explores and sculpts living systems to generate discussions and new directions for research between art and science to envision alternative bio-futures that are humanistically, socially, and aesthetically conscious and concerned.

Aisen Caro Chacin is a regenerating composition of cells that produce a woman, artist, and animal whose migration patterns are not based on seasons, but rather, chance, chaos, and opportunity. Her curiosity led her to conceptual forms of inquiry in art, science, and technology.

She is the medical prototyping lead and Assistant Professor in Pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. She attained a BFA from the University of Houston where she is an Affiliate Professor of Art, and holds an MFA in Design and Technology, Parsons, and a Ph.D. in Human Informatics, University of Tsukuba, Japan.

Dr. Chacin’s research and practice focus on sensory perception, the human-machine relationship, and the technical and philosophical implications of embodiment through artificial bodies and reality in a time of conscious evolution. Her work is an intersection of new media artworks, human-computer interfaces, medical devices, and Assistive Device Art (ADA), encompassing sound art, interfaces for sensory substitution, resuscitation, human echolocation, haptics, medical automation, surgical simulation, and fashion. Her work has been presented and exhibited at Ars Electronica, Cite du Design, TEI, NIME, NYC Museum of Art and Design, The New York Hall of Science, and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, among others. Featured as an inventor in Future Tech by Discovery Channel, Creative Applications, FastCo, Time Techland, Engadget, and NY Times, and was awarded and published by PopSci.

Admission is free. A light reception will follow.