A platform of humankind

The Venice Biennale, the 49th International Exhibition of Contemporary Art.

As science becomes ever more present in popular culture and the media, so the way it is depicted in the arts is also changing. In previous decades, science has often been portrayed in art as an ideological weapon turned against itself. But it is now increasingly viewed by artists as a politically neutral realm for exploration.

This year's Venice Biennale, the 49th international exhibition of some of the most electrifying modern art in the world, is proof in point. Science seems to permeate the exhibition's pavilions — perceptions of the human body and mind, questions about social behaviour, our environment, the rhythms of everyday life, and new technologies are probed in a significant proportion of the works on display.

The scientific and psychological exploration ranges from British sculptor Ron Mueck's hauntingly lifelike silicon sculptures of the human body to Hungarian artist Tamás Komoróczky's depiction of obsessive–compulsive disorder. In Komoróczky's installation, the walls of the Hungarian pavilion are covered with a mural composition reflecting the psychological disorder. It consists of computer-generated, rhythmically alternating stripes based on the principle of the 'sampling mix' used in synthesized music, but in this case it is reproducing and manipulating samples of images. Komoróczky also uses video animation and sound corridors, which involve the repetition of and alterations to images and sounds. The result is an artistic experience that replicates obsessive–compulsive disorder in content and form, with its characteristic coinciding and conflicting patterning.

Processes of the mind are also explored in British artist Keith Tyson's installation, Drawing and Thinking, which expresses a sense of awe at the mystery of thought. A principal work in this installation, entitled The Thinker (After Rodin), is a mural depiction of a hexagonal tower housing an artificial-life programme that drives its own artificial universe and yet is unable to communicate with the outside world. Tyson's painting is a commentary on the human thought process — what he calls “the complex process of cognition, or consciousness or self-awareness” originating from, and held within, the human brain. It reflects his amazement at the ineffable quality of human thought — the fact that science is on the threshold of inventing silicon-based machines able to replicate the human cognitive process and yet we are still unable to know exactly what someone else is thinking, nor communicate fully what we ourselves are thinking.

This year's Biennale, whose theme is the 'Platform of Humankind', clearly reflects how the content of contemporary art as well as its mode of expression are now heavily influenced by scientific inquiry. Sound patterning, video imaging, even the use of the olfactory sense as a means of expression, have all become part of the artistic tool-box. As is so evident here, the traditional boundaries between art and science have never been less apparent — to the enrichment of both.

The Biennale runs until 4 November 2001.