Overgaden LECTURES: “Art + Science: Towards a Third Culture?”
October 24–25, 2014
Overgaden
Institute of Contemporary Art
Overgaden Neden Vandet 17
DK-1414 Copenhagen K
The conference Art + Science – Towards a Third Culture? is part of Overgaden’s conference series Overgaden LECTURES, which was launched in 2013 to provide an annual opportunity to explore key phenomena in the field of contemporary art in depth. This year we are focusing on the interaction between art and science and examining the current hype surrounding the phenomenon.
Art and science have traditionally been perceived as mutually exclusive epistemologies and disciplines, but in recent years there has been increasing interest in merging the two. New techno-scientific breakthroughs in areas like biochemistry, particle physics, and genetic research have radically changed our view of the world, and more and more artists have started to work with scientific areas of research, technologies, and methods in the field of “sci-art,” often in collaboration with scientists. Parallel to this, scientific institutions have begun to examine the creative aspects of research processes and the broader dissemination of their research results. This has generated a new receptiveness to having a dialogue with artists and their often more experimental methods and ability to represent complex connections. Yet despite formal artist-in-residency programmes, economic support, and countless collaborations and exhibition projects, it remains unclear how and on which terms—if any—art and science can be seen to cross-pollinate each other today.
Which structural and methodological similarities and differences characterise the two disciplines? Why is an exchange between them relevant right now? Is it a dialogue between equals? And what role does financing and funding play in a relationship between what sceptics might call a mismatched couple? These are the questions at the core of the conference that will be explored over two days of lectures and debates with leading experts in the field, as well as via the concrete experiences and results of collaborative projects between artists and scientists.
The conference series is organised by Overgaden’s curator Anna Holm, and will in 2014 be moderated by Associate Professor of Interactive Media Art at Aalborg University Morten Søndergaard. For further information and the programme, see www.overgaden.org.
Speakers: Heather Barnett (UK), Ernst Peter Fischer (Germany), Ljiljana Fruk (Croatia), Iréne Hediger (Switzerland), Mette Høst (Denmark), Ryszard W. Kluszczyński (Poland), Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond (France), Roger Malina (US), Geert Mul (Netherlands), Thomas Söderqvist (Denmark), Susann Wintsch (Switzerland)
