DIGESTING THE ANTHROPOCENE – Food for thought

Jonathon Keats and guests

IN CONVERSATION
Friday 16:30 / Saturday 13:00

Boasting 500 million neurons, the human digestive system is an intelligent organ. Yet when we set out to understand the world, we depend entirely on our brains. The project and installation, specifically developed for STATE Festival 2016, will engage the emotional cognition of visitors' stomachs and intestines in solving one of the world's most pervasive and intractable problems: anthropogenic climate change.

Once a day, Jonathon Keats will engage in a conversation with a scientist to discuss questions related to the current state of research and the interrelation between the gastro enteric system and emotional states; the possibilities and difficulties related to the study and analysis of complex biological systems; and the difficulties and implications of the abstraction of big amounts and complex relations of data.

(image © Steve Easterbrook - Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto)