Re: <nettime> Locating ArtScience

[Florian Cramer <flrncrmr@gmail.com>]

Hello Eric, Brian,

Historically - as fas as I do overlook the subject matter -,
ArtScience is rooted in the collaboration of artists and (hard)
scientists in research labs as described in Douglas Kahn's and Hannah
Higgins' book "Mainframe Experimentalism" and, from a very critical
political perspective, in Lutz Dammbeck's feature documentary "The
Net". In the 1970s, it often involved artists with backgrounds
in 1960s experimental and intermedia arts (such as Fluxus artist
Alison Knowles and filmmaker Stan Vanderbeek), and was modeled after
earlier collaborations between electronic music composers (such as
Lejaren Hiller and Dick Raaijmakers) and scientists in university and
corporate research labs. In most cases, ArtScience meant/means that
contemporary artists chose to affiliate themselves with science and
technology research instead of the humanities and cultural studies
as the traditional academic counterparts of the arts. Perhaps the
"Leonardo" journal, which has been published since the 1960s, is
hitherto the best manifestation and documentation of the ArtScience
discourse and field. (On top of that, "Leonardo's" name suggests a
larger history of ArtScience that encompasses Renaissance neoplatonist
and classical Pythagorean discourses that thought of mathematics,
sciences, musical and visual aesthetics as one integrated whole.)

Just as 'contemporary art' (as a discourse and field with close
affiliations to the humanities and cultural studies/critical theory)
has tended to be late and/or superficial (such as in much of the
trendier Post-Internet art) in grasping and engaging with the social
and cultural impact of new technologies, ArtScience conversely runs
the risk to end up as affirmative techno spectacle (or just some court
jester experimentation in research labs without actual contributions
to the core research).

While I do know and appreciate the ArtScience study program in The
Hague - and even collaborate with some of its graduates -, I wonder
whether the field of ArtScience as a whole can be extended towards
the critical ecological discourse and engagement that you propose.
Factually, that discourse does not only require the intersection of
art and science (again, in the Anglo-American meaning of science
vs. humanities), but one of art, science, humanities and politics.
It would require to rid itself from those techno-positivists in
the larger ArtScience community seen who literally advocate that
art practice should become lab work and creative technology R&D in
institutes of technology because the relevant stuff (such as robotics,
artificial intelligence and sensor technology) is being developed
there. (I could drop many names, also from the Netherlands, but leave
them out for the sake of politeness.)

Along with colleagues, I've found the concept and discourse of
Critical Making much clearer as an attempt of fusing the arts,
design, technological hacking with critical humanities and social
engagement. (On this topic, an interview with Garnet Hertz has just
been published: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD43kCvI1wY) One
of the questions for us = is to which extent Critical Making can
be extended into a larger discourse including the contemporary art
field. Other proposals are on the table, such as "environmental
humanities" (whose name unfortunately doesn't include the arts) and
"creative ecologies". Within the environmental humanities, T.J.
Demos' book "Against the Anthropocene" conversely points out how
the original notion of the anthropocene itself is contaminated with
techno positivism. I would agree that the crises we're facing are
insufficiently addressed by the mere combination of the two discourses
of art and science, and that we need concepts that are both more
specific and more inclusive.

Just my 10 cents.

Florian



On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 1:36 AM, Eric Kluitenberg <epk@xs4all.nl> wrote:

> Thanks so much Brian,
>
> Very relevant critique. Without wanting to get stuck on a term, I was
> using the word ‘field’ partly because there is a field of practice that
> refers to itself as ArtScience (with a growing number of initiatives,
> organisations, museums even), towards which I wanted to take a position /
> open it up for scrutiny and discussion. Also, this text is written from
> within the program in The Hague to stimulate critical debate there, and is
> possibly a bit too much written from an ‘internal’ perspective, which is
> why it is good to post it here and get responses from outside that
> inner-circle.


<...>


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