Art and Science

  • Siân Ede
I. B. Tauris: 2005. 208 pp. £14.95, $24.50 1850435847 | ISBN: 1-850-43584-7

Is science the new art? With this provocative question, Siân Ede, arts director of the UK branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, draws us into her latest work, Art and Science. In this intelligent and stimulating book, Ede examines the diverse responses of contemporary artists when they are faced with recent scientific and technological advances. She likewise looks at contemporary science, where the search for truth and beauty, and the production of compelling images, seem to suggest an almost artistic endeavour.

Alexis Rockman's painting The Farm questions the future of genetic engineering. Credit: JGS INC.

Ede contrasts selected works of contemporary art with recent scientific developments to demonstrate that art today not only serves to comment on science, but also represents a form of research and knowledge production in its own right, though one belonging to a radically different epistemological tradition. Science, engineering and technology shape the world in which we live, but Ede shows us the role played by art in the ever more complex interplay of forces between science, technology and society. It is the artist who asks about the social effects of scientific developments and challenges the changing scientific concepts of life itself — these questions become ever more urgent with every scientific advance. Moving beyond the postulated dichotomy of the objective sciences and the subjective arts, the impressive abundance of contemporary artworks cited by Ede shows us that art is no longer limited to the production of beautiful atefacts, but has established its role as a legitimate form of knowledge production in its own right.

The engagement of art with science ranges from artists' iconological handling of scientific imaging to research projects executed as artistic endeavours by artists working in the laboratory. An example of the former is the work of Neal White, one-time artist in residence at the human genome project at Hinxton near Cambridge, UK; an example of the latter is the work of the Portuguese artist Marta de Menezes, who uses the laboratory technique of microcautery to modify the patterning of butterfly wings. Such artistic interventions in genetics and biological forms have made possible new means of artistic expression and art forms.

Some of the insights that art provides into the latest hot topics in science, such as cloning or the production of artificial chimaeras, have been extensively addressed by Suzanne Anker and Dorothy Nelkin in their book The Molecular Gaze (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004). The use of biological materials by artists ranges from tissue engineering to stem-cell technologies and even transgenic animals, a phenomenon that raises ethical questions with regard to both scientific and artistic endeavours.

New directions in research, such as those offered by neurobiology and studies of consciousness, provide greater insight into the working of the mind, and molecular biology continues to provide us with a better understanding of the structure of the living world. Their scientific explanations of the structures and processes of body and mind challenge our conception and understanding of what we call ‘human nature’. But individuality and self must be more than mere bundles of impulses, sensations and chemical processes.

Through the use of video endoscopies in her 1994 work Corps étranger, artist Mona Hatoum blurs the boundaries between the inner and the outer, allowing the viewer to participate in her own stream-of-consciousness and somatic experiences. Collaborating with neuroscientists, artist Annie Cattrell uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to create three-dimensional, amber-coloured works in resin that are then embedded in solid, clear, resin cubes or ‘brain boxes’ (see Nature 424, 18, 2003). Whether working with brain scans produced by advanced imaging processes or simply with traditional media, the focus of the artistic process is increasingly the diversity of human experience, something that often does not lend itself to portrayal using standard scientific procedures.

From the end of the nineteenth century onward, art has increasingly turned away from the classical quest for order, and has struggled on many levels with the disintegration of a uniform world view and a coherent conception of humanity. Scientific images today offer us amazing insights, but they must still be viewed as historical snapshots. Although modern science can provide us with ever more detailed pictures of the inner workings of our bodies and of the living world, the influence of such images on our understanding of the nature of humanity remains an issue for social discourse.

Ede not only offers an overview of contemporary art practices, but also examines their philosophical background. Additionally, the artworks discussed are accompanied by extensive examples of contemporary science and research, providing further insight into the newest scientific developments. The book is an excellent contribution to the literature in the field of art and science, and provides a perspective that reaches far beyond the usual approaches to the relationship between, and intersection of, art and science.