Briefing sheet Briefing sheet 2023
______________________________________________
Art and Science: a new partnership
June 2003
Introduction
There has been in recent years an intriguing and important development in British culture. Exhibition spaces, associated more usually with artists, have made room for the debates, findings and even the hardware of science. Laboratories, in amongst the daily and busy business of producing science, have welcomed into their communities artists of varying sorts, and given them the space to get on with their craft. It is not unusual now to find science centres and museums with works of art on permanent display; to hear of plays with specifically scientific themes, and to come across gatherings and conferences where scientists and artists debate their points of contact, and their differences. Finally, but significantly, the ‘science-art collaboration’, where an artist and a scientist work together on a common project, has become, if not commonplace, then at least a recognisable and legitimate activity, capable of drawing substantial grants from major funders, both in the arts and the sciences. As can be imagined, so large a range of cultural activities is not easily covered by any one term, but for the purposes of convenience, this briefing sheet will use the term ‘sci-art’ as a suitable label. The purpose of the following accout is to give some sense of the range and the purpose of current sci-art activities in the United Kingdom, and to indicate how those new to the field can get involved. This sheet does not claim to be exhaustive, but it will provide the reader with a guide to some of the main themes. Part of the interest of sci-art is the diversity of the people involved: sculptors, neurophysiologists, hospital architects, film makers, performance artists, psychologists, photographers, particle physicists, writers and mechanical engineers are all on the roll call. The list is long, and growing.
Sci-art in tradition
Some readers might doubt that there is anything very novel in the idea of exchange between science and art. As one scans back through history, there appear multiple examples of the one influencing the other. The physicist Neils Bohr had a cubist painting on his wall – could this have helped him see a particle as both a wave and a particle? Was it not the Roman poet, Lucretius, who in his didactic poem On the Nature of the Universe, propagated the ancient Greek idea that the material universe is divisible into particles? Most people like to think of Leonardo da Vinci, with his catapults and his paintings, as both a scientist and an artist – the original Renaissance man. We know too that the artist Jan Vermeer used optical devices to project the scenes he painted: most recently David Hockney, in his book Secret Knowledge argues that the old masters used lenses much more often than had been thought. The idea of an artist being also a person of scientific skills is supported by the fact that for centuries a knowledge of human anatomy was central to the professional development of painters (George Stubbs, indeed, was an expert in comparative anatomy). In general we associate artists with excellent powers of observation, just as we do scientists. In literature too we see science playing a role: out of many examples one might highlight George Eliot’s Middlemarch, where the progressive Dr Lydgate wrestles with the newest ideas in physiology. However, interesting though these fragments of cultural exchange might be, they are too various to sit easily as the collective ancestor of today’s sci-art activity. It is more fruitful, at
2
Art and Science June 2003
least in a brief survey, to look for a more contemporary and recognisable cultural antecedent, th and in this respect it is helpful to turn to the 20 century scientist and novelist CP Snow. It was Snow’s 1959 Rede Lecture at the Senate House in Cambridge which launched into modern society the phrase ‘the two cultures’, and with it a series of highly charged anxieties about the British education system, and the role of science and the arts in the life of the nation. Snow’s description of a literary and artistic intelligentsia who, though in charge of Britain’s cultural and political life, systematically ignored science, caused a certain amount of uproar. Snow’s analysis can be faulted in a number of ways but it cannot be doubted that he touched a twitching, raw nerve. He was read as implying that the simple act of being educated in the UK, and of being trained into the professions, was necessarily to find oneself initiated into one culture, and left utterly alienated from another. Even today in the UK, it is not uncommon to hear A level students, and undergraduates, lamenting their restrictive choices in education. It seems very likely that contemporary sci-art projects obtain some of their fascination from the belief that in such work the two cultures are at last in intimate cohabitation.
