1st Edition

Practicing Art/Science Experiments in an Emerging Field

Edited By Philippe Sormani, Guelfo Carbone, Priska Gisler Copyright 2019
    268 Pages
    by Routledge

    268 Pages
    by Routledge

    Over the last two decades, multiple initiatives of transdisciplinary collaboration across art, science, and technology have seen the light of day. Why, by whom, and under what circumstances are such initiatives promoted? What does their experimental character look like - and what can be learned, epistemologically and institutionally, from probing the multiple practices of "art/science" at work?

    In answer to the questions raised, Practicing Art/Science contrasts topical positions and insightful case studies, ranging from the detailed investigation of "art at the nanoscale" to the material analysis of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and its cracked smile. In so doing, this volume brings to bear the "practice turn" in science and technology studies on the empirical investigation of multifaceted experimentation across contemporary art, science, and technology in situ. Against the background of current discourse on "artistic research," the introduction not only explains the particular relevance of the "practice turn" in STS to tackle the interdisciplinary task at hand, but offers also a timely survey of varying strands of artistic experimentation.

    In bringing together ground-breaking studies from internationally renowned scholars and upcoming researchers in sociology, art theory and artistic practice, as well as history and philosophy of science, Practicing Art/Science will be essential reading for practitioners and professionals in said fields, as well as postgraduate students and representatives of higher education and research policy more broadly.

    Introduction: Experimenting with ‘Art/Science’?

    Guelfo Carbone, Priska Gisler, Philippe Sormani

     

    Part I: Positions

     

    Chapter 1

    Engaging Performative Contradiction: Introducing the rhetorics of practice and method to artist researchers

    Mick Wilson

     

    Chapter 2

    Contemporary Art as a New Paradigm? An Artistic Revolution in Light of the History of Science

    Nathalie Heinich

     

    Chapter 3

    Writing practices as experimental arenas at universities of the arts

    Priska Gisler

     

    Part II: Practices

     

    Chapter 4

    Material Play and Artistic Renderings: The Production of Essentially Useless Nanotechnology

    Michael Lynch

     

    Chapter 5

    Probing the art/science binary: Notes on the experimental achievement of shared perception

    Dirk vom Lehn

     

    Chapter 6

    From Heterogeneity to Hybridity? Working and Living in Arts-based Research

    Bernhard Böhm

     

    Chapter 7

    Artworks in and as Practices: The Relevance of Particulars

    Yaël Kreplak

     

    Chapter 8

    On the discrepancy between objects and things: An ecological approach

    Fernando Domínguez Rubio

     

    Part III: Implications

     

    Chapter 9

    Re-Programmed Art: Overcoming Obsolescence and Opening up Programmed and Kinetic Artworks

    Serena Cangiano, Davide Fornari, Azalea Seratoni

     

    Chapter 10

    Back to the Future. Bogomir Ecker’s Tropfsteinmaschine as a thought experiment in stone

    Johanne Mohs

     

    Chapter 11

    Epistemics and Aesthetics of Experimentation: Towards a Hybrid Heuristics?

    Hans-Jörg Rheinberger

    Biography

    Philippe Sormani is Board member of the Science and Technology Studies Lab at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland; and affiliated researcher at the Institut Marcel Mauss, EHESS, in Paris, France

    Guelfo Carbone holds a PhD in Philosophy and History of Philosophy (Sapienza University of Rome), and is a member of the Editorial Board of the philosophical Journal "Pólemos. Materiali di filosofia e critica sociale".

    Priska Gisler is head of the research cluster Intermediality at University of the Arts, Bern, Switzerland, and board member of the Swiss Artistic Research Network (SARN).