Hi all
the problem is not just instrumentalism but what science studies
scholars call the ideology of science or scientism, the believe that the
results of science are objective, that the 'laws of nature' are
universal and eternal and exist outside society. If an institution or an
individual scientist are wedded to that idea then I cant see how any
self-respecting artist can work with them except as some ethnographer or
social anthropologist of science. Unfortunately most institutions have
scientism built into their belief system so that in any collaboration
the artist would have to submit to a strong apriori decision about the
superiority of science as a system of knowledge to be admitted to the
institution, there is no reconciliation possible between the epistemic
cultures of science and art on that basis.
Furtherly, I am afraid that pure science is not necessarily a remedy
against that ideology of science, it can grow there as well as in a
commercial R&D lab; rather, pure science itself is an ideological
construct to justify certain types of funding, whereas in reality most
science is strongly connected with R&D anyway and empirically speaking,
by far the majority of science is conducted in a commercial R&D context.
Those points are not my 'opinion' but paraphrasing an interview with
philosopher and historian of science Simon Schaffer from Cambridge.
All that does not mean that artists and curators should not engage with
it, but, if possible, on their own terms and with a careful approach
that checks and selects methodologies, projected outcomes, etc.
Otherwise the questions that can be asked are very narrow indeed
best
armin
--
thenextlayer software, art, politics http://www.thenextlayer.org
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