ABSTRACT
Art and science work is experiencing a dramatic rise coincident with burgeoning Science and Technology Studies (STS) interest in this area. Science has played the role of muse for the arts, inspiring imaginative reconfigurations of scientific themes and exploring their cultural resonance. Conversely, the arts are often deployed in the service of science communication, illustration, and popularization. STS scholars have sought to resist the instrumentalization of the arts by the sciences, emphasizing studies of theories and practices across disciplines and the distinctive and complementary contributions of each. The manifestation of this commonality of creative and epistemic practices is the emergence of Art, Science, and Technology Studies (ASTS) as the interdisciplinary exploration of art–science.
This handbook defines the modes, practices, crucial literature, and research interests of this emerging field. It explores the questions, methodologies, and theoretical implications of scholarship and practice that arise at the intersection of art and STS. Further, ASTS demonstrates how the arts are intervening in STS. Drawing on methods and concepts derived from STS and allied fields including visual studies, performance studies, design studies, science communication, and aesthetics and the knowledge of practicing artists and curators, ASTS is predicated on the capacity to see both art and science as constructions of human knowledge- making. Accordingly, it posits a new analytical vernacular, enabling new ways of seeing, understanding, and thinking critically about the world.
This handbook provides scholars and practitioners already familiar with the themes and tensions of art–science with a means of connecting across disciplines. It proposes organizing principles for thinking about art–science across the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts. Encounters with art and science become meaningful in relation to practices and materials manifest as perceptual habits, background knowledge, and cultural norms. As the chapters in this handbook demonstrate, a variety of STS tools can be brought to bear on art–science so that systematic research can be conducted on this unique set of knowledge-making practices.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part Section 1|55 pages
Constructing borders and borders at the intersections of art and science
part Section 2|76 pages
Making multidisciplinary histories
chapter 7|11 pages
Emotion, affect and participation
part Section 3|93 pages
Methods and modes
chapter 13|11 pages
Art's Work in the Age of Biotechnology
chapter 14|10 pages
Recipes for Technoutopia
part Section 4|81 pages
Collaborations and collisions in art–science
chapter 18|16 pages
Negotiations and love songs
chapter 19|19 pages
Transdisciplinary co-inquiry as curatorial methodology
part Section 5|52 pages
Institutions and infrastructures
chapter 20|10 pages
ArtSciLab
chapter 21|15 pages
Polymathic pedagogies
chapter 22|12 pages
The future of arts integrative work
chapter 23|11 pages
Feasting the Lab and other projects
part Section 6|58 pages
Democracy and activism
chapter 26|24 pages
Artificial intelligence experience
part Section 7|58 pages
Art as partner and critic
part Section 8|68 pages
Exposure to the elements
part Section 9|55 pages
Atmospherics
part Section 10|4 pages
Gallery