NEW ART/SCIENCE AFFINITIES ART/SCIENCE NEW art social web collaboration work artistic consider operate science many made tool technology way internet found fi rst move life general artist laboratory present modern computer rather entire associate use technological technology foundation project cell american community hacker call view knowledge new found well sleep one people might original design invent network wide year caption very experiment image data direct society process material include write system creative position diff erent source launch set produce research programme go question NEW human earth approach diy future contemporary exist establish cultural http dream perspective time publish relationship place public provide information context practice just product build ART/SCIENCE scientifi c look university language hack behavior over study blood user device however engineer term camera robert develop create example environmental culture video fl ower studio AFFINITIES media program maker learn through allow planet high software live goal subvert make natural critical application method make machine experience world understand school engage scientist ideas common online electronic how white back robot physical group start current open workshop involve become model describe visual release title participant state see limb nature invert piece lab eye practical Régine Debatty form change interest activity digital point researcher Claire L. Evans center plant city Pablo Garcia create century person space better fi ction ISBN 978-0977205347 -9 Andrea Grover Thumb with STUDIO for Creative Inquiry 9 780977 205349 and Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University foreword Carnegie Mellon’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry supports atypical, interdisciplinary, and interinstitutional research at the intersection of the arts, science, and technology. In parallel, the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University supports experimentation that expands the notions of art and culture, providing a forum for engaged conversations about creativity and innovation. Together our units work to develop and pre- sent new research in the arts. This publication represents the capstone to a new curatorial residency program developed jointly by the Miller Gallery and the STUDIO, with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. We are proud to present this timely reflection on the current and historic intersections of art, science, and technology. This book is the type of adventurous and interdisciplinary investigation that we seek to foster. We have been delighted to host Luke Bulman, Régine Debatty, Claire Evans, Pablo Garcia, and Jessica Young, along with principal investigator and curatorial fellow Andrea Grover, who deftly guided this project to completion in a mere seven days. —Astria Suparak Director, Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University —Golan Levin Director, Carnegie Mellon STUDIO for Creative Inquiry 1. The authors at work in the STUdIo for Creative Inquiry, february 18, 2011. Photo: Jonathan Minard eXTreMe wrITING It’s 4:01 p.m. on February 18, 2011. There are ten of us in the We launched our book sprint in order to produce a snapshot STUDIO for Creative Inquiry—a former library now emptied of this particular moment—and because we wanted to of its books and reconfigured for computers and projection— do it with immediacy, without distraction. The topic of this within the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. publication is the most recent manifestation of artists working The tables in the STUDIO are cluttered with empty food plates, in art, science, and technology, which we broadly define as coffee cups, notepads, essays, and publications from the Hunt work that adopts processes of the natural or physical sciences, Library next door. The windows are open and it’s 61 degrees “does strange things with electricity” (to borrow a phrase Fahrenheit, a rare occurrence for February in Pittsburgh. The from Dorkbot3), breaks from traditional models of art/science room is quiet with the exception of the occasional murmur pairings, and was created within the last five years. We realize of conversation and the sound of keyboards ticking. We are that art, science, and technology intersections have a tradition five days into a seven-day challenge: to collectively author and with much deeper roots than we have space to detail here design a book on the subject of contemporary artists working (and that such histories have been given attention elsewhere), at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Despite the so we’ve provided in a timeline a brief subjective history appearance of working independently, we are all networked, of innovations, movements, and cultural events that have con- reading and writing toward the same