Laura Splan engages audiences with intersections of art, science, and technology through public programming and special events. Her keynote speaking, artist lectures and talks, and participation on panels unpack the interdisciplinary themes in her work and provide intimate insight into her research-based studio practice.
As a speaker, Splan’s artist talks and lectures have been presented by the Frontiers of Science Institute, the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute, the International Symposium on Electronic Art, Concordia University, and the Anderson Endowed Lecture Series at Pennsylvania State University. She was the keynote speaker for the Digital Fabrication Symposium at the University of North Texas presenting her lecture “Bits & Pieces: Material Epistemologies & Digital Fabrication”. Her recent artist talk, “Syndemic Sublime,” was co-presented by the New Museum and Science Sandbox for NEW INC’s “Radical Evolution.” Splan has been a featured guest on MicrobeTV, hosted by Dr. Vincent Racaniello of Columbia University, SciArt Initiative’s LunchBreak series hosted by Julia Buntaine, and the Sound and Vision podcast hosted by artist Brian Alfred. She has participated in panel discussions and roundtables at the Brooklyn Museum, SciFoo at Google’s Headquarters in Silicon Valley, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona.
2023 Harvestworks, New York, NY, Curated by Carol Parkinson (Technology Immersion Program: Research-Based Studio Practice)
2023 Royal Institute of Art, Department of Digital Media and Photography, Stockholm, SE, Åsa Andersson Broms’ Post Graduate Course: “Materialities; energies”, Royal Institute of Art (Artist Talk—Material Expressions: Subjectivity and Substance)
2022 University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, Art & Science Salon Series, Curated by Siddharth Ramakrishnan (Artist Lecture—Syndemic Sublime)
2022 University of Iowa, School of Art and Art History, Iowa City, IA (Artist Lecture—Metafrictions: Rhapsodies of Residues in Interstitial Spaces)
2022 ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art), Possibles, Barcelona, ES (Artist Talk—Syndemic Sublime)
2022 LASER Sciart Talks presented by Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ (Artist Talk—Material Healing)
2022 New Media Caucus, College Art Association Conference, Showcase: New Media Artists & Scholars (Artist Talk—Syndemic Sublime)
2022 Ohio State University, Department of Art, Visiting Artist Lecture Series (Artist Lecture—Metafrictions in the Expanded Biotechnological Landscape)
2021 The Crit Lab, New York, NY (Artist Lecture—Conserved Domains: (re)materializing patterns/(re)framing motifs)
2021 Fredrickson Family Innovation Lab in partnership with the Quick Center for the Arts (Artist Lecture—Unfolding Narratives: Mining the Biotechnological Imaginary)
2021 Frontiers of Science Institute, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO (Artist Lecture—Material Expressions: Rematerializing the Biomedical Imaginary)
2021 New Museum, NEW INC’s Radical Evolution: 10 Glimpses into the Future, Co-Presented by Science Sandbox (Artist Talk: Syndemic Sublime)
2021 Museum of Arts & Design, ARTexchange/CAA, New York, NY (Artist Talk—Precarious Structures: Collective Unraveling & Remote Entanglements)
2021 Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN (Artist Lecture—Entangled Entities: Interspecies Entanglements in the Biotechnological Landscape)
2020 MicrobeTV: This Week in Virology, Curated by Vincent Racaniello (Artist Lecture: Syndemic Sublime)
2020 Telematic Media Arts, San Francisco, CA, Online Programming for The Archive to Come, Curated by Clark Buckner/Carla Gannis (Artist Talk: Pandemic Panorama: Molecular Meditations)
2020 Norwegian Bioart Arena (NOBA) Symposium: Viral Life, Presented by Vitenparken Ås (Artist Talk: Unraveling—material artifacts & poetic subjectivities of the biotechnological landscape)
2020 University of Connecticut Humanities Institute in collaboration with the Art & Art History Department (Artist Lecture: Shaded Areas of Uncertainty)
2020 ecoartTECH, Curated by Patricia Lee Watts, Online (Artist Talk: TechnoMaterialities—Digitally Mediated Encounters with the Biological World)
