The best of both worlds: Science and Art today
The combination of art and science is not just a concept used by John and Albany; Kay discusses how it still has great prevalence today…
‘Homos luminosos’. Rosaline de Thelin used fibre optics in this art installation depicting the human form.
A lot of the content we have posted has shown how the Hancock family merged the fields of science and art, yet this combination is not something which was just restricted to the period in which they lived, but is very much present today.
The Wellcome Trust holds Art Awards to celebrate ‘imaginative and experimental arts projects that explore biomedical science’. There are several awards to be claimed, which look to fund originality within the piece of art work, but also several considerations within biomedical science, including its ethics and the debates surrounding the field. The awards are there to promote learning both in an informal and formal setting, encouraging a new way of thinking.
Check out this article from The Guardian which discusses collaborations between artists and scientists; artist-geneticist, neuroscientist-theatre director teams, just to name a few: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/aug/21/collaborations-between-artists-and-scientists
One of the joint projects discussed in The Guardian is about a video ‘Electric Hotel’, a partnership between theatre director David Rosenberg and Professor David McAlpine, director of University College London’s Ear Institute. Rosenberg wanted to create an illusion wherein the audience felt like they were in the room with the people in the video. Prof. McAlpine, whose research work into brain mechanisms for spatial hearing and detecting sounds in noisy environments, proved key to the effects Rosenberg wanted to achieve. Take a look at the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0zJfa_VhKWM
The Art and Science Journal is a Canadian bi-annual journal and website which is ‘devoted to art concerned with science, nature and technology’. It focuses on what happens when the fields collide, promoting the education and inspiration of students and art science enthusiasts.
An article posted on 12 April 2013 featured the work of Spanish artist Rosaline de Thelin on display at the Kinetica Art Fair in London. de Thelin's ‘Homos luminosos’ are floating human forms made of shimmering light. The work uses technology to create this illusion of light and forms, forms which lose their physicality and poetic mystery as the visitor walks among them.