purpose. tributed to this tradition and led us to this moment. To be clear: this book is an effort to understand this very moment in art, The publication you hold in your hands was created this way science, and technology affinities, and the ways Internet over the course of one week (February 14–20, 2011) by culture and networked communication have shaped the practice.4 four writers and two graphic designers, with the assistance of two readers and eleven work-study students. It was a “book —Andrea Grover sprint.” Derived from “code sprinting,” a method for working Project Lead, Warhol Curatorial Fellow at on an open source project by getting software developers into the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and the Miller Gallery a single room for a period of intensive work, the term book at Carnegie Mellon University sprint describes the quick, collective writing of a topical book. The process has a long and interdisciplinary lineage: we see the 1. fLoSS Manuals is a non-profit online community whose aim is to produce same idea in think tanks, collective intelligence frameworks, quality free documentation for free software. 2. transmediale is an annual festival for art and digital culture held in Berlin. telepathy, and the notions of cyborgs and the “metabrain.” 3. dorkbot is a group of affiliated organizations worldwide that sponsors No one section of this book has a sole author, and the writing grassroots meetings of artists, engineers, designers, scientists, inventors, process occurred in a nonlinear, simultaneous, and synergistic and anyone else working under the very broad umbrella of electronic art. The dorkbot motto is “people doing strange things with electricity.” fashion in the collective workspace at the STUDIO. 4. An even larger question, to be considered in another forum, is how Internet culture and networked communication is shaping culture and politics at this The concept of a book sprint isn’t ours; we’re indebted to book moment. during the week we were creating this document, newspapers 1 were placed daily at the threshold of our hotel rooms. Photos of protests sprint astronauts FLOSS Manuals and the participants in from around the world were front page news. The two-week-old “egyptian Collaborative Futures at transmediale 2010 and 20112–the first revolution of 2011” had set in motion a worldwide movement by virtue of people with the inspiration to translate the “sprinting” method its visibility and ability to communicate its message instantly and globally. to something other than code writing or technical text. This process wouldn’t have been possible a decade ago, either: the Internet has provided us with instant access to reference materials, a means to write simultaneously on one text, and the bandwidth to incorporate images and visual design in real time. CoNTeNTS 08 INTrodUCTIoN 11 ProGrAM ArT or Be ProGrAMMed C.E.B. Reas / Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / Jer Thorp / Marius Watz / Aaron Koblin with comments from: Golan Levin 29 SUBverT! Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley / Sebastian Brajkovic / Julius von Bismarck / Paul Vanouse / Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev / Marco Donnarumma / Willy Sengewald (TheGreenEyl) / Boredomresearch with comments from: Julian oliver & danja vasiliev, Johannes Grenzfurthner 57 CITIzeN SCIeNCe Cesar Harada / HeHe / Critter / Machine Project / Center for PostNatural History / The Institute for Figuring with comments from: Cesar Harada, fred Adams 73 ArTISTS IN White CoATS and LATeX GLoveS Brandon Ballengée / Gilberto Esparza / Philip Ross / BCL / Kathy High / Fernando Orellana / SWAMP / Agnes Meyer-Brandis / SymbioticA and Tissue Culture & Art Project with comments from: Philip ross, Adam zaretsky 107 THe MAker MoMeNT Machine Project / Thomas Thwaites / Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki / John Cohr / Free Art Technology (F.A.T.), OpenFrameworks, The Graffiti Research Lab, and the Ebeling Group with comments from: Geraldine Juarez, Mark Allen, Jonah Brucker-Cohen 131 THe OVERVIew EFFECT Tomás Saraceno / Dunne & Raby / Sascha Pohflepp / Bruce Sterling / Atelier van Lieshout / etoy with comments from: Jeff Lieberman, Sascha Pohflepp, wendy fok 157 Intermediary: The Scientific Evangelist 168 TIMeLINe A subjective chronology of art, science, and technology 180 Bibliography 184 Image Credits 187 Contributors / Acknowledgments 188 The most used words in this book 190 Colophon 8 INTrodUCTIoN “The artist is a positive force in perceiving how technology can Snow argued that if the so-called two cultures (science and be translated to new environments to serve needs and provide the humanities) couldn’t manage to find a way to communi- variety and enrichment of life. He may be the only one who cate—or at least overcome their pretensions long enough can transcend cultural