DIALOGUE
The Future of
Science-Art Collaborations
By Suzanne Anker
Lorentz CenterWorkshop Participant &
Contributor
Bringing together an international group of
artists, scientists, museum curators, art historians, and philosophers, the Lorentz Center
(Leiden, the Netherlands) hosted a five-day
workshop in October of this year on the future
of art-science collaborations. The aim of the
workshop was to try to create “a survival guide
for artists and scientists.” Several key topics
were addressed, namely: Why collaborate between these two distinct fields? What is to be
gained? Is there a third, overlapping field sometimes referred to as “artscience” that should
be considered? What criteria are to be used in
assessing the value of the work produced?
The format of the workshop had three tiers:
a morning presentation by one of the organizers, followed by divisions into subgroups based
on self-selected themes. Each subgroup would
present their findings to the entire coterie of
participants for further discussion. In the evening, a public program of lectures took place
in participating institutions such as the Hortus
Botanicus, Open Wetlab (part of the Waag Sciety) in Amsterdam, the Royal Academy of Art
at The Hague, and the Museum Boerhaave in
Leiden. We also visited an exhibition of winners
of the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Award
(DA4GA), a combined initiative of the Netherlands Genomics Initiative, the Centre for
Society and Genomics and the Waag Society.
Howard Boland’s Living Mirror (in collaboration with Laura Cinti) was granted one of the
awards (Boland was also a participant in the
Lorentz conference). Of particular note was a
visit to the workshop from Dr. Huub de Groot,
a professor of biophysical organic chemistry
at Leiden University. Dr. Groot, who works on
artificial photosynthesis, thought that it was
an excellent idea to have artists working in labs
because they function as probes in the societal
debates concerning science and technology.
Some of the questions proposed by the participants included a belief that such collaborations
create an expansion of knowledge for the artist
and the scientist as well as an essential visual
knowledge exchange. Other topics focused on
new materials, processes, and techniques which
collaborations of this nature require on both
ends. Several artists talked about their own
experiences in collaborations with scientists
and the logistics of expectations, funding, and
resources—since such collaborations engage in
real-time experience they require a meaningful
transdisciplinary dialogue. Finally, there were issues raised about the differences between ethics
and morality in BioArt, a freedom/power dyad
related to the arts and sciences practices, and
fundamental questions concerning epistemological models for each discipline. In addition, the
question of artistic research, the studio based
Ph.D, BioArt vs bio-design, and DIY Citizen
Science were raised.
Expert meetings such as this one offer a rich
array of information and dialogue. The artscience collaboration continues, however, to be
a contested territory on both sides of the equation. As more and more interest grows both in
the public and university sphere,