On October 18, 2024, artists and scientists gathered at the Vrije Universiteit Bruxelles to explore the potential of artscience, a “space for the co-construction, integration and transformation of knowledge, practices and ideas”.
in La Revue Nouvelle Raoul Sommelier, co-founder of the Brussels-based arts science organization Ohm, explains that this approach arose in response to the “systemic challenges of the 21st century” and the question of “how to rebuild collective meaning in the face of the climate crisis, the fragmentation of knowledge, and the weakening of scientific debate.” These complex challenges will remain insurmountable unless we can imagine new ways of understanding and acting that break down the silos between the natural sciences, humanities, and arts.
According to Sommelier’s theory of the “sphere of validity,” “all knowledge is partial and situated…and the complexity of reality can often only be grasped through the simultaneous use of multiple, sometimes counterintuitive, or contradictory models.”
The goal of Ohme’s diverse interdisciplinary projects (artist residences, installations, performances, exhibitions, experimental classes, etc.) is “not only to connect disciplines, but also to reconfigure frameworks, develop new methods and create a common language.” When “doubt, ignorance, or discomfort are the greatest drivers of discovery,” “curiosity becomes an ethical disposition.”
art and care
Objectification of patients has become the norm. Virginie de Wilde explains how new patients are admitted to the hospital by scanning a barcode on their wrist. Although this process is efficient and secure, reducing a person’s identity to a barcode contradicts the spirit of care. The simple act of asking someone’s name turns the interaction between patient and caregiver into a true human encounter. This connection, De Wilde writes, is sacrificed on the altar of efficiency.
Les Veilleuses The project celebrates the “silent gestures, discreet presences, and small but important moments of attention that constitute the dignity of care” as a form of “soft resistance” to the domination of data and performance metrics in hospitals. Healthcare is built around efficiency and speed, but complaints about “lack of recognition,” “loss of meaning,” and “dehumanization,” in the words of medical professionals, are becoming increasingly common.
Les Veilleuses De Wilde attempts to counter this dehumanization by inviting artists into hospitals, he writes, “not to embellish or beautify, but…to reveal what needs to be preserved and what may have been hidden or destroyed.” The project aims to “offer caregivers the opportunity to testify to the intimacy of caregiving through a new medium.” Inspired by the encounter between caregiver and patient, the works are displayed in exhibitions both inside and outside the hospital, making visible the quiet and invisible beauty of the act of care.
art and archeology
Another project realized by Ohm was an encounter between “two professional worlds, each operating within its own bubble, but sharing the same vocabulary, references and passions.” Glass artist Héloïse Corla and archaeologist Alicia Van Hammeert collaborated on a mission to recreate the medieval glass mixture used in the stained glass of Stavelot Abbey, using only natural materials from the vicinity.
Through a process of trial and error, they perfected this combination, which was used in a workshop where students created glasses inspired by medieval “trick glasses.” These intriguing creations rely on “physics laws such as the siphon principle and air suction” to produce amazing effects and once impressed diners at medieval banquets.
Both came out of the project with a deeper understanding. Korla was able to gain valuable insight into the molecular properties of the materials she uses every day in her workshop. Meanwhile, Van Hammeert said, the new understanding of glass’s viscosity and plasticity will help archaeological research into medieval glassblowing techniques. But above all, the project was “a human adventure that enriches the participants, takes them out of their comfort zones…and encourages openness to other worlds and other people.”
political imagination
François Foret approaches art science as a “symbolic, political and cultural practice” that can shed light on the complex and often distant structures that shape our world, such as the EU. Both art and science, Foret argues, seek to understand a world in which traditional sources of authority and meaning are in flux and experiencing accelerating change. “Art is not just an adjunct to science, but an equal, or even a competitor, to science as a means of revealing the world and as a response to great metaphysical questions.” Artscience is emerging as an important method of interrogation and imagination that can foster new modes of knowing in a disrupted world.
The EU is particularly inaccessible to art because of its deliberate abstraction, as reflected in the bland, non-tangible motifs of its functional architecture and currency, and its distance from the everyday lives of its citizens. However, it is precisely artistic practice that can step into this void and “give body” to seemingly insubstantial political structures.
Whether you’re a defense minister drawing inspiration from science fiction or an academic honing your skills in participatory theater, the marriage of art and science can broaden our horizons and reveal unexpected perspectives. In the end, the real question, Foret writes, is not whether art and science are compatible, but “how their fusion can help us imagine, transform, and create spaces where imagination once again becomes a political act.”
Published in cooperation with cairn international versionwritten by Cadenza Academic Translations.
Source: Eurozine – www.eurozine.com
