SCHOOL OF ANATOMY & HUMAN BIOLOGY
SEMINARS
Semester Two 2008

Ms Ionat Zurr, SymbioticA,  School of Anatomy & Human Biology
Growing Semi-Living Art

The Seminar
This presentation will briefly discuss Zurr’s PhD research which was completed this year. Her thesis explored issues concerning the nature of living fragments of bodies and how they force us – humans – to reassess our understandings of life. It narrates the history of partial life, beginning a century ago, mainly in the bio-medical field and the fictions it created, to the times when actual semi-livings exist, not only in laboratories and tissue banks, but also in factories, museums, zoos and art galleries.

In 1996 Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr coined the term Semi-Livings to describe the living tissue constructs that are grown/constructed out of tissues taken from complex organisms and maintained alive with the aid of technological intervention. The Semi-Livings refers mainly to living tissue constructs that have no biomedical purpose. In the case of Catts and Zurr these evocative entities are created for the sole purpose of art. The Semi-Livings are unique examples of a growing class of objects/subjects that are increasingly populating our made environment.

Mr Guy Ben Ary, SymbioticA,  School of Anatomy & Human Biology
Silent Barrage

The Seminar

“Silent Barrage” is an art and science research project in which a robotic body is controlled by a biological “brain” (neural network). The research is contemplating the artistic and philosophical implications of an entity made of a “living brain” and a mechanical body and surrounds future scenarios where humans will create/grow/manufacture intuitive and creative “thinking entities” that could be intelligent and unpredictable beings. It is planned that the installation will consist of sixty sculptural robotic objects (the body of the entity). Each of the objects amplifies and represents the electric activity that occurs in a real biological neural network (of rat neurons) that have been grown in a Petri dish in Dr. Steve Potter’s neuro-engineering lab in Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. The behaviour of each robotic object is directly dependent on the signals generated by the neural network. The interface between the robotic object (body) and the neurons (brain) is be done via the Internet. Viewers will be invited to enter this immersive environment and  “walk through the brain” of the semi-living artist. The audience will be invited to interact with the neural network by moving through the space completing a closed feedback loop between the robotic objects (and viewers) in the gallery to the neurons in the lab.

Dr Jason Kirkness and Dr Jennifer Walsh School of Anatomy & Human Biology
Sleep and the upper airway

The Seminar (Dr Jennifer Walsh)

It is well documented that posture significantly alters the propensity for upper airway collapse. However, the effect goes beyond that of whole body posture to also include mandibular and head/neck posture. I will present some recent work which examined the effect of neck flexion and extension on upper airway collapsibility and site of collapse in healthy subjects during anaesthesia.  I have also been using anatomical optical coherence tomography (aOCT) to examine the dynamic modulation of upper airway calibre during respiration in wakefulness and sleep.  Using this technique I have been investigating the effect of head posture on the region(s) of pharyngeal collapse during sleep and will present some preliminary data.

The Seminar (Dr Jason Kirkness)

Sleep apnoea severity is stratified into mild, moderate, and severe. The standard treatment for severe sleep apnoea is continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, and adherence to CPAP in this group is relatively high. In the mild and moderate sleep apnoea populations, which constitute the majority of those with sleep apnoea, adherence to CPAP in much lower. This is due to a number of side effects of CPAP therapy such as dry and sore nasal passages, nasal congestion, and irritation of the mask on the face.  A high nasal airflow system may be a more comfortable alternative to positive pressure therapy, because it delivers heated and humidified air via a cannula rather than a mask on the face. Increasing the flexibility, comfort, and compliance for the treatment for mild forms of sleep apnoea would ease the individual burden of this disease.