FOCUSING ON THE STARS

Science, engineering and technology shape the world in which we live, but Ede shows us the role played by art in the ever more complex interplay of forces between science, technology and society. It is the artist who asks about the social effects of scientific developments and challenges the changing scientific concepts of life itself — these questions become ever more urgent with every scientific advance. Moving beyond the postulated dichotomy of the objective sciences and the subjective arts, the impressive abundance of contemporary artworks cited by Ede shows us that art is no longer limited to the production of beautiful atefacts, but has established its role as a legitimate form of knowledge production in its own right. The engagement of art with science ranges from artists’ iconological handling of scientific imaging to research projects executed as artistic endeavours by artists working in the laboratory. An example of the former is the work of Neal White, one-time artist in residence at the human genome project at Hinxton near Cambridge, UK; an example of the latter is the work of the Portuguese artist Marta de Menezes, who uses the laboratory technique of microcautery to modify the patterning of butterfly wings. Such artistic interventions in genetics and biological forms have made possible new means of artistic expression and art forms. Some of the insights that art provides into the latest hot topics in science, such as cloning or the production of artificial chimaeras, have been extensively addressed by Suzanne Anker and Dorothy Nelkin in their book The Molecular Gaze (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004). The use of biological materials by artists ranges from tissue engineering to stem-cell technologies and even transgenic animals, a phenomenon that raises ethical questions with regard to both scientific and artistic endeavours. New directions in research, such as those offered by neurobiology and studies of consciousness, provide greater insight into the working of the mind, and molecular biology continues to provide us with a better understanding of the structure of the living world. Their scientific explanations of the structures and processes of body and mind challenge our conception and understanding of what we call ‘human nature’. But individuality and self must be more than mere bundles of impulses, sensations and chemical processes. Through the use of video endoscopies in her 1994 work Corps étranger, artist Mona Hatoum blurs the boundaries between the inner and the outer, allowing the viewer to participate in her own stream-of-consciousness and somatic experiences.