Linking Visual Arts, Life Science and Science Studies

Why attempt to catalyze new research conversations among artists, biologists, and science studies scholars?

Living systems are composed of highly-interconnected, multi-scale networks of mind-boggling complexity. The consequences of system malfunctions are often devastating, and the consequences of public misunderstanding can compound these effects. The popular understanding of scientific advancements is largely framed by the media industry, which tends to emphasize the spectacular as opposed to providing a more balanced and informed representation of facts. As a result, both false hopes and false fears get created, and public awareness and response becomes based on very partial knowledge if not outright misinformation.

In the areas of biotechnology, biomedical engineering, genetics and molecular biology, such public misunderstanding often opens new doors for commercial exploitation. The health industry provides a particularly good example. Companies such as GeneLink, DNA Direct and Genova Diagnostics offer genetic prescreening kits, available and sold directly to potential customers on the Internet. Customers receive advice on nutritional supplements and lifestyle choices. Much to the chagrin of many geneticists, these tests and following conclusions are based on “bogus science,” and reinforce simplistic value systems and perspectives on the understanding of life itself.

History has shown that the promotion of genetic determinism can have devastating results and a revitalized eugenics discourse has already made its way back into the assisted reproductive technology industry. The notion of "health," and particularly healthy children is of concern for most people and becomes an easy territory to be manipulated and managed in a profit driven society.

We believe that one possible response to this unfortunate situation is the furthering of interdisciplinary arts, life science and science studies research collaborations. Rather than purely functioning within the university environment it is our goal to enable public participation beyond the academic framework.

The gaps between scientific experts, policy makers, and the non-technical public are commonly ascribed to the wide disparities in specialized scientific training between "lay" and "expert" citizens. Institutionalized "expertise" has often excluded the average person from democratic participation in the shaping of techno-scientific knowledge and practice. Although science in its ideal form espouses a democratic ethic of sharing, and technology in its twentieth-century manifestations has been at the heart of industrial growth and popular culture, the average citizen hesitates to participate in public techno-scientific debates because technical meanings appear distant and inaccessible. Many well-intentioned projects attempt to disseminate the practical uses of basic scientific research in "lay terms," to train the public to reject "superstitious and irrational" fears of new technologies, or to distribute the task of popularizing new scientific frontiers via public university collaborations with mass media and private firms. However, such projects rarely analyze the history and context of scientific practice; they take for granted that the public must swallow the pill whole, rather than examine its constitutive elements. Cultural, historical, and theoretical analyses offer analytical tools that preclude simplistic conclusions to the complex debates of our time.

Art, Science, and Cultural Analysis can catalyze one other, we believe, if people are offered complex yet creative ways in which they can understand and engage with specialized debates.

Artists have traditionally often served as "Public Opinion Makers." They are highly trained to create and assemble images, objects, situations and activities in order to convey ideas and experiences that are novel in their approach, and which serve to cast a different light on everyday experiences distinct from the one conveyed by other forms of media distribution. Because artists are usually not beholden to the same economic and corporate considerations faced by those operating in the context of commercial media, they are better situated to resist the pressures of the 'spectacular' which many daily news journalists and media makers are often compelled to reproduce in the interest of capturing market share.

Within the context of the academy, Science and Technology Studies (STS) has recently emerged as a fruitful method of analyzing science, and has influenced teaching and research across a range of disciplines. STS, especially in its intersections with cultural studies, feminist studies, and transnational studies, offers a rich emerging field of scholarship and practice that can be mined to re-conceptualize lay-expert dialogues.

In order to engage seriously with the life sciences, artists and STS scholars must be brought into situations that allow for deeper involvement in scientific research, and that facilitate hands-on experience with the materials of science itself. In return, the "public" aspect of science could profit from the critical dialogue that emerges out of a perspective informed by the arts. It is our hope that more fruitful interdisciplinary collaborations will develop under the umbrella of this project in Public Sphere Science.

Future events related to this topic are planned in collaboration with Professor Natalie Jeremijenko (UCSD). Active participants in this initiative from the UCI Campus include: Tau-Mu Yi (Developmental & Cell Biology), Christine Suetterlin (Developmental & Cell Biology), Naomi Morrissette (Molecular Biology & Biochemistry)

Beatriz da Costa & Kavita Philip
UC Irvine, July 2005.