Art In The Age Of Technoscience

Art, the Life Sciences, and the Humanities: In Search ofa Relationship Robert Ztuijnenberg Over the last decades there has been a distinctive effort in the arts to engage with science through participation in the actual practice of science. ' Exchange proj ects between artists and scientists, such as artist-in-lab projects, have become common and a large number oforganizations have emerged that stimulate and initiate collaboration between artists andscientists. ' Research funding organiza tions in thehumanities,such asthe British Arts and Humanities Research Coun cil (AHRC) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), have also initiated all sorts of research programs that explore and support inter actions between art and science. ' Asa result, artists have grown more involved with scientific concerns and practices, and their increased interactions with scientists have also become a subject of study within the humanities. Why do artists openly seek to gain access to the domain of the sciences? And why do scholars in the humanities value collaboration between artists and scientists so much that theyare willing to spend research time and money on it? This interest in science, I argue in this preface for Ingeborg Reichle's bookArt in theAge of Tecbnoscience,' underscores that the arts and the humanities are searching to establish a new relationship with the natural sciences as well as with each other. Art and Science T he relationship between thearts and thesciences hasbeen subject to permanent change over the past two centuries.

Art, the Life Sciences, and the Humanities: In Search ofa Relationship Robert Ztuijnenberg Over the last decades there has been a distinctive effort in the arts to engage with science through participation in the actual practice of science. ' Exchange proj ects between artists and scientists, such as artist-in-lab projects, have become common and a large number oforganizations have emerged that stimulate and initiate collaboration between artists andscientists. ' Research funding organiza tions in thehumanities,such asthe British Arts and Humanities Research Coun cil (AHRC) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), have also initiated all sorts of research programs that explore and support inter actions between art and science. ' Asa result, artists have grown more involved with scientific concerns and practices, and their increased interactions with scientists have also become a subject of study within the humanities. Why do artists openly seek to gain access to the domain of the sciences? And why do scholars in the humanities value collaboration between artists and scientists so much that theyare willing to spend research time and money on it? This interest in science, I argue in this preface for Ingeborg Reichle's bookArt in theAge of Tecbnoscience,' underscores that the arts and the humanities are searching to establish a new relationship with the natural sciences as well as with each other. Art and Science T he relationship between thearts and thesciences hasbeen subject to permanent change over the past two centuries.

After Taste is an inquiry into a field of study dedicated to the reconsideration, reconstruction and rehabilitation of the concept of Taste. Taste is the category, whose systematic, historical and actual dimensions have traditionally been located in a variety of disciplines. The actuality and potential of the study is based on a variety of collected facts from readings and experiences, which materialize in the following features: One concept (figurative Taste), two thinking traditions (analytic and synthetic/continental) and three interrelated dimensions (systematic, historic and actual) are presented in three volumes. As such, the study presents a salient comprehensive companion for wider readership of humanities approaching conceptions of Taste for the first time. Moreover, After Taste is intended for anyone who hopes to make a further contribution to the subject. Since its appearance and apparently short triumph some 250 years ago, the concept of non-literary Taste remained the linchpin of aesthetic theory and practice, but also a category outreaching aesthetics. Taste as the personal unity of the production, theory and criticism of art and literature, which was still largely taken as a given in the eighteenth century, has meanwhile given way to a highly-differentiated art world, in which aesthetic discourse is placed in such a way that it can seemingly no longer have a conceptual or linguistic effect on general opinion making. The critical role of “Taste judges”, ratings and rankings in the feuilleton, politics and social media on the one hand and the responding search for new canons on the other have had a huge impact on the academic and popular discourse today. However, Taste’s impact on society is in fact all-encompassing and yet, without getting even close to the “magnetic North” of the academic compass. After Taste fills the gaps of systematic research by a comprehensive tracing of the emergence of the doctrines, discourses and disciplinary dimensions of Taste up to the peak of its systematic and historical trajectory in the eighteenth century and onwards into the present day. The guiding goal is a post-disciplinary rehabilitation of the contested category as a preparation for its productive usage in emerging academic and popular contexts. Three intertwined research hypotheses form the guiding goal of an overall study of the agencies of Taste, its institutionalizations and expert cultures: The (1) first part provides a missing systematic perspective on the concept of Taste as a key factor for understanding the human faculties, value theories and practices of valuating. The (2) second part traces the events at the peak of Taste’s systematic and historical trajectories up until the late eighteenth century and verifies the historiographical hypothesis about the instrumentality of Taste for the production, reception and distribution of culture. The (3) third part reconstructs the major moments in which the contested concept of Taste experiences its post-disciplinary rehabilitation, in preparation for its future productive usage in the academic and popular discourses and practices. It shows how the category of Taste became the foundation, legitimation and the catalyst for the emerging division of labour, faculties and disciplines, confirming the hypothesis of the immense impact and actuality of Taste in the contemporary world.

