The Practice of The European Digital Art and Science Network Art and Science The Practice of Art and Science Gerfried Stocker Andreas J. Hirsch Contents Gerfried Stocker, Andreas J. Hirsch 07 Encounters of Great Minds and What is Needed for Them Martin Honzik, Veronika Liebl 10 Starting the European Digital Art and Science Network 16 The European Digital Art and Science Network 20 Scientific Partners and Residencies 20 CERN 24 Artist Residency at CERN 25 CERN: A Journey Through the World of Science—Semiconductor 30 ESO—The European Southern Observatory 32 Artist Residency at ESO 33 Art and Science: A Cosmic Inspiration—María Ignacia Edwards 38 Artist Residency at ESO 39 A Trip Close to Outer Space—Quadrature 44 ESA—The European Space Agency 46 Artist Residency at ESA 49 Star Storm—Aoife van Linden Tol 50 Artist Residency at Fraunhofer MEVIS 51 STEAM Imaging—An artist in residency program focusing on links between art and science 53 Whose scalpel—Yen Tzu Chang Andreas J. Hirsch 56 The Practice of Art and Science 57 I. ENTERING NEW GROUND 71 II. EXPERIENCES AND LESSONS 86 III CULTURES, PLACES, AND AGENTS Jurij Krpan 92 Art&Science. The relationship that is not existing but yet it’s functioning Victoria Vesna 94 Anticipatory Art Science: Networks to NanoSystems Horst Hörtner 106 Art, Technology, and Society as Research Practice. Ars Electronica Futurelab 110 Cultural Partners and Activities 114 Ars Electronica 117 Activities 120 Elements of Art and Science 138 The Alchemists of Art and Science 154 Radical Atoms 162 CPN – Center for the Promotion of Science 165 Activities 166 Art + Science 2016 170 Art + Science 2017 180 DIG gallery 184 Art & Science vol. 1 – 3 188 Fundación Zaragoza Ciudad del Conocimiento 190 Activities 193 Cycle I: Reverberadas 199 Cycle II: BIOESTETICA. Exhibition Postnature 208 GV Art London 210 #postARTandSCIENCE 212 Kapelica Gallery / Kersnikova Institute 216 Activities 217 Earth Without Humans I 222 Earth Without Humans II 230 LABORAL Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial 232 Activities 236 Materia Prima 250 Monsters of the Machine 264 Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin 266 Activities 268 TRAUMA—Built to Break 269 SEEING—What are you looking at? 288 HUMANS NEED NOT APPLY 300 SOUND CHECK: Make it. Play it. Preface The cultural and intellectual diversity of Europe’s coun- tries, regions, and cities is a huge opportunity, since cross-border exchange and collaboration among different disciplines, lands, and cultures are precisely what make innovation flourish. The EU network launched by Ars Electronica in 2014 is dedicated to the exciting symbiosis of media art and science. Seven renowned artistic and cultural institutions as well as leading players in scientific research including CERN, ESO, ESA, and Fraunhofer MEVIS have formed a transcontinental platform in which scientific and artistic issues, methods and visions are interlinked. Artists have the chance to visit some of the world’s foremost scientific facilities and gain insights into scientific research practices; the scientists, for their part, are exposed to new perspectives, the focus of which is on the social upheavals triggered by scientific progress. The inspiring results to which such a process of exchange between art and science can lead are demonstrated by this catalog, a compendium of the European Digital Art and Science Network’s three-year history. Enjoy and be amazed! Thomas Drozda Federal Minister for Arts and Culture, Constitution and Media 4 Preface Vorwort Die kulturelle und intellektuelle Vielfalt in den Ländern, Regionen und Städten Europas ist eine enorme Chance. Gerade im grenzüberschreitenden Austausch und der Zusammenarbeit zwischen unterschiedlichen Disziplinen, Ländern und Kulturen gedeiht Neues. Das 2014 von Ars Electronica initiierte EU-Netzwerk widmet sich der spannenden Symbiose von Medienkunst und Wissenschaft. Sieben renommierte Kunst- und Kultureinrichtungen sowie führende Player im Bereich der Forschung, beispielsweise CERN, ESO, ESA oder Fraunhofer MEVIS, bilden eine europaweite Plattform. Wissenschaftliche und künstlerische Fragestellungen, Methoden und Visionen werden mit- einander verknüpft. Künstlerinnen und Künstler haben die Möglichkeit, Leucht- türme der Wissenschaft zu besuchen und Einblick in die wissenschaftliche Forschungspraxis zu bekommen. Die Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissen- schaftler wiederum lernen neue Perspektiven kennen, in deren Mittelpunkt die gesellschaftlichen Umwälzungen im Gefolge der Erkenntnisfortschritte stehen. Zu welch inspirierenden Ergebnissen ein solcher Austausch zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft führen kann, zeigt der nun vorliegende Katalog, der drei Jahre European Digital Art and Science Network zusammenfasst. Viel Vergnügen und Staunen beim Lesen! Thomas Drozda Bundesminister für Kunst und Kultur, Verfassung und Medien 5 6 Gerfried Stocker, Andreas J. Hirsch Encounters of Great Minds and What is Needed for Them This book is about the encounters of great minds. The Practice of Art and Science looks at the experiences and lessons from the successful work of the European Digital Art and