Questions for sci-art
Although this briefing sheet aims to generate a sense of what might be involved in sci-art, it does not attempt to define what is meant by a sci-art project. Some of these projects are the work only of artists; some involve scientists only to the extent that they are asked to interpret their work in terms that a non-expert can understand, and that the artist can work with. Other projects involve an active collaboration between the scientist and the artist, with flows of influence moving both ways. The variety is compounded by the diversity of spaces colonised by sci-art projects: building foyers, galleries, laboratories and museums, to name just a few. Finally, the labels ‘scientist’ and ‘artist’ are clumsy attempts to generalise a panoply of skills. When a list of those involved in even one sci-art project could include a botanist, a digital artist, an entomologist and a partricle physicist, two fundamental questions are likely to be asked: ‘What are our differences?’ and ‘What are our similarities?’
Sci-art: areas of activity
In what follows, three main areas of activity are explored. They are: Performance (including drama and music) Visual art Literature
These traditional divisions in the arts don’t necessarily work perfectly in producing a survey of sci-art. They are used here because they are familiar, and because they can act as frameworks for these important questions: What is the role of science in an entertainment? Why can science inspire artists? What can art tell us about science?
3
Art and Science June 2003
The performing arts
A number of plays have recently entwined science into their form. The best-known example is Copenhagen, by Michael Frayn, whose success took even its author by surprise. As anyone who has seen or read the play will testify, Copenhagen is an uncompromising play that makes significant demands on the intellect. Produced well, it is also very entertaining. One of the play’s distinguishing features is the presence of a fair amount of technical discussion concerning the difficulty of understanding the behavior of atomic particles. The role of this material, which some would consider unpromising as a dramatic theme, is very important in driving forward the essence of the play, which is a consideration of memory, uncertainty and friendship. The science is there, and is reliable; but this is a play about humanity, not about science. The science serves the drama, rather than vice versa. Other recent works influenced by themes from science include: The Idiot, by Paul Jepson, takes Dostoevsky’s novel as a route into a consideration of epilepsy. The play has often been performed to audiences of doctors, who find the enactment of fits in a dramatic but non-medical setting valuable in broadening their insight into the condition. The Brain, by Forkbeard Fantasy, is a mix of drama and film, attempting to evoke not only the brain, but science’s theories about its structure and function. It is surreal and funny, and clearly influenced by a voracious reading of neurological texts. On the Scent, a performance/installation by the artists Leslie Hill and Helen Paris, involves a collaboration with an olfaction physiologist, Dr. Upinder Bhalla, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India. On the Scent’ uses the viscerality of installation, performance and domestic location filming to explore the power of smell to evoke emotion and trigger memories. Audience members are invited on individual and distinctly aromatic journeys where scents mingle and intertwine, stirring forgotten memories, past places, and half remembered encounters. As a follow on to the domestic project of ‘On the Scent’, Hill and Paris plan to undertake the civic construction of a ‘smell map’ of London. Antarctic Symphony by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, was commissioned by the British Antarctic Survey and had its first performance during the fiftieth anniversary celebrations at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Maxwell Davies spent a number of months in the Antarctic, as preparation for composition. The Survey commented: ‘The aim of the commission was to draw attention to Antarctic science through the medium of a major national cultural event. This was achieved beyond the most optimistic expectations’. Between Science and Garbage was a multimedia performance by film-maker Pierre Hibert and world electronic music composer Bob Ostertag at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. The Institute described the work as follows: ‘although technologically intensive, the work does not celebrate technology, but questions it’.
4
Art and Science June 2003
Virtual Incarnations, another event at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, involved research carried out at the Institute by scientist-in-residence Daniel Glaser, who asks: ‘Are universal scientific systems at work when we improvise and devise in dance and performance making?’ Science Centre-Stage is a programme that enables school students to write and produce dramas that deal with controversial science, and society’s attitude to medical research. The work takes place under the auspices of The Wellcome Trust. The above is a small selection of recent activity in the UK. The range is obvious, and shows that where science conjoins with performance, the role of science need not simply be that of a store of knowledge. This raises the issue that will be explored more fully in the next section, namely the manner in which artists can take up, manipulate and challenge scientific themes.