2020 Virtual Venture Café at the uCity Science Center, Curated by Angela McQuillan, Online (Artist Lecture+Sound Performance by Frank Masciocchi: Disrupted Domains)
2020 Coalesce Center for Biological Arts, Coalesce Dispersion Talks, Moderated by Paul Vanouse and Stephanie Rothenberg, Online (Artist Talk Series: Art & Science in a Global Pandemic)
2020 SciArt Initiative, LunchBreak: In Conversation with Carrie Klein/Julia Buntaine Hoel (Artist Talk: Remote Entanglements)
2020 University of Connecticut, School of Fine Arts, Prof. Barry Rosenberg’s, Graduate Seminar, Online (Artist Talk: Invisible Materialities)
2020 Virtual Venture Café at the uCity Science Center, Curated by Angela McQuillan, Online (Artist Lecture: Precarious Structures)
2019 Printmaking: Alternative Process (Laimah Osman’s Course), Parsons School of Design, New York, NY (Artist Talk)
2019 Pennsylvania State University, John M. Anderson Endowed Lecture, State College, PA (Lecture/Graduate Studio Critiques)
2018 LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Art/Science Talks, San Jose State University, Digital Media Art Program at the CADRE Media Lab, San Jose, CA (Artist Talk)
2018 LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Art/Science Talks, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (Artist Talk)
2018 California College of Art, Oakland, CA (Artist Talk)
2018 School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Snow Yunxue Fu’s Seminar: Digitization (Online Artist Talk)
2018 Stanford University, Art & Art History Department, Palo Alto, CA, Camille Utterback’s Course: Drawing with Code (Artist Talk)
2018 Material Turn Symposium, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, CA (Artist Talk: Undo/Redo—Material Expressions of Embodied Constructs)
2018 Science Center, Philadelphia, PA (BioArt Residency Artist Talk)
2018 Creative Tech Week, New York, NY (Artist Talk: Fabricated Bodies: Materializing the Biotechnological Imagination)
2017 Textile Study Group of New York, New York, NY (Lecture)
2017 University of North Texas, Denton, TX, Digital Fabrication Symposium Presented by the College of Visual Arts & Design (Keynote Lecture: Bits & Pieces: Material Epistemologies & Digital Fabrication)
2017 LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous), Curated by Ellen K. Levy & Patricia Olynyk, New York, NY (Artist Talk)
2017 Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, University of New Haven, Old Lyme, CT (Lecture/Undergraduate Studio Critiques)
2017 NYU Langone Medical Center Art Gallery, New York, NY (Artist Talk: Manifest)
2016 University of Maine, IMRC/Dept. of New Media, Orono, ME (Lecture: Material Expressions)
2016 Creative Tech Week, New York, NY (Artist Talk: Fabricated Bodies: Materializing the Biotechnological Imagination)
2016 SubnetAIR, Center for Human-Computer Interaction, University of Salzburg, Austria (Artist Talk)
2015 Illinois State University, Normal, IL (Lecture/Graduate & Undergraduate Studio Critiques)
2015 University of North Carolina, Hanes Visiting Artist Lecture Series, Art & Art History Department, Chapel Hill, NC (Lecture/Graduate Studio Critiques)
2015 Digital Fabrication Speaker Series, Livestreamed Event (Lecture: Fabricated Bodies: Materializing the Biological Imagination)
2015 Austin Peay State University, Department of Art, Clarksville, TN (Lecture: (Re)Materializing the Biological Imagination)
2015 Maker Faire, New York Hall of Science Auditorium, Center Stage, New York, NY (Artist Talk: Decoding the Biological via Digital Media Art)
2014 Dowling College, Visual Arts Department, Ceramics Studio, Oakdale, NY (Lecture: Distillations)
2013 Science on Tap, Co-Hosted by The Mütter Museum, Philadelphia, PA (Lecture: Domesticated Viscera)
2013 SUNY Fredonia, NY (Studio Critiques/Lecture: Gone Viral: Medical Science and Contemporary Textile Art)
2012 New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM (Graduate Studio Critiques/Lecture: Material Thought)
2012 Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA (Lecture/Graduate Studio Critiques)
2011 San Francisco State University / Co-Presented by KQED, San Francisco, CA (Lecture/Graduate Studio Critiques)
2009 Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX (Studio Critiques/Lecture: Body Politic)
