SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 6-8:30pm

6-7pm:
Rich Pell, founder of the Center for PostNatural History (CPNH), lectures on “Permitted Habitats and Endangered GMO’s: An Introduction to the Center for PostNatural History.”

The CPNH is an organization dedicated to the advancement of knowledge relating to the complex interplay between culture, nature and biotechnology. “PostNatural” refers to living organisms that have been altered through processes such as selective breeding or genetic engineering to meet human desires. Pell will present a number of examples of “postnatural” life forms, giving particular attention to genetically engineered life forms that are indigenous to New York State.

7-8pm:
Oleg Mavromatti, an interdisciplinary artist and co-founder of the art collective ULTRAFUTURO, gives a lecture titled “From Cosmism to Expansion in Outerspace: An Introduction to Russian Cosmism in Arts, Sciences and Interdisciplinary Practices.” Mavromatti will present a critical and historical overview of Russian Cosmism as a mystical philosophy that deeply affected the development of Soviet science and space research, as well as the relationship between spirituality and science and their media representation.

Russian Cosmism was a philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It entails a broad theory of natural philosophy combining elements of religion, ethics, and a history and philosophy of the origin, evolution and future existence of the cosmos and humankind. Mavromatti will discuss some of the main representatives of this philosophy like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who pioneered Soviet rocket and space research and was among the first to work out the theoretical problems of rocket travel in space; Nikolaj Fedorov, who embedded the ideas of immortality into Russian Cosmism, as currently developed by the trans-humanist movement; and Alexander Bogdanov, whose universal systems theory and interest in the possibility of human rejuvenation through blood transfusion was developed through scientific research and promoted through science fiction stories written by Bogdanov himself.

8-8:30pm:
Kefir Grains are Going Onto the Flight, a film by artist and writer Yuri Leiderman and independent film maker and producer Andrei Silvestrov, will be screened. The film documents a “competition” between cultured kefir grains on board a Russian space program training plane in zero gravity that aims to select the best “cosmonaut” among them.