We want to use the combined creative power and excellence in the arts and sciences to collaborate and understand better the world around us. By delving into scientific fact and research, challenging perceptions and theories and performing cross disciplinary experiments, we hope to expand the way in which research is represented, and further, add diverse voices to the ongoing conversations around the subject matter.
As a collaborative creative team – Ashley, Linda and Tony - working in this way will mean a dramatic transformation of our practices, both as individuals, through new skills development in artistic methods and training in varied types of technologies, and as a collective, our plan is to continue to work in this way, developing Sci Art practices. Working together in this project we will develop a shared vocabulary and engage the Scientific community with a greater set of creative ideas for expression.
Between the three artists we have a set of combined interdisciplinary art practices that cover areas such as sociology, media theory, game theory, interactivity, coding, audio visual art making, sonic arts and ecology. With this multi-faceted background, we can give meaning and offer alternative types of information, translations, and interpretations of this kind of biotech research to a general audience. We can also offer new insights through creative methodologies to genetics researchers on how the general public engage with, or understand the impact, this technology has in the world, including the ethical considerations that are taken by researchers of gene editing. Most scientific papers are meant for a specific audience, we have the skill to alter or present to a wider audience with varying levels of skills, interest and knowledge.
It is necessary to bring our skill sets together to find common ground. For us, a key question as artists is ‘what is our responsibility to the future’? At this current time, it is now even more important to make visible and legible the way in which science and the arts can be rigorous in exploring the meaning and impact of genetic research on the human and global condition. This project has the potential to leave a lasting impact on our understanding of new biotechnology research, in particular, how it might be used to solve major physiological crises. It is also equally important that artists be included in the narrative as we can offer new ways of understanding and interpreting scientific data, engage meaningfully and more creatively with both research participants and audiences, and feed into the development of a language, a discourse around genetics research, to both understand and potentially remove the mediated fear around gene editing.
By collaborating with scientists at St Andrews and CRUK, we will develop a body of art that is informed by the underlying potential of CRISPR technology, that is, its potential to fix genes or transform evolutionary biology. Together, we aim to unlock the creative potential of genetics research and to foster curiosity within the biological sciences for furthering the conversation around language, ethics and the arts within gen tech. We will then develop multiple platforms to share our initial findings, interactions, and art works.
