Potential  Contributions of Bioartists to Research

Stephen Wilson, Professor Conceptual Information Arts, San Francisco State University.

Science and Technology dominate contemporary world.  
What is an appropriate response for the arts?

• Consumers of new tools - using them to create images, sounds etc
• Critical commentary from the distance
• Artists as researchers - indepedent research agendas, inquiries, development of technology

Topics of Presentation

• Explore artist as researcher approach as it pertains specifically to bioarts
• Enhance understanding of how exactly artists might contribute to research.
• Review the challenges of opportunities of artists functioning as researchers
• Survey a few bioart projects from this perspective
• Consider one of my own installations, Protozoa Games

Based on Research from book Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology

Surveyed Artists working with Research More work needed to understand how art and research might influence each other

Much Interest in Exploring Value of Artists' Involvement in Research

Policy studies Michael Naimark, Rockefeller Report -"Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Money  Technology-Based Art and the Dynamics of Sustainability" US National Academy of Science (Michael Century et al)  -"Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation, and Creativity"

Governmental and Private Arragements

Canadian Research Council
Artists in the Lab Program (Switzerland)
Interactive Institute (Sweden)
Leonardo/OLATS Space Inititiatives
Symbiotica(Australia)
Arts Catalyst (UK)
Wellcome Trust Competitions (UK)

Rationales for Involvement of Artists

• Pragmatic (artists will contribute valuable new ideas that will result in better research or development or science/technolgy will enrich art.)
• Global (the culture at large will be enriched by the confluence of these ideas from diverse disciplines.)
• Preface of Beyond Productivity illustrates pragmatic appeal

Creativity plays a crucial role in culture; creative activities provide personal, social, and educational benefit; and creative inventions (better recipes, not just more cooking) are increasingly recognized as key drivers of economic development. But creativity takes different forms at different times and in different places. This report argues that, at the beginning of the 21st century, information technology (IT) is forming a powerful alliance with creative practices in the arts and design to establish the exciting new domain of information technology and creative practices ITCP. There are major benefits to be gained from encouraging, supporting, and strategically investing in this domain ITCP can constitute an important domain of research. It is inherently exploratory and inherently transdisciplinary. Concerned at its core with how people perceive, experience, and use information technology, ITCP has enormous potential for sparking reconceptualization and innovation in IT. In execution, it pushes on the boundaries of both IT and the arts and design. Computer science has always been stimulated by exposure to new points of view and new problems, which are ever-present in the arts and design. Because of the breadth of use to which artists and designers put different forms of IT, and because they typically are not steeped in conventional IT approaches, artists' and designers'  perspectives on tools and applications may provide valuable insights into the needs of other kinds of IT users. The needs and wants of artists and designers can suggest new ways of designing and implementing IT. Engaging their perspectives is a logical extension of recent trends in cross-disciplinary computer science research.

Limited Focus of Presentation

Can not analyze here the general impact of the art works in the larger culture -eg change in zeitgeist, subtle changes in the psychology, sociology, politics of science/research.  May ultimately be the most important impact. Preliminary investigation more specifically at how art might impact the research world and its practitioners in a more concrete ways - with special focus on bioarts Live with this ambiguity for a while:   Bioart artists working on the frontiers of biological research certainly seem to be doing culturally significant work.  Their contribution to art and to general cultural discourse about the research is easy to identify.  Less clear how they specifically  influence the world of scientific research Limitations even in basic question What would constitute a contribution and by whose definition? Maybe it is not important that the art have an impact directly on the research world?

Deconstruction of Narratives

Currently the most prevalent theoretical approach in the arts and humanities Questioning the conceptual frameworks - eg objectivity,  external reality as a construct Deconstructing the language used  - for example, germs as invading armies, animals as the Other Unveiling the web of connections between this research and larger cultural structures (for example, cultural or gender bias) Presumably any audience that encounters this work (including those who work as professional researchers) will become more thoughtful about the cultural implications of research Core value of science is supposedly radical self reflection and criticism Make cultural theory required reading in the sciences? Problems with this approach.  Many in the sciences consider radical versions nonsense.  The normal canons and procedures of research are very effective.  Core values of science - there is a knowable, behaved external world, one can move toward objectivity Beginnings of a new 2-culture problem.  How might critique be integrated into the siences.

Donna Haraway Bruno Latour

Examples of How Bioartists Might Directly Influence Research

• For example, Xerox PARC PAIR - Arist in Residence Program  (documented in Craig Harris ed. Art and Innovation - everyone involved claimed benefits but hard to point to specifics
• Similarly  Information Arts documents the phenomenological experience of benefit but had more difficulty finding specifics
  

Some Influence Points in Research Process (from Information Arts)

• Artists might assign different priorities to various research agendas
• Artists might ask different research questions
• Artists might help deconstruct unacknowledged assumptions in the frameworks that guide research
• Artists might challenge standard research procedures or invent new ones
• Artists might discover new knowledge or invent new technologies
• Artists might interpret results differently
• Artists might invent new ways to extract understanding via information visualization
• Artists might identify cultural implications of research results missed by other researchers

Imagining New Creatures - Bioengineering

Art has a long history working with fantastic creatures and chimeras - envisioning  life as it might be With  genetic engineering the old dream of inventing creatures begins to enter the realm of possible Major ethical and safety issues If they are solved, then society will face major questions of what it should do with this technology What new creatures should researchers create? Are medicine and economics the only justifications? Are genetically modified square tomatoes, created in order to facilitate shipping economics, more worthwhile than creatures created for art?