Visual arts
It is often pointed out that science itself has a visual aspect. Data comes in the form of numbers, but also as charts, diagrams, micrographs and scans. Moreover, science has undoubtedly become more visual in the last 15 years. With the increase in computing power, and the correspondingly faster technology associated with image processing, images that are both aesthetically striking and scientifically useful have become commonplace. Artists, trained as judges of images, are bound to find something of interest in visual science. It may be that the spread of such images through the pages of science magazines such as New Scientist, or through the science pages of newspapers, has over time alerted the interest of artists. However, this does not mean that when an artist becomes interested in science, what results is simply a revved-up version of a scientific visual. Far from it. Artists do their technical research when they take on science. But what they produce, as is shown by the works briefly described below, can be something rather different from a mere illustration or slavish representation of a scientific theory. While an artist has to take inspiration from science in order to do a sci-art project, the likelihood is that it is the artist’s own skills and interests that prove the animating spirit. This is not to imply that sci-art project are always abstract. They can be of practical value too, as can be seen from some of the examples below, which have involved working in the field of healthcare. Artist Alexa Wright worked with neuropsychologist Peter Halligan and neurologist John Kew, and with a number of amputees, to produce ‘After Image’, a series of 24 digitally constructed portraits showing the subjects with their phantom limbs. To do this, Wright used interviews to approach the question of what a phantom limb feels like, and allowed the subjects – perhaps for the first time – to discuss the subject experience of having a limb that is both present and absent. Deborah Padfield, a photographer, teamed up with pain specialist Charles Pither to produce a novel series of photographic expressions of chronic pain. Padfield worked with patients, enabling them through photography and collage to realise an exceptional series of visual metaphors – artefacts that not only gave the patients a new and powerful way to
5
Art and Science June 2003
describe their experience, but could feed into the clinical setting of consultation and advice. Mark Quinn’s vivid sculptures and portraits are known for their direct gaze at the ideas and technologies of science and medicine. Quinn’s work has become familiar through a succession of exhibitions at the Science Museum, the Hayward Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. His portrait of human genome pioneer Sir John Sulston involved using the sitter’s own DNA as an artist’s material. Referring to this fact, Mark Quinn is quoted as describing his portrait, the first conceptual picture to be displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, as ‘its most realistic work’. Andrew Carnie’s project ‘Magic Forest’ is a collaboration with developmental neurobiologist Richard Wingate, of Kings College, London. In the work, a series of slide dissolves illuminate three large gauze screens, and depict neuronal proliferation, migration and death. The images remind the viewer of the anatomist Ramon y Cajal’s original sections, where his stains, for no known reason, showed up just a fraction of a sample of neurones, and thus allowed their form to be distinguished. At the same time, the dynamic interchanges of the projected neuronal forms reveal and elaborate the beauty and complexity of nerve development. Cornelia Hesse-Honegger’s detailed and exquisite paintings of insects, especially of the coleoptera, at first glance seem simply high-class natural history illustrations. In fact the enormous clarity and power of the images reveal a disturbing imperfection – for HesseHonegger’s insects are often mutated, their crumpled and deformed scutella depicted with the same attention to detail as the symmetrical antennae and mandibles. These images have garnered some controversy because the insects painted were collected from areas of Sweden and Switzerland where the fall-out from the Chernobyl nuclear accident were particularly heavy – and thus seem to speak of the dangers of modern technology. Andrew Kotting is an independent film maker who teamed up with neurophysiologist and brain scanner Mark Lythgoe to make a film about Kotting’s daughter Eden, who suffers from a motor disorder. ‘Mapping Perception’ is an account of Kotting, Lythgoe and Eden navigating their way through a mass of (largely discouraging) medical advice, while getting on with life, work, home and growing up. The end result is an energising and moving documentary that goes a long way to restoring the person into the alien and cool-sounding medical language that surrounds the technical discussion of disability.
