CHAIRED BY: Caroline Wilkinson

On Tuesday 27th & Wednesday 28th August 2019, the MA Art in Science programme at Liverpool School of Art and Design hosted an Art & Science Exchange workshop with members of the Biochemical Society. The exchange was held at the John Lennon Art and Design Building, in the Public Exhibition Space and X-Gallery amongst the MA Art in Science student's end of programme postgraduate exhibition, which showcases the outcomes of their three month research projects.

These projects served as a basis for investigation of specific art-science interactions, and were supported by open discussions, hands on activities including haptic-optic drawing, clay modelling and 3D haptic digital sculpting of bacteria and viruses, which culminated in a Liverpool LASER talk.

Throughout the Art & Science Exchange the group were challenged to locate their current thoughts about art and science in response to visual historian James Elkins' eight theoretical models of of art-science interaction:

1. Art and science have two separate grammars

2. Art and science share aesthetics (beauty, the sublime)

3. Art and science collaborations are a third “culture”

4. Art and science are two cultures; there are many

5. Art and science have common ground (“Venn Theory”)

6. Art and science can fuse to create a hybrid (or convergence)

7. Art and science share creativity, inspiration, wonder

8. Art and science are a “drunken conversation” of “strange attractors”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o62ny...

We concluded the Art & Science Exchange with a Liverpool LASER talk where we reflected on the day’s activities and revisited the group's previous thoughts on James Elkins’ eight models of art-science interactions, to see if their experiences over the two days had reinforced, changed or challenged their perceptions of art and science.

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LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Talks is Leonardo's international program of evening gatherings that bring artists and scientists together for informal presentations and conversations. LASER Talks were founded in 2008 by Bay Area LASER Chair Piero Scaruffi and are in over 30 cities around the world. To learn more about how our LASER Hosts and to visit a LASER near you please visit our website. 

The mission of the LASERs is to provide the general public with a snapshot of the cultural environment of a region and to foster interdisciplinary networking.