hi all

It now seems like a good time to plug what we do at SymbioticA - both in regard to getting along with the science context on an institutional level (i.e. going beyond only the reliance on individual relationships) and the educational level. 

Our Masters of Biological Arts is offered as a science degree as we are a research centre in a science school. We seemed to be able to attract students from either side of the art science divide...

In the first year of the degree we individually tailor the units taken by the student to fit their background - so if they have a science degree they need to take units in arts and humanities and if they have an art background they take units in the sciences.  This is in addition to our core units. We are very lucky that almost all of faculties in our university are open to our students so they can really get into the subjects that are related to their interests and can acquire enough background knowledge to develop their research project in their second year.    

As for dealing with naïve perceptions of art - this is something that we had to go through as well but I think the model of SymbioticA proved quite useful in coping with that. When Ionat and myself started as artists in resident at the school of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia we needed to go though the usual favour for favour relationships of designing websites, produce "nice images" for posters etc. But when we set up SymbioticA we set it up as research lab within the science school we are part of (the same one we were artists in resident for four years), which meant that we insisted that our artistic research is as valid as any other research activity within our school. In order for the residents/SymbioticA's researchers not to go through the same waste of time that we needed to, SymbioticA's policy was quite stern and we refused to illustrate science or make "pretty pictures". Some scientists were highly offended by that, while others realised that they need to understand more about what kind of research we do. Being a permanent (I hope) fixture in a science school means that we have enough opportunities of "educating" our scientific colleagues through one on one sessions,  public forums and seminars, but more than anything else by diffusion. As our researchers (the artists) are equal to any other researcher in the school they have the same access to the shared labs, the same support from the technicians and the same duties as anyone else. The ethos of hands on engagement of SymbioticA require our researchers to learn the skills they need to for their projects - initially they are mentored by the scientists but that changes very quickly to collegial relationship. 
We recently introduced a system in which we pay the scientists for the time they spend with our residents in order to provide an incentive beyond the personal favour giving. This seems to work well especially with postdocs. Also it is a way to deal with the different cultures of crediting research that are quite different in the sciences to the arts.         

As we are require to get the appropriate clearness for our research from ethics and health and safety committees, like any other research project in a science school, we constantly needing to argue the validity of our research; even though it can be tedious and hard process it has positive sides - it is a great educational tool for the people on the committees and a great way for us to articulate our research in ways that are not often required by artists.  

I'll be happy to provide some concrete examples if you are interested.

Best 

 
Oron Catts
Director 
SymbioticA
The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts
School of Anatomy and Human Biology
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, Mailbag M309
Western Australia

Phone: +61 8 6488 7116
Fax: +61 8 6488 1051
mobile 0411 686 121

www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au <http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/> 
www.tca.uwa.edu.au <http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au/> 
 

 

________________________________

From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org on behalf of Simon Biggs
Sent: Mon 09-Nov-09 10:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Fwd: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Art-Science and Science-Art Curricula: Call for Contributions



Science curriculums for artists and art curriculums for scientists.

We (at eca) have been discussing these sorts of issues for a while. How
would you design an interdisciplinary studies programme? How would you
employ creative practices as the connective tissue between disciplines that,
at least in academia, rarely connect to one another?

Beyond these questions, how would you resource a programme of study and
research that, by definition, will change its shape and focus as the
students come and go? How do you ensure it remains motile and open to new
connections? How do you broker the agreements between departments and
faculties that allow the necessary resources to be available when the lead
times will, again by definition, be very short? How do you convince
silo-ists protective of their ever diminishing resources to share what they
have left?

If I knew the answers to this second set of questions then eca would be the
place you would go to find those arts curricula for scientists and science
curricula for artists. Other mash-ups would ideally be on the changing
day-menu as well.

It¹s still just an idea though...

Simon


Simon Biggs

Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
[log in to unmask]
www.eca.ac.uk

Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
CIRCLE research group
www.eca.ac.uk/circle/

[log in to unmask]
www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk



From: erich <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: erich <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 15:46:40 +0200
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Fwd: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Art-Science and
Science-Art Curricula: Call for Contributions

hi armin,

> thanks for bringing up this point about what (most) scientists think
> about art. I did not mention this as I was trying to limit my rant.

well we should not start a scientist bashing.
the conclusion of my experience is just that one can not expect a
scientist knowing more then the average about art just because s/he
is a scientist, its nothing i want to hold against scientists.
when working there at the research station it just caught me in a moment
of surprise.

i would like to speculate and turn it around as well: we can not expect
an artist to know more then average about science just because s/he is
an artist.

> so to close the art science gap, maybe what is needed is an art
> curriculum for scientists focusing on contemporary critical practices
and what about a science curriculum for artists ?

best

erich


Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201