Exploring the Biological Sciences through Art - Fall semester 2009
ISIS 120S.02 / VISUALST 189S.03
Instructor: Timothy J. Senior
Link to Bioart Poster
Synopsis
Advances in our understanding of biology from genes through to behaviour seldom cross over from the biological sciences into the public imagination. Yet there is value in communicating these ideas to a wider audience, to challenge people on what they experience every day as implicitly natural, to reveal the complex mechanisms and processes that lie beneath.
In this course we will examine how the biological sciences (including neuroscience) have been explored through the arts; from installations, through contemporary dance to virtual reality. As we try to understand how science might be brought back into our cultural awareness, we will pose the following questions: Can scientific knowledge be meaningfully expressed in art? If science can inform art, can art also inform science?
Course concepts
Knowledge drawn from the biological sciences has long inspired the work of artists. In addition to the ‘liberation’ of scientific imagery and theory from their original contexts, artists are slowly forging much closer relationships with the laboratory environment, often re-appropriating data acquired from scientific research for new aesthetic purposes. Indeed, with the increasing affordability and commercialization of research technologies within the fields of molecular and cellular biology, artists are now able to use biological research practices themselves in their pursuit of artistic form and expression, their ‘semi-living art’ and ‘transgenic constructions’ transcending the traditional boundaries of Art and Science. Through these means, artists are able to explore the ethical and social implications that surround scientific research in new ways.
By looking in detail at a number of scientific areas (including genetics, anatomy and systems neuroscience), students were encouraged to explore in greater depth the relationship between the form and content of artworks. Over the course of the semester, students were given a combination of reading, criticism and creative assignments. In their final projects, they were required to research and accurately summarize an area of scientific study, identifying and critiquing art works stemming from their chosen field. Finally, students had to propose or create a new artwork, building upon their discussion of earlier works, and thus drawing on knowledge and skill sets developed during the semester.
Notes
- caDNAno is a free software for designing three-dimensional DNA origami nanostructures (see http://cadnano.org/).
- “Der Berliner Bär” was a piece of graffiti art created for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. It was an assignment that formed part of a module exploring notions of memory from the perspective of neurosciences up to the sociology of ‘collective memory’ and ‘collective remembrance’.