2009 Shakerag Workshops, Faculty Lecture Series, St. Andrew’s-Sewanee, Sewanee, TN (Lecture)
2008 Rhodes College, Lillian & Morrie Moss Foundation Lecture, Memphis, TN (Studio Critiques/Lecture: Reflexive)
2007 California College of Art, Textiles Department, Oakland, CA (Lecture)
2006 Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (Lecture/Graduate Studio Critiques)
2005 CSSSA, Art and Culture Lecture Series, Cal Arts, Valencia, CA (Lecture)
2005 Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA (Lecture: Domesticated Viscera)
2005 San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA (Lecture)
2005 Kala Art Institute, Fellowship Artist Lecture Series, Berkeley, CA (Lecture)
2005 University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA (Lecture)
2004 Exploratorium, Brown Bag Lecture Series, San Francisco, CA, (Lecture)
2004 St. Mary’s College, Art Department, Moraga, CA (Lecture)
2003 SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA (Artist Talk w/Philip Ross)
2002 California State University, Hayward, CA (Lecture)
2022 SF Presents: The Sticky Space Between Art & Science, In Conversation: Adam Lamson & Laura Splan, Moderated by Salome Asega, Gerald D. Fischbach Auditorium, Simons Foundation, New York, NY
2022 Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, ES, International Symposium on Electronic Art, with Esther Pizarro and Ian Callender, Moderated by Andy Gracie (Panelist—Time and Space: Zooming in/out)
2020 Norwegian Bioart Arena (NOBA) Symposium, Presented by Vitenparken Ås, Viral Life (Presenter—Unraveling: Material Artifacts & Poetic Subjectivities of the Biotechnological Landscape)
2019 Digital Arts Fellowship Panel Discussion, AS22O, Providence, RI
2018 Material Turn Symposium, Moderated by Barbara Layne, Université Concordia, Montréal, QC, CA, Panelist/Presenter
2017 Entangling Art & Biology: Bioart & Beyond, Roundtable Moderated by Meredith Tromble, College Art Association Conference, New York, NY, Panelist/Presenter
2017 Interactive Media Studio: Barbara Lattanzi’s Seminar, School of Art and Design, Alfred University, Alfred, NY, Presenter
2016 Comrade Truebridge, Transdisciplinary workgroup curated by Quintan Ana Wikswo, Sponsored by Creative Capital & New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY, Participant
2015 TechNoBody, Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY, Moderated by Patricia Miranda, Panelist
2014 Comrade Truebridge, Transdisciplinary workgroup curated by Quintan Ana Wikswo, Sponsored by Creative Capital & New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY, Participant
2013 Women Artists and the Body, Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn, NY, Panelist/Presenter
2013 SciFoo, Hosted by Google, Mountain View, CA, Organized by Digital Science, O’Reilly Media & Google, Support from Nature, Participant
2012 SciFoo: Dancing With DNA, Painting With Blood (w/Scott Snibbe), Hosted by Google, Mountain View, CA, Organized by Digital Science, O’Reilly Media & Google, Support from Nature, Panelist/Presenter
2011 Biohumanities: BioArt, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, Presenter/Discussant
2011 Professional Art Practices, Graduate Seminar, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, Discussant
2010 Dead or Alive: Intersections of Art & Science, Museum for Art & Design, New York, NY, Panelist
2009 Re/Formations, Davidson College, Davidson, NC, Panelist
2008 Biology as Master Metaphor: Mara Holt Skov’s/Steven Skov Holt’s Seminar, California College of Art, San Francisco, CA, Presenter/Discussant
2007 Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, Museum for Art & Design, New York, NY, Panelist
2007 Rendering the Invisible, Biology and Art: Two Worlds or One?, New York Academy of Sciences, New York, NY, Presenter/Panelist
2005 Carnal Knowledge, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Rosa, CA, Panelist
2005 BioTechniques: Phil Ross’s Seminar, California College of Art, San Francisco, CA, Presenter/Discussant
2004 Art & Biology: Gail Wight’s Seminar, Stanford University, Art & Art History Department, Palo Alto, CA, Presenter
2002 Feminist Art & Activism, Ladyfest, Spring Tower, Los Angeles, CA, Panelist
