LASER Talks in Bucharest: Natural | Artificial

Alex May joined Anna Dumitriu and Floriama Candea for LASER Talks in Bucharest: Natural | Artificial on Thursday 5 December 2024 at 6pm EET in Bucharest, Romania. Chaired by Natalia Marin and Alex Radu, the event formed part of the Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) series and focused on new forms of coexistence and interdependence between natural and artificial systems.

The event text framed the discussion around a rapidly shifting boundary between the natural and the artificial, asking how contemporary art and science respond as technology becomes increasingly embedded in biological, environmental, and social systems. Rather than treating technology as something separate from nature, the discussion was positioned around the ways artificial systems are already reshaping how life, identity, sustainability, and authenticity are understood.

For Alex May, this provided a strong context for discussing a practice that consistently examines how digital systems alter memory, time, and cultural narratives. Set alongside conversations about biotechnology, healthcare technologies, and hybrid forms of life, his contribution brought questions of digital mediation, embodiment, and interdependence into a broader art-science dialogue about how contemporary technologies are changing lived experience.

Organisers described the event as building on the impact of a recent exhibition that had already sparked broad interest across Bucharest. Further details were published on the Leonardo event page and via /SAC and SAC Malmaison.