Louis Bec

• Eduardo Kac's Alba project embedded florescent genes in a rabbit
• The Critical Art Ensemble;s New Eve project embedded human gene sequence in the bacteria that produced beer and then invited audience members to drink it
• Laura Cinti's transgenic cactus  project modified a cactus so it grew human hair

• Many audiences consider these kinds of projects objectionable or frivolous.   It is not likely a biological researcher would dream up these projects. 
• This stretching of the conceptualization of kinds of creatures that can be generated is itself a service.  It induces researchers to think beyond utilitarian goals that dominate their disciplines.
• Most artists have not yet acquired that knowledge and certification necessary to become independent researchers. They are not allowed to do the research themselves.  Eventually, artists will need to arrange to get certified so they can have the hands-on involvement that is key to stimulating the artistic imagination and tinnovation.

Embedding Messages in Genetic Sequences

DNA is tremendously effective for storing genetic information.  Furthermore mitosis (cell splitting) provides a natural process for creation of copies Artistic Experiments - Joe Davis, Microvenus;  Eduardo Kac, Genesis Artists beat researchers to the idea - Davis' idea originally seemed extreme - value of artistic vision Bacterial memory and biological computing now focus of worldwide research

Joe Davis

Breeding and Selection

Humans engaged a form of genetic engineering long before the current research era as breeders of animals and plants Some analysts critique contemporary biology for not paying sufficient attention to this storehouse of folk knowledge Breeders accumulated significant information about genetic potential within particular species and the limitations and possibilities of particular cross breeding  They also have knowledge about the way context can affect the expression of particular genes.

George Gessert

• George Gessert;s many-year Iris project (for example, Scatter)
• Christopher Ebener & Uli Winters Byte project attempted to breed mice with a proclivity for chewing on computer cables
• Andrea Zettl's Breeding series explores various breeding sculptures including one that bred chickens with a proclivity for flying.

Experimentation

Ideas pursued for artistic reasons with possible ideas for research world Adam Zaretsky created events in which he tested the effects of different kinds of music on the antibiotic production of selected strains of E. coli bacteria Joe Davis  Audio Microscope listens to the movements of single celled animals (perhaps possible to identify sound signature of the organisms) Paul Vanouse's Relative Velocity Inscription Device developed unprecedented electrophoresis device Natalie Jeremijenko's One Tree  subjected 1000 genetically identical clones to different environmental conditions by planting all over the Bay Area

Stem-cell and Near Life Research

Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr - Use stem cells to grow tissue into forms they selected for artistic and conceptual reasons Confront technical challenges - providing nourishment to growing cells and new ways of providing lattices to guide growth in the patterns they wanted Artistic agenda demanded they develop unorthodox skills and understandings necessary to complete the work Catts tells amusing stories about the cigarette smoke that fills the environment in art shows in a way that would horrify traditional lab technicians.  Interestingly, Catts notes that there is some evidence that the smoke encourages growth in some tissue cells Now growing interest in scientific community in manipulated near-life materials

Protozoa Games Art Installation and Research (Steve Wilson)

Art Installation in which humans play motion games with live protozoa I Worried that few observe other animals except pets & zoos My preconceptions were challenged  - protozoa were sophisticated and varied in how they related to each other and to their environment.   I imagined that this process of observing protozoa and considering their behaviors was not very different from the way a biologist might approach them.  Like a scientist studying a species, I tried to focus on what I was seeing and theorized about its causes and implications. I wondered if I could understand them well enough to predict their behavior In Follow-me game visitors were rewarded for careful observation In Control-me game visitors initiated experiments to try to influence protozoa - colored lights position and sound stimulation Literature did not have much on this.  It is possible new understandings about protozoa life could result from this event

Dilemma of Artistic and Technological Demands

• Several of my pending bioart projects require technological research
• How does one decide of allocation of focus? - there may not be enough time
• Heartbeat detector from a distance - closest is in military classified lab
• Pheremone based art work - need to integrate artifical nose and pheromone research
• (Pheromone research graduate students use my pheromone site as resource)
• Next Guests and Parasites project -people will play against their own bacteria - requires unprecdented automated micoscope and sample acquistion

Summary:  Artists as Potential Contributors to Research

Out of Control - the Paradoxical Value of Violating Conventions

• I suspect many scientists would be aghast at the projects described
• They would deny the scientific value of the work
• They would note the violation of sound scientific practice and the "amateurish" quality.
• The experimental situations would be seen as insufficiently controlled.
• They would protest that there were too many contaminating variables, not enough care in setting up the treatments, and not sufficient documentation to allow others to replicate or make judgments about the protocols.
• They would decry the lack of systematic theoretical framework for design of the events or for evaluating their results.

• For example, it would be difficult to draw conclusions from Protozoa Games.
• Protozoa Games (like all the other projects described) was never intended  as a scientific experiment; it had other purposes
•  Nonetheless, there might well be information that would be suggestive for scientific follow-up. 
• The art experiments described in this essay were undertaken by people who had taken the time to acquire varying levels of literacy in scientific areas of interest.
• Amateurish is an interesting term.
• It comes from the latin root amo (love).
• It originally referred to people who undertook activities because they loved them; only later did the term acquire connotations of inferior.
•  European science of the 18^th and 19^th century depended greatly on the accomplishments of amateurs.
• Contemporary science could benefit from finding a way to accommodate and utilize the activities of the art researchers.
• Paradoxically, their violation of the canon and their wackiness may be part of their contribution by asking unorthodox questions and utilizing non-standard procedures.
• In some ways this failure of Western Science to find ways to incorporate research outside the canon is part of a larger multicultural critique.
• Some sociologists and philosophers of science have noted Western science's blindness to the folk expertise available in many cultures.
• See for example Science and Other Cultures: Diversity in the Philosophy of Science and Technoloy edited by Robert Figueroa and Sandra Harding

Incidental Knowledge

• Increasing scientific knowledge is not one of the prime goals for these projects.
• Similarly, commercial viability is often not a goal for those artists who invent