Aisen Caro Chacin: Love at First Swab: Genetic Matchmaker
Date: Thursday, 26th of February at 6.30pm

DNA AND SERENDIPITY
Love At First Swab is a genetic matchmaking experimental company that invites potential partners to scientific play, facilitating serendipitous interaction among players, guided by the quantification of genetic compatibility.
DNA swab samples are collected from participants and analysed in the lab for their HLA gene, which has shown to be linked to attraction, or what we may sometimes refer to as "love chemistry" in a physical sense. This data is then compared to other participant's data, finding the most diversity among partners, opposites attract.

This talk will overview the legal, ethical, and technical aspects and issues that have been raised along the process of creating this company.

Born in Boston, MA, Aisen Caro Chacin is a regenerating composition of cells that produce a woman, a Venezuelan, a Spaniard, an U.S. American, and an animal whose patterns of migration are not based on seasons, but rather chance, chaos, and opportunity.
Her curiosity led her to research the intersecting fields of art, science, and technology driven by conceptual forms of inquiry and design thinking resulting in functional prototypes. Her work has exhibited in at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression Conference, The New York Hall of Science, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Maker Faire, and Dorkbot. Soaking with a sculpture background, her sponge also absorbed the MFA Design and Technology program at Parsons in NYC Spring 2013.
Now she focuses on Human Computer Interaction HCI- designing new interfaces for information display. How do we perceive the world; and what are the limits of visual digital media? Her intent is explore dislocated, unplotted, un-assigned ideas that translate to interactive hardware prototypes.
Featured as an inventor in Future Tech by Discovery Channel, and awarded Nov 2012 Project of the Month by PopSci, she looks forward to finding other suspended disbeliefs in her pocket.

The Educational Programme of Društvo Ljudmila, Art and Science Laboratory is supported by Ministry of Culture (in coproduction with Projekt Atol Institute) and City Municipality of Ljubljana – Department for Culture.