Contemporary transformations in art have led it towards the domain of scientific research, towards disciplines labelled as sciences. Art today creatively dialogues with genetics, biotechnology and research on AI. This is not only a result of the new aspirations of art. A parallel transformation of concepts in science, an evolution of its theories from Ernest Nagel and Karl Popper to Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, along with the resulting contextualisation and relativisation of the value of scientific results, leads one to the very definite conclusion that science should not now be seen the only field of social practice where knowledge is produced. Consequently, art has today assumed a new role, rejecting the traditional division into objective science and subjective art. Art now aspires to the role of a research milieu, a source of significant and valuable knowledge. The links between art thus shaped and the sphere of sciences are no longer based on the popularising of or critical references to scientific results, as it was in the past. Art can be, and frequently is, a domain and method of scientific research. Numerous artistic works, most often from the sphere of the new media, undertake tasks located between traditionally understood artistic creation and scientific-cognitive activity. On the one hand, these works reactivate the alternative scientific tradition in epistemology, rejected during the Enlightenment, on the other, they transplant artistic practice to R&D laboratories. As an effect of such a migration numerous new artistic tendencies as bioart, robotic art, transgenic art and nanoart have emerged. Artworks, stemming from these tendencies and joining artistic and scientific attributes, constitute a new and significant value in both fields. First of all, however, they introduce new and significant values to the social milieu in which such tendencies are developing.
Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss, Energy Meter
from Performing Data exhibition
photo: Krzysztof Miękus
Today's art, developing close, structural relations with contemporary media technologies and scientific paradigms, constructs objects of artistic experience in an entirely different way to the traditional media of art. Bestowing these objects with unprecedented character, this art proposes different strategies in the negotiation of their meanings and, first and foremost, engages those who receive them in an entirely different way. It no longer refers to the traditional concept of artistic culture, understanding art as an individual and autonomous domain, governed by its own principles and rules. Art reaching for scientific technologies now develops in the context of the vision of the third culture, postulated by John Brockman, and preceded by its forerunner, C.P. Snow's concept of two cultures. According to Brockman, the third culture consists of scientists, thinkers and researchers of the empirical world who, thanks to their work and writings, are now taking over and transforming the role of the traditional intellectual elite. Contemporary artistic creation, unifying the paradigms of art, science and technology in its activities, is going to overcome the opposition between the humanist world of art and the world of science – the opposition that begot Brockman's concept of the third culture. This refreshed vision of the third culture is not founded upon conflict but on the mutual interactions of the two, or rather – three, worlds, including the engineers' world of technology, in the game. Such culture, absorbing not only the paradigms of art, science and technology but also, the structures of information and Internet society, and the determinants of participative culture, is shaping the new framework of our future.
The conference, planned for 23 – 25 May 2011 will concentrate on the mutual relations between the three indicated domains of human creativity. Its participants – scientists and scholars of various specialities, and artists – will present the results of research and studies on various aspects of these relations and try to think of possible consequences of this situation for contemporary culture.
The conference will be open to the public. Admittance is free.
Follow the procedure below to register to attend the conference:
Please download the registration form (31 KB, doc.), fill it and send to: conference@laznia.pl
Deadline for entry of registration form: 16 May, 2011. All persons, whose entry form has been submitted before the deadline will be asked to confirm his or her attendance in the conference. A lack of confirmation until 19 May, 2011 will be understood as resignation.
PLEASE NOTE! There's a limited amount of seats available.
SCHEDULE OF THE CONFERENCE:
23 May
10 a.m. - 1 p.m. - Conference (Artus Court)
1 p.m. - 3 p.m. - lunch break
3 p.m. - 6 p.m. - Conference (Artus Court)
24 May
10 a.m. - 12 p.m. - Pleasure of Light exhibition tour ( Green Gate)
12 p.m. - 2 p.m. - lunch break
3 p.m. - 6 p.m. - Conference (Artus Court)
25 May - schedule of the conference has changed:
10 a.m - 12 p.m - Performing Data - exhibition tour ( CCA Laznia)
12 p.m - 2 p.m - lunch break
2 p.m - 2.15 p.m - Introduction into Art Line project
Torun Ekstrand
2.15 p.m - 2.45 p.m - Anthropocene art
Edwin Bendyk
2.45 p.m - 4.p.m - panel discussion
Participants of the conference:
dr Monika Bakke
Adam Mickiewicz Uniwersity in Poznań
Poland
Kuba Bąkowski
Warszawa
Poland
Edwin Bendyk
POLITYKA weekly
Warszawa
Dr Martha Blassnigg
Transtechnology University Plymouth
UK
Prof. Elinor Nina Czegledy
University of Toronto
Kanada
Prof. Monika Fleischmann & Wolfgang Strauss
Bonn
Germany
Prof. James Gimzewski
University of California, Los Angeles
USA
Prof. dr hab. Joanna Hoffman
Art University in Poznań
Poland
Prof. Lissa Holloway-Attaway
Blekinge Institute of Technology
Sweden
Malin Jogmark
Blekinge Institute of Technology
Sweden
Prof. Ryszard W. Kluszczyński
Łódź Uniwersity
Poland
Róna Kopeczky
Ludwig Museum in Budapest
Hungary
Dr. Fabrice Lapelletrie
France
Prof. Roger Malina
Observatoire Astronomique de
Marseille-Provence
France
Prof. Michael Punt
Transtechnology University Plymouth
UK
Jasia Reichardt
London
UK
Prof. Victoria Vesna
UCLA Design, Media, Arts
Broad Art Center
USA
Artus Court - Gdańsk Historical Museum
80-834 Gdańsk
Długi Targ 43/44
tel.: +48 58 76 79 100
The conference is made in collaboration with the Polish-German festival of modern neighbourhood "Sąsiedzi 2.0" organised by the
German Embassy in Warsaw and
Goethe-Institut in Warsaw.
Art Line is a collaborative art and culture project between 14 partners from 5 countries in the South Baltic Region that is part-financed by the European Union (Regional Development Fund) 85 % and by Ministry of Culture and National Heritage 11,25 %.