This is an interesting and important book. Apart from two introductory essays, the rest of the text is in the form of interview/discussion with the 15 represented artists. This approach maintains interest because it involves the artist’s formal methods, their sometimes eccentric/quirky personalities, and the reasons they approach their projects the way they do. The interviews were so interesting I could hardly put the book down!

The book is important for scholarship and marginalised artwork because it pretty much covers the current way experimental artists of all persuasions approach their work. Perhaps not definitive but certainly broad enough to cover the methodologies used, nearly all the artists use state-of-the-art devices, technology and equipment, many of the artists modify the devices to make them do things they were not designed to do. Subverting the technology paradigm?

Further, most artists collaborate with scientists and technology experts to utilise their expertise in various ways. This varies from the highly technical knowledge needed to modify equipment to using scientific experimental methods to achieve the desired outcome.

Desired outcome is a highly contentious and important facet of the artist’s vision; often, the artists have no original “defined outcome”, and as all serious art should do, they let the work progress and in part tell them what to do next. This concept is totally at odds with, say, mainstream science, medicine, engineering and so on - define the project, articulate the outcome, get the funding and produce tangible “dollar-turning” results. Consequently, the concept of failure in the experimental artist’s work is discussed and analysed at length throughout the book. I remember “back-in-the-day”, before extreme neocapitalism came to rule the academy, an Oxford professor saying, “If we have 10 PHDs happening and only one produces new, tangible results we consider that a great success”. How things have changed?

Most artists experiment in different ways; however, the intersection of art, science, and technology is considered experimental and outside the mainstream,”...so with this book we are digging into how artists who work in that terrain are articulating the nature of experimentation and its role in cultural transformation.” (p.1)

“This book emerged from a 2019 conference that we co-chaired, the 33rd annual meeting of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA), “Experimental Engagements”. (p. 2) After discussion “... with the 15 artists, three major themes emerged, forming the three sections of this book: Phenomena, and Mediation, and Place.” (p. 11)

Phenomena - features artists who investigate natural phenomena such as clouds, light and fungi. This of course involves issues of global warming and our relationship with all other life forms.

Mediation – artists investigate how sociological assumptions are encoded into software, how social media disseminates information and dis-information and how much software emphasises the dehumanising effects of capitalism.

Place -  in this section artists look at where they belong, the concerns of other humans in “their” own territory, how mining, mineral extraction and so on displace cultures literally and metaphorically.

Artist, Ava Aviva Avnisan raises a very important issue in the Mediation section concerning the rather contentious/paradoxical concern when she looks at artists who use emerging technology to subvert the very technology they are using? This is typical of the issues many of the artists featured in the book face in their work when trying to expose the control methods used by those in power. Further, how can they subvert/critique the funding system of their governments/academies when this funding enables them to carry out their artist research/practice? This is complex terrain to navigate and one of my criticisms of this book which I discuss further on.

One minor disappointment with this book is a lack of acknowledgement of (ISAST) Leonardo, there is only one reference to Leonardo by Jackson (p. 175). This lacuna is rather remiss (or naive) of the artists when Leonardo has been at the forefront of the intertwining of Art, Science, Technology for close on 50 years!

The book is nicely produced, and as one would expect richly illustrated with colour images of the artworks being discussed. There is a Foreword, List of Figures, Contributors Notes, and a good Index. As mentioned, two introductory essays precede the main sections:

Section 1 Phenomena – then Portfolio 1

Section 11 Mediation - then Portfolio 11

Section 111 Place – then Portfolio 111 I was rather disappointed with the portfolio sections, these consist of 50 artist’s work, two pages per artist – one page is a quote, the facing page an image of the artist’s work. Some of the quotes are inappropriate to the images, obscure and seem irrelevant. The images generally do not do justice to the work; for example, most do not portray a sense of scale, and the stills do not capture the essence of the performance/interactive works (a perennial problem).

This and the previously mentioned Leonardo issue are minor criticisms. I have a more serious criticism, which is not so much of the book per se, but with the whole overall concept of experimental art: “Engaging the Margins”  The majority of the artists represented, even though they “talk-tough” about subverting the dominant paradigm of; commercial galleries, arts funding/grants; museum curating; control of their work by academic funding/requirements; neutralising embedded technological control systems and so on, work within the privileged academic sphere, many with tenured positions, and most use the latest and often very expensive technology. To my mind, the only artists truly engaging the margins of experimental art, with “existential authenticity”, are those who have nothing at all to do with commercial galleries, nothing to do with funding by controlling bodies, and who work at reciprocal/equal grass-roots levels with indigenous/marginalised people and communities. Fence-sitting is inappropriate. I think the book could have included a few such artists, “underground” avant-garde artists who challenge the status quo with no compromising!

Having said this, I still commend all the artists, especially those represented in this book, who try to make a positive difference for everyone in the world despite the difficulties in doing so. As I said, this is an important book to try and expose and solve some of these issues.