TALK: The eternal body by Elena Giulia Abbiatici

If olfactory and acoustic pollution is the consequence of anthropic impact, we can declare its colonising power over our sensory potential. Our respiratory and auditory systems continually filter, respectively, chemical substances and high frequencies that can interfere with our neurodegenerative apparatus, either depotentiation or enriching and stimulating it, offering prospects for epistemological and aesthetic development. Numerous research teams in electronic engineering applied to the biological sciences have experimented and started programming various artificial software, effective in repairing sensory disorders, or detecting, recognising and treating health problems, as well as there, are other devices designed and used for entertainment and artistic application. How do digital technologies fit into the olfactory and acoustic experience of the environment? Will they work to counter climate disasters? Will they work to restore lost or altered biological functions and/or even expand them? How do algorithms work to define the concept of malodour and the concept of good smell? How do algorithms regulate the levels of noise in our urban and natural environments? What kind of olfactory choices will the cyborg make and on what basis? Will it be subject, as now, to racialisation and classification? If hybridisation with the artificial is an unavoidable prospect, the choice is the sense to be given to this perspective, namely the possibility of escaping from unique technical thinking. This is the direction in which the meeting wants to move, outlining research by artists and scientists who have figured or developed, with their respective teams, useful projects to counteract inauspicious sensory and atmospheric effects. Today, the hybrid between human beings and technology can be achieved, for example, through programmed external intervention in the genetic code.