Preface

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the curators and artists struggling to incorporate the work of the emerging “art, science, technology” professionals in science museums is exciting and difficult. It explores the new emerging practices challenge the existing definitions of “art” and “science” museums. Science museums that have championed the artists, sometimes as simple tools of science communication or “outreach”, have helped a process of “in-reach” where artists are changing science itself. Bio-artists are engaged deeply in questioning and exploring the implications of genetic engineering and the new biological technologies including artificial life. Science museums, with the science academies and other scientific institutions including artists, could perhaps have helped convince governments that their policies could mitigate global warming, so that it would not endanger the sustainability of the societal model that was being developed.