ON TOPIC
A Marriage Made in the Lab:
The Science Side of Science-Art Collaborations
Drift by Brian Knep (2004). Digital video projection.
By Ashley P. Taylor
Managing Editor
In 2006, biologist Natalie Andrew was trying to decide between postdoctoral positions in Cam-
bridge, in the UK, and at Harvard Medical School, in Boston. One of Andrew’s interests is reaction-diffusion, a process by which chemicals spread and react with one another to produce diverse
complex patterns. In biology, reaction-diffusion models can be used to explain the developmental
patterning of vertebrate embryos, stripes on zebras and zebrafish, spiraling movements of social
amoeba communities, and more. When Andrew walked into the Department of Systems Biology
at Harvard, the first thing that caught her attention, she told me via Skype, was a piece of art on
the wall. But it was a very particular kind of art, one that related to her field: “There on the wall
was something very clearly a reaction-diffusion system,” she recalled. Andrew had three responses
to the artwork, she told me: first, “This is really cool, it’s reaction-diffusion,” second, “They’ve got
it in artwork,” and third, “It’s in a science department.” Andrew concluded that, “these people are
open to something very cool,” and joined the lab. The enticing artwork, a non-repeating video installation indeed based on reaction-diffusion, was part of the “Drift” series (2004-2010). Its artist,
Brian Knep, was Harvard Medical School’s first artist-in-residence.
SciArt in America April 2014
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