Scientific research is a collaborative affair. Teams from across academia and industry work in partnership to solve problems and test new methods. What goes on in the University of Dundee's School of Life Sciences building is a testament to the interdisciplinarity required for ground-breaking research. We are now half way through the European Union’s major research programme – Horizon 2020 – which is allocating €80 billion to research that aims to strengthen the EU’s position in science, foster industrial innovation (ensuring technological breakthroughs are developed into viable products with real commercial potential) as well as research that addresses major social concerns (such as climate change and renewable energy). The six works of art in this exhibition are directly the result of EU-funded research into new and emerging technologies, which seek to solve diverse problems from carbon capture to monitoring pollution.
What role can artists play in collaborative scientific research? This exhibition suggests some answers. The FEAT project – Future Emerging Art and Technology – has paired artists with FET research consortia across Europe. The goal: to explore unconventional ways of thinking and technology. The result: works of art that may be in keeping with the artists’ own ways of working, but on radically different topics than we usually think are the concern of artists, from quantum physics to supercomputing. The works in the exhibition ask us to understand the content of complex research projects from a totally different perspective: that of the artist. They also suggest the potential of involving artists in scientific research projects to create engaging, persuasive and experimental reflections on the bigger picture – the real-world implications of that research, at a human scale.
The artists whose work is included in the exhibition are some of the most exciting working today. Through their explorations – most shown at LifeSpace for the first time – it is hoped that a greater awareness of new technologies ensues, and new societal discussions are opened up.
Artists:
boredomresearch (Vicky Isley & Paul Smith)
Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand
Anna Dumitriu
Špela Petrič & Miha Turšič
Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman & Joe Gerhardt)
Pinar Yoldas
Preview: Thursday 13 April 2017, 5-7pm, with Semantic Laboratory live event.
FEAT is funded by the EU backed programme FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) Open. It has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 686527 (H2020-FETOPEN-2015-CSA).
This exhibition is organised by FEAT (Future Emerging Art and Technology) an initiative of eutema GmbH (AT), Stichting Waag Society (NL), and youris.com (BE) in collaboration with LifeSpace.
