What happens when you put artists in residence in a science laboratory? Does soul emerge? How might scientists see themselves and their work differently? That is something I was keen to find out when I visited
SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia.
I enter the human biology and anatomy building tentatively. I can't help noticing art work. Brightly coloured large screen prints of things you might expect to find under a microscope... later the scientist director in charge of SymbioticA, Stuart Bunt, tells me this was their early approach to marrying art and the biological sciences - "the ooh aah" stuff. He takes me on a tour of the building, pointing to the 3-dimensional objects - foetuses made from casts with objects carefully integrated into them....stories of evolution, birth, transformation. He introduces me to the artist, Hans, who curates the displays as well as being the departments cast maker of teaching skulls and body parts. He has his own little cubbyhole, lots of shelves filled with found objects and ongoing projects - a treasure trove.
"But", says Stuart, "the stuff we are doing now, is not something you can put on a wall... we are creating art with tissues and cells and they are only transient. For example, one artist created pig wings out of tissue."
This is intriguing and I want to find out more. But first I ask how the biology students respond to the art work around them. "Mostly it is ignored," says Stuart, "The students are focussed on the science - they can't see how artistic creativity might help with design and thinking. Even visiting teachers are impatient with the art program - they just want to learn about our scientific research and procedures."
Hmmm, I wonder, so who actually benefits from the artist in residence program? Do the scientists? How might it be possible to help people see the intrinsic benefits of artistic thinking within science? But are there any?
Stuart is concerned now that the seminar which I am here for is about to start and leads me up the stairs, out the back to a large room under the eaves, full of desks, computers, art magazines, a sofa and people. I am introduced to the artists in resident here - some working on tissue culture projects. One lady, with her assistant, is a famous artist from France. SymbioticA has just won a major international award and is renown across the international art world. A Finnish attache to the cultural department is here to set up a sister facility in the northern tip of Finland and is giving a seminar.
The ensuing discussion is vibrant - discussions about the ethics of tissue art, do cells have consciousness, what is the purpose of this sort of art, what it feels like as an artist to be doing it, does soul exist in tissues or even in humans? It is clear that growing cells taken from your own body is not a simplistic art form.
Oran, who has been the artist manager of the group for seven years, explains to me a bit more about the program. How artists initially put in a concept proposal for their art project, then when they come they are teamed up with a scientist mentor and taught the scientific procedures. As they gain hands on understanding their concept changes. Prior to starting their art they are required to put in an ethics proposal to the university ethics committee. Oran explains how important this is in the artistic journey - and usually ethics is a theme that comes strongly out of the art.
Because there might be between three to seven artists at any one time, the artists have a place where art culture and ways of thinking, being and talking is alive and vibrant. Walking through a set of doors then puts them into the culture of the scientist (as well as tissue culture.)
But what is the effect on the scientists? "Most of the older scientists are not that interested in the program. Our mentors are the younger postdoc scientists, who are still curious... just finished their PhD and now are being locked into more applied research. They still want an outlet for their curiosity. They are the ones who are likely to come to our weekly sessions."
Oran explains to me how funding has constrained biological research into quite tight outcomes - that the pure science that scientists used to do is no longer possible - scientists don't have the luxury to just play and see what emerges. But the artists can - that is their job - to play. Not necessarily to play in the sense that a scientist might play - which results in innovation - but to play with the meaning of what the scientists are doing. As a result it helps the scientists see the possibilities and the consequences of where their research might be leading. It adds a cultural awareness, an extra perception.
This now seems to me the punch line... why art in science is important. We tend to think of "foresight" as something that comes from scientific prediction, system awareness and modelling. But this can only lead to seeing what the paradigm you are using allows you to see. Postmodern art has the capacity to "see" in different ways. When conversations happen between artists and scientists new perceptions emerge. Are they productive, and do they earn money? Possibly not, in the way that pure research play might have yielded money making inventions.
But today where our concern is sustainable living in a fragile world this exploration of the meaning of the very building blocks of physical life could be an important contribution in helping us develop sustainable consciousness.
SymbioticA offer undergraduate courses for science and humanity students in the biological arts. So far no science students have taken this up. Why not? What might a high school science education be like that develops curiosity, creativity and desire to explore meaning, rather than students totally focussed on career pathways?
I have just come back from the CONASTA / ICASE / ASERA science education conferences in Perth. While the theme was supposed to be on environmental sustainability it seemed to be more about the sustainability of science education.