Literature
Scientists, however fond of the laboratory, must in the end write down an account of their work. Unpublished, science simply vanishes. But what kind of writing is a scientific account, and can it ever be regarded as literature? This question is one of many that draws the literary world into a relationship with science, and exercised the minds of novelist Ian McEwan and science writers Matt Ridley and Janna Levin at a recent discussion held at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
6
Art and Science June 2003
It is not hard to find novelists for whom science exerts a fascination strong enough to enter th their writing. The 20 century Italian novelist Italo Calvino claimed always to have a stack of science books on his desk, ready as a source of inspiration. Calvino’s Cosmicomics’is an extraordinary and witty collection of short stories, each of which is launched by some piece of contemporary, or defunct, scientific theory. Mr Palomar, an equally funny read, is concerned with a character who cannot stop himself from becoming fascinated by the banal and the mundane, and who makes endless observations, and theories, as he attempts to understand his surroundings. Another Italian, Primo Levi, was himself a chemical engineer, and his Periodic Table is a classic literary treatment of the chemical elements. British writers too have been drawn to science. Ian McEwen, has a science writer as the main character in Enduring Love. AS Byatt’s fascination with Charles Darwin, and with Darwinism, is revealed in her book Angels and Insects. Martin Amis’ Einstein’s Monsters deals with the powers, and terrors, of modern science. In the last 20 years, popular science books, often written by practising scientists, have become a familiar feature in shops – and in the best-seller lists. Stephen Hawkin’s A Brief History of Time sold millions, and alerted the publishing industry to a surprising feature of modern culture: people bought science books. There was more to this than simply selling books. It began to be said (for example by the writers’ agent John Brockman) that some of these scientists wrote so well about such important subjects that their books constituted a ‘new’ literature. The two evolutionary writers Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould are particularly praised for their (quite different) styles. The argument that science writing can be of literary excellence is proved decisively by John Carey’s anthology The Faber Book of Science. No other collection of science writing is so diverse, or so engaging, in revealing the way science can be enlivened by prose. There is no sign that popular science writing is about to wane. Many scientists are attracted by the possibility of finding a wider public. Perhaps there is another attraction, namely that in writing about their work for a non-expert readership, the scientist–writer begins to see that work in a slightly different way, perhaps finding new ways to explore it, whether in words or by experiment. This of course is the key question, inevitably aired at sci-art seminars, conferences and other gatherings: what can science gain from art? The issue is particularly pertinent for those scientists and artists (whether dramatists, visual artists or writers) who are in collaborative partnerships.
From peril to possibility: the role of collaboration
Quizzed by BBC Radio 4 for his views on sci-art, embryologist Lewis Wolpert said: ‘...I do think they're very different activities and on the whole the arts have done nothing for science to put it bluntly, and I think science has fed quite a lot into the arts.’ It is a statement that will be thought-provoking for the many scientist–artist collaborations currently underway in the UK. Analysis of such collaborations shows that Wolpert is right in at least one regard: scientists and artists shouldn’t be lazily assumed to be ‘basically the same’. For those likely to be tempted into sci-art collaborations, perhaps through the funding opportunities offered by the
7
Art and Science June 2003
organisations listed at the end of this briefing sheet, it is advisable to think through some of the following questions: Which partner is the most secure, institutionally? Is the scientist simply a fund of information? Where do the collaborators do their work? Is each partner’s work likely to benefit from the collaboration?
Art and Health
Partly because so many sci-art projects have been funded by The Wellcome Trust (one of the world’s biggest medical charities), many have an interest in medical matters. However, there is a quite separate movement taking place within healthcare institutions that concerns itself with linking the arts to medicine. The drive to improve health by installing art in hospitals is the most obvious manifestation. Less obvious, but equally radical, is the fact that medical schools, health centres and hospitals are beginning to show an interest in using art and literature as part of the medical education. The idea here is that a well-trained health professional is not merely a skilled technician. Empathy, wisdom and courage are needed too, qualities not necessarily addressed by traditional instruction in lecture halls or hospital wards. Ideas like these were given backing by the General Medical Council in their seminal 1993 report Tomorrow’s Doctors. Later, In 1998, the Nuffield Trust, led by John Wyn Owen, and the former chief medical officer Sir Kenneth Calman organised a conference at Windsor: ‘Humanities in Medicine: Beyond the Millennium’. As a result of this, and a subsequent Windsor conference 18 months later, various bodies were set up, including the Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine (in Durham), a National Co-ordinating Council, and the Centre For Medical Humanities based at University College London.
