The Ecstasy of the False Positive
Date/Time
Date(s) - Friday, November 2, 2018
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Location
Biotech Without Borders
Categories No Categories
A free talk by Richard Pell
The Center for PostNatural History is the world’s only museum dedicated to the collection and documentation of living organisms that have been intentionally altered by people, through process such as selected breeding and genetic engineering. The museums Founder and Director, Rich Pell, will speak about the unusual specimens that teeter the edge of natural history. He will revisit some historic examples of specimens that were exposed as hoaxes as well as actual ones that were suspected of being fakes. These specimens serve as powerful metaphor for the false positives that always lurk on the edge of science. Each reminds us of the difference between what we know, and what we would like to be true.
Richard Pell is the founder and director of the Center for PostNatural History, an organization dedicated to the collection and exposition of life-forms that have been intentionally and heritably altered through domestication, selective breeding, tissue culture or genetic engineering. The Center for PostNatural History operates a permanent museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and produces traveling exhibitions that have appeared in science and art museum throughout Europe and the United States including the Victoria and Albert Museum and Wellcome Collection in London, the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, the CCCB in Barcelona, the ZKM in Karlsruhe, the 2008 Taipei Biennial, and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History as well as being featured in National Geographic, Nature Magazine, American Scientist, Popular Science and New Scientist. The CPNH has been awarded a Rockefeller New Media fellowship, a Creative Capital fellowship, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, and received generous support from Waag Society and the Kindle Project. Pell was award the 2016 Pittsburgh Artist of the Year. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.