Synapse: Sharing Partnerships
The Australia Council’s Synapse art/science strategy is approaching its tenth year. In this time, we have funded significant research collaborations between artists and scientists in the field of robotics, locative media, virtual reality, cinema research and haptic technology. Additionally, we have funded nearly 20 residencies with science institutions in partnership with the Australian Network for Art & Technology.
The Synapse ARC Linkage Grant scheme aims to support artists in genuine research collaborations with scientists. The challenge of this approach is to ensure that the research work of the artists and the scientists is influencing each discipline.
Our experience is when first steps are taken in these art/science partnerships, scientists often have the perspective that the artist’s role is to visualise the science research or communicate science outcomes to the broader community. Indeed at an art and ecology roundtable held in 2008, there was a strong division between scientists and artists about their role in addressing climate change. The scientists argued for working with artists who would use their data in a logical and representational way, while the artists maintained their strong desire to interpret and use the data in a far more abstract creative development process. There was also a strong division between artists working with communities to make artworks that create awareness, and those who create work for communities that provoke issues of climate change.
While respecting the benefits of each approach, Synapse has aimed to promote a richer form of collaboration: one where the artist and the scientist are equal partners.
There is nothing wrong with an artist working with a scientist on a science communication project, and it should be encouraged. However, science needs to value the research and development side of artistic practice, and the potential new thinking and knowledge an artist’s approach to their science can bring (and vice versa). The Australia Council’s art/science program endeavours to enable such partnerships and promote the value in exploring collaborative practice-based research.
There have been some excellent outcomes in the ARC Linkage program, where the artist/scientist collaborations have continued well beyond the length of the research program. And where the artist and the scientist have together truly influenced the research outcomes of the disciplines. These are examples of a trans-disciplinary approach to solving problems and are exciting signposts of a future where discipline silos are breaking down. A description of these project can be found at here.
Other Australian examples include the wonderful work of SymbioticA in Western Australia, which is also enjoying ten years of success in partnering artists with scientists within the biological science department of the University of WA.
Curators of art/science need to be acutely aware of the different approaches to this practice. Work needs to be exhibited both within an aesthetic context, but also within a context of purpose, which may include scientific, social and ethical enquiry, and in a way that evokes to an audience a sense of process and collaboration between the two disciplines.
Written by Andrew Donovan, Director Inter-Arts & Business Operations Arts Funding, and first published for the Curating Science conference blog in May 2011.
Video credit: Chris Henschke, documentation of ‘Lightbridge’ project at the Australian Synchrotron, video courtesy the artist. Image credit (menu):
Social media