This book explores the emergence of a new subdivision in Bio-art — Dendro-art, the interrelationship between humans and plants, the recreation of vanished species of plants, the ecological education of the population, and, more broadly, environmental protection. The innovative quality of this work lies in the fact that many aspects of the phenomenon of Bio-Art are looked at from a new angle: the author of the present study is herself an artist who has received academic training in the field. Therefore, she able to examine the works of bio-artists both from the “inside” and the “outside”. The conclusions drawn from the study may be of use to students, scholars, and teachers preparing courses in art studies, technology, and natural sciences. The study materials may also be used for setting up exhibitions and compiling catalogues on various types of Bio-technological art.

Organization and Newness: Discourses and Ecologies of Innovation in the Creative University offers a view from a perspective of organizational education on the ‘new’, which analyzes the production of the ‘new’ within organizations, in relation to the inherent learning processes.

Bringing the concept of contamination into dialogue with affect theory and bioart, Agnieszka Wolodzko urges us to rethink our relationship with ourselves, each other and other organisms. Thinking through the lens of contamination, this book provides an innovative approach to understanding the leaky, porous and visceral nature of our bodies and their endless interrelationships and, in doing so, uncovers new ways for thinking about embodiment. Affect theory has long been interested in transmission or contagion but, inspired by Spinoza and Deleuze, Affect as Contamination goes further, as contamination is concerned with the materiality of bodies and their affective encounter with other matter. This brings urgency to the notion of affect, not only for bioart that works with risky bodies but also for understanding how to practise our bodies in the age of biotechnological manipulation and governance. Using challenging and transgressive bioart projects as provocative case studies for rethinking affect and bodily practice, Wolodzko follows various 'contaminants' from blood, hormones and viruses to food, glitter and plants. This takes the form of both personal accounts of encounters with the contaminations of bioart and critical analyses of aesthetic, material and technical objects, with each one highlighting in different ways the risky and uncertain nature of contamination. Affect as Contamination is an urgent and original meditation on just what it means to be living, and practising our bodies, in an era where biotechnology contaminates all aspects of our lives.

Art and science work is experiencing a dramatic rise coincident with burgeoning Science and Technology Studies (STS) interest in this area. Science has played the role of muse for the arts, inspiring imaginative reconfigurations of scientific themes and exploring their cultural resonance. Conversely, the arts are often deployed in the service of science communication, illustration, and popularization. STS scholars have sought to resist the instrumentalization of the arts by the sciences, emphasizing studies of theories and practices across disciplines and the distinctive and complementary contributions of each. The manifestation of this commonality of creative and epistemic practices is the emergence of Art, Science, and Technology Studies (ASTS) as the interdisciplinary exploration of art–science. This handbook defines the modes, practices, crucial literature, and research interests of this emerging field. It explores the questions, methodologies, and theoretical implications of scholarship and practice that arise at the intersection of art and STS. Further, ASTS demonstrates how the arts are intervening in STS. Drawing on methods and concepts derived from STS and allied fields including visual studies, performance studies, design studies, science communication, and aesthetics and the knowledge of practicing artists and curators, ASTS is predicated on the capacity to see both art and science as constructions of human knowledge- making. Accordingly, it posits a new analytical vernacular, enabling new ways of seeing, understanding, and thinking critically about the world. This handbook provides scholars and practitioners already familiar with the themes and tensions of art–science with a means of connecting across disciplines. It proposes organizing principles for thinking about art–science across the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts. Encounters with art and science become meaningful in relation to practices and materials manifest as perceptual habits, background knowledge, and cultural norms. As the chapters in this handbook demonstrate, a variety of STS tools can be brought to bear on art–science so that systematic research can be conducted on this unique set of knowledge-making practices.

Why do Japanese artists team up with engineers in order to create so-called »Device Art«? What is a nanoscientist's motivation in approaching the artworld? In the past few years, there has been a remarkable increase in attempts to foster the exchange between art, technology, and science - an exchange taking place in academies, museums, or even in research laboratories. Media art has proven especially important in the dialogue between these cultural fields. This book is a contribution to the current debate on »art & science«, interdisciplinarity, and the discourse of innovation. It critically assesses artistic positions that appear as the ongoing attempt to localize art's position within technological and societal change - between now and the future.