NeuroEpigenEthics branches out

NeuroEpigenEthics aims to investigate how dynamic concepts of human biology influence the ascription of responsibility, specifically in the context of neurodevelopmental disorders. We use a combination of theoretical and empirical methods, with a special focus on the importance of experience stories. NeuroEpigenEthics is funded by an ERC Starting Grant (grant agreement No 804881) and is hosted at the University of Antwerp and KU Leuven.

We believe that complex questions require a truly interdisciplinary approach. In addition to a diverse set of empirical approaches, we believe in the value of diverse experiences as informing science. We engage with ideas from different disciplines and theoret(h)ical approaches, such as philosophy of biology, new materialism, bioethics, but also believe in the importance of stories, and art as central to imaging better futures. What binds us and our research are, in Donna Haraway’s words, philosophies of staying with the trouble.

On the opening evening of the NeuroEpigenEthics closing conference, we present a series of performances sharing these commitments of exploring the ampliative potential of combining academic and artistic endeavors. With performances by Mariske Broeckmeyer, Daniel Jones, and Simon Allemeersch, we aimed to curate a varied program of friends and collaborators embodying the imaginative potential of art in/for science. The evening is open to anyone interested, also if you are not participating in the rest of the NeuroEpigenEthics Closing Conference. We look forward to seeing you there!

Performances, lectures and screenings of friends of the team who work at the intersections of art and academic research into themes related to our project.

• https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/neuroepigenethics-closing-conference/programme/
  
• https://www.neuroepigenethics.com/

Mariske Broeckmeyer

Singer Mariske Broeckmeyer will bring an autotheoretical lecture on her doctoral research is the arts entitled: Unvoicing Migraine - a Study of the Failing Voice. She will reflect on the audio exhibition that accompanied her research while fragments of the compositions are played. Through personal narratives and intimate vocal sounds she will guide the audience into the blackened scenery of the migraine landscape. When this neurological syndrome rages at full force, a throbbing headache and an all-consuming nausea reduce the migraineur to an immobile body on the verge of being. As the attack increases, the voice, too, slowly starts to fail. By capturing this gradual vocal disintegration, Broeckmeyer amplifies the importance of vocality in the context of illness and studies what the failing voice might reveal about the essence of being voiced. This way, personal migrainous utterances offer a starting point to redefine what a voice could be when it is silenced by illness.

Daniel Jones

KLAZO is a dance-theatre piece that presents the autobiographical accounts of two performers with Tourette Syndrome (myself and Maddy Melon). The performance features two Tourettic movers exploring the weirdness of tics and the hilarity of Tourettes, but also goes into the more painful aspects of lacking of bodily control, for example. The performance explores what it is like to grow up and to grow with disability and queerness at the heart of our identity.

Simon Allemeersch

Simon Allemeersch is a theatremaker, who currently works at Ghent University as social-spatial researcher on precarious housing and housing pathways through psychiatry. This presentation is about the ongoing fieldwork in child and youth psychiatry. Central to the work is the shared use of a camera, which refers to the idea of camérer by the French pedagogue Fernand Deligny. Simon is part of the artist-run collective Lucinda Ra.

19:00-22:00
FREE, you can register through this link (conference registration)