Science Network. In order to enable collaboration of art and science on the highest possible level one could strive for, an alliance was created that brings together leading European science organizations, an array of outstanding cultural institutions in the field of digital art, and Ars Electronica as a kind of “mothership” of the work between art, technology and society. With support from the European Union this network was able to realize a series of artists’ residencies between 2015 and 2017. They took place at such spectacular and groundbreaking research facilities as the European Southern Observatory ESO in Chile, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, or in touch with the planetary missions of the European Space Agency ESA. An additional artist-in-residency program in conjunction with the European Digital Art and Science Network was established by Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing MEVIS and Ars Electronica Linz. The practice of art and science has been part of the genetic code of Ars Electronica since the beginnings of the Festival in 1979, when it was founded by artist Hubert Bognermayr, scientist Herbert W. Franke, and journalist Hannes Leopoldseder. This “Festival for Art, Technology, and Society” presented art also as a catalyst, which is enabling transformation in those other areas, and thus designed its conferences and exhibitions to allow for ongoing encounters between art and science. In 1996 the growing interest in collaborations between art and science also led to the foundation of two permanent platforms of learn- ing, research, and presentation: Ars Electronica Center as a “Museum of the Future” and Ars Electronica Futurelab as a “Laboratory for Future Innovations.” Since then Ars Electronica offers a complete ecosystem for innovation, which actually replicates the entire artistic process from inspiration to experiments on to creation and does so by involving a wide range of disciplines and skills. At Ars Electronica artists, scientists, researchers, designers, and engineers have been collaborating for many years on scientific as well as artistic projects, and presented their results jointly at conferences like “Pixelspaces“ or lectured and performed side by side at the annual theme conferences. 7 Around the turn of the millennium the scope of Ars Electronica widened to Life Sciences and Bio Art, a development that was also reflected in the 1999 Festival LifeScience and the 2000 Festival NEXT SEX. Sex in the Age of its Procreative Superfluousness. With the 2005 Festival HYBRID—living in paradox, and the creation of the new Prix Ars Electronica category “Hybrid Art” in 2006/2007, the newly emerging hybrid forms of research and art received additional attention. When in 2011 Ars Electronica Festival, ORIGIN—how it all begins, was realized with CERN as a cooperation partner, this was the beginning of a lasting and far-reaching collaboration of Ars Electronica with this leading research organization. From the success of the “Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN Award”and the three residencies of its winners at CERN and Ars Electronica Futurelab between 2012 and 2014finally evolved the plan to open up this axis of collaboration into a network for art and science residencies on a European scale. The idea behind the European Digital Art and Science Network was to create interesting and successful cases that would stimulate even more dedication in a growing number of science organizations and also to prepare the ground for a rising acceptance within funding bodies to give money for this kind of projects in order to foster the exchange of art and science. From its very start, the project sparked a rapidly growing interest from artists as well as from institutions. As the project went along, the network of partners continued to grow. Probably the best way to value the success of an initiative like this one is the number of similar activities that come up. Also in this respect we may consider the residency program to be successful. In the meantime this increasing attention in facilitating such collaborations even extends to organizations from outside the field of art and science. Work in the European Digital Art and Science Network turned out to be a learning experience for everybody involved. At the core of this learning process lay something we may call the “art of creating successful encounters of artists and scientists.” This kind of expertise is about shaping a set of methods that help facilitate such encounters: find the right partners, prepare the ground for the exchange, and support them along the way. Nurtured by Ars Electronica’s eco- system for innovation, this included the entire “production chain” of an artistic project from idea, research, and concept to production and presentation. With the knowledge of Ars Electronica Futurelab from many years of working with artists, and the skillful practice of our cultural partners and of Ars Electronica Festival in presenting digital works of art, this made it possible for the artists to realize projects flowing from the results of their residencies and reach inter- national audiences with them.