Sci-art and the contemporary context
The introduction to this briefing sheet suggested that there is a historical context to the current wave of sci-art projects. It is worth speculating too on what factors in contemporary culture might be encouraging these types of interdisciplinary partnership. What follows is a brief guide to some of these factors. Legitimisation. Scientists who have always had an interest in the arts now know that sciart collaborations have the formal support of major funding institutions, such as the Wellcome Trust, the Arts Council of England, and the Arts and Humanities Research Board. This may encourage them to make the leap of faith required to set up a new collaboration. Money. Most artists are freelance, and depend for their income on grants, bursaries and commissions. The new funding stream now available for sci-art activities is well known to the arts community.
8
Art and Science June 2003
Public concern about science. It is a commonplace that science organisations are anxious about a perceived scepticism amongst the public about frontier science. The UK has well-developed campaigns challenging animal experimentation, genetic modification of crops, and reproductive cloning. In the reverse effort to reassure the public, the aesthetic and subjective tone of a sci-art project may be more effective than the committed advocacy of a true believer. High profile science. Science has become more expensive, and with the rise of gene technology, more immediate. Cloning, stem cell technology and pre-implantation diagnosis are among the techniques that force us to ask new questions about human nature, and the human body. In that discussion, artists are bound to be skilled participants. Specialisation. It has long been a complaint of sixth formers and undergraduates that they have been forced to specialise too soon. Research scientists must narrow their focus, of course, but the severe test of the Research Assessment Exercise, and of an academic regime that sets publication success as the gold standard, puts a high risk on novel forms of work, and so constrains yet further the professional life of a scientist. Sciart offers a temporary escape by combining comfortable quasi-academic structures with the alluring freelance life of the artist.
Getting involved in sci-art: how and where?
Around the UK, museums and science centres, laboratories and galleries, charities and state sponsors, have all become alert to the many-faced attractions of sci-art projects. The Wellcome Trust. A leading role was taken by this giant medical charity when it set up the Sciart Consortium in the mid-1990s. This was an umbrella organisation that incorporated the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, The British Council, the Scottish Arts Council and the Arts Council of England. Many of the projects mentioned in this briefing sheet have been made possible by the Sciart Consortium. The Wellcome Trust has also run a scheme called Science on Stage and Screen, which directs funds towards film makers and dramatists who are interested in exploring themes with a science aspect. The Sciart Consortium has now devolved entirely to the Trust, with a budget of £1 million for a two-year programme. Many of the sci-art activites funded by the Wellcome Trust can be seen at the two galleries it maintains at 210 Euston Road and in the Science Museum. The construction of a new Wellcome building will allow even more space for exhibitions and public engagement. The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). When Philip Dodd took over as director of the ICA in 1997, The Independent wrote: ‘Science will be the new avant-garde art. The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London will turn its premises over to scientists on a regular basis for think-ins, films and exhibitions on cloning and other ethical issues’. A stream of talks and exhibitions has included the phenomenally successful show Primitive Streak, a selection of frocks depicting the first 40 hours of life, created by fashion designer Helen Storey and her sister Kate, a developmental biologist. In 2002, Daniel Glaser, a
9
Art and Science June 2003
brain physiologist at University College London, became the ICA’s first scientist-inresidence. The British Antarctic Survey showed its interest in the arts by commissioning a symphony from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. It now funds, in association with the Arts Council of England, arts fellowships. In 2001 the artist Keith Grant visited the Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula; an exhibition followed. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine supports an active arts programme of performance, exhibitions and installations. Each year, with the financial support of the Wellcome Trust and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, it commissions artists to create work that engages with the School’s work, and enlivens the building. The Science Museum was greatly enlarged in 2001 by the opening of the Wellcome Wing, devoted to new technologies. In its design, the Wing has incorporated a number of works by artists, including Anthony Gormley and Mark Quinn. A dozen works of art take their place alongside the conventional hardware of a modern interactive science museum. Interestingly, the works are not set apart as a separate exhibition, but are integrated into the whole. Meanwhile, in 2002, a hall was set aside in the main building explicitly for Wellcome-funded exhibitions of science and art. The first exhibition, Head on: art with the brain in mind was curated by Caterina Albano, Marina Wallace and Wellcome Trust head of exhibitions, Ken Arnold. The following exhibition, Metamorphing: transformation in science, art and mythology, was a series of artistic and scientific reflections on development. Next door, The Natural History Museum also has a policy of running art exhibitions, and of setting up artist residencies. Around the United Kingdom, most science centres have become interested in the way the arts can enrich their displays and animate their work. Notable examples include: MAGMA (Rotherham); The Eden Project (Bodelva, Cornwall); The Museum of Science and Industry (Manchester) and @Bristol. Several organisations are interested in directly funding, or otherwise assisting, sci-art projects. These include the partners of the Sciart Consortium: The Wellcome Trust, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the British Council, the Scottish Arts Council and the Arts Council of England. Energetic champions of sci-art are the London-based Arts Catalyst and, in Bristol, the Interalia Centre. Most recently, the Arts and Humanities Research Board have announced a grant scheme for setting up artist fellowships for those wishing to collaborate with science institutions. The scheme, launched in late 2002, is the first time a research council has stepped into the sci-art field. It will be interesting to see whether the science research councils, such as the Medical Research Council (MRC) or the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), follow suit. Individual laboratories have welcomed artists, and have held exhibitions. They include: the Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge); the Sanger Centre (Hinxton, near Cambridge) and the Institute of Child Health (London).
10
Art and Science June 2003
Contacts
Arts Catalyst Toynbee Studios 28 Commericial Street London, E1 6LS Telephone +44 (0)7375 3690 Email info@artscatalyst.org www.artscatalyst.org.uk National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) Fishmonger’s Chambers 110 Upper Thames Street London, EC4R 3TW Telephone +44 (0)207 645 9500 Fax +44 (0)207 645 9535 www.nesta.org.uk
Arts Council of England 14 Great Peter Street London, SW1P 3NQ Telephone +44 (0)207 973 6517 www.artscouncil.org.uk enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk
Science Museum Exhibition Road South Kensington London, SW7 Telephone +44 (0)870 870 4771 Fax +44 (0)207 942 4302 www.sciencemuseum.org.uk
Eden Project Bodelva S.Austell Cornwall, PL24 2SG Telephone +44 (0)1726 811 911 Fax +44(0)1726 811 912 www.edenproject.com Email phampel@edenproject.com
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation United Kingdom Branch 98 Portland Place London, W1N 4ET Telephone +44 (0)207 636 5313 Fax +44 (0)207 908 7580 www.gulbenkian.org.uk Email info@gulbenkian.org.uk
Institute of Contemporary Arts 12 Carlton House Terrace London, SW1Y 5AH Tel 44 (0)20 7930 3647 www.ica.org.uk
The Museum of Science and Industry In Manchester Liverpool Road Castlefield Manchester M3 4FP Telephone +44 (0)161 832 2244 Fax +44 (0)161 833 1471 www.msim.org.uk email marketing@msim
11
Art and Science June 2003
The Interalia Centre 6 Old School House Britannia Road Kingswood Bristol, BS15 2DB
The Wellcome Trust 183 Euston Road London, NW1 2BE Telephone +44(0)7 611 8888 Email info@wellcome.ac.uk www.wellcome.ac.uk www.sciart.org.uk
This briefing sheet was prepared by Stephen Webster, Science Communications Group, Imperial College London.
12
Art and Science June 2003