weather maps and diagrams used by Terry Winters. The early computer work of Agnes Denes
or the use of computer programs in the videos
of Nam June Paik also fit my model. These
might not be the first artists that come to mind
when thinking about SciArt but, in my mind,
they easily qualify as much as myself, Brandon
Ballengée, Natalie Jeremijenko, Eduardo Kac
or Cynthia Pannucci. This latter group is more
into the realm of science to be addressed as specific art content as opposed to the former group
that has scientific themes implied in their work.
SciArt is a category invented to embrace these
newer artists because there IS a large number of
artists fascinated by the technology and content of science. Apparently, from the number
of scientists opening their labs and research to
artists, there is a mutual curiosity.
So, the answer to the first part of the question
is that there are a huge number of artists in the
contemporary art world flirting with, as well as
hard core practitioners of Science and Art. If
you start to narrow this definition to laboratory
based art or scientific research-based art then
I think it is fair to say that this smaller pool is
marginalized by the main stream art world. By
the “main stream” art world, I mean art that
is exhibited at art fairs (currently the business
model for art sales.) In general, it’s fair to say
that SciArt is not commercially a hot commodity, and you don't see practitioners of this art
breaking auction records. Obviously, there are
many art worlds but the SciArt audience, in my
opinion, has yet to be consistently touted in the
mainstream media. There may be many reasons
for this (and of course there are exceptions.)
What I have noticed in my own work, such as
my current show at the National Academy of
Sciences, is most people don’t want to focus on
scientific content or even try to understand it.
Even though we are living in a epoch of science, the art market still has a hankering for the
enduring hangover of Pop and the ironical artmaking practice of Duchamp, repeatedly and
endlessly played out by successive generations.
The second part of your question is that it is
impossible to generalize about our culture at
large which is fragmented with the individual
voices made possible by the social networks of
the blog, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, selfpublishing, YouTube sensations, endless cable
channels and concentrated niches to which it
is now possible to connect. I think in the con-
SciArt in America December 2013
text of this fragmentation, there is also a place
for a category like SciArt to build momentum
because the solo practitioners can now more
easily meet each other. As a matter of fact, this
meeting place has been made possible by these
mass culture technologies that allowed ASCI.org
to build audien