June 2008

If you happen to be in Berlin next week, you are welcome to take part in the session ‘Rethinking Representational Practices in Contemporary Art and Modern Life Sciences’ at the 5th Biannual European Conference of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA). The session takes place in the Kaiserin-Friederich-Haus (Robert-Koch-Platz 7) on Friday 6 June, 11-13 and has papers by Suzanne Anker, Rob Zwijnenberg, Thomas Söderqvist and Ingeborg Reichle.

First Suzanne Anker (New York), will present a paper about “Semaphores and Surrogates: Stand-ins and Body Doubles”. In 2004 she published (with Dorothy Nelkin) The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004; see http://www.geneculture.org/

Then art historian Robert Zwijnenberg (Leiden) will talk about “Bio-Art: Concepts and Matter”. Rob is head of The Arts & Genomics Centre at the University of Leiden, see http://www.artsgenomics.org/

As the third speaker, I will talk about “Five (Good and Bad) Reasons why a Medical Museum Director wants to Bring Art and Science together”.

Finally Ingeborg Reichle, who organizes the session will talk about “Art in the Age of Technoscience” and will present some issues she is dealing with in her forthcoming book “Art in the Age of Technoscience. Genetic Engineering, Robotics, and Artificial Life in Contemporary Art ” (Springer, New York 2009; see: http://www.kunstgeschichte.de/reichle/pub_technoscience_EN.html

For an updated program for the whole SLSA meeting, see here: http://www.zfl.gwz-berlin.de/fileadmin/bilder/Projekte/slsa/update_20080529.pdf

Interesting websites come and go. There are pompous upstarts that fade out because nobody upgrades them, and there are more humble initiatives that flourish gradually. In the latter category is the Synapse website — a very useful tool, not just for us in the science, technology and medical museum world, but for anyone interested in art-science connections.

The core of the site is an continuously updated database with information about collaborative projects between artists and scientists, an overview of art-science exhibitions, details about more than 200 individuals interested in the field, a thumb-nail gallery of works and so forth. Latest added functionality is an active discussion list which has so far dealt with bioart, robotics and augmenting technologies.

Add to this a pleasant interface and easy navigation — and the result is the next-to-perfect online tool for promoting art-science-technology collaborations.

The only thing I miss is a blog function — but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is in the pipe-line.

Congratulations to Vicki Sowry, program manager for art-research-science at the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) in Adelaide for setting the site up last year and keeping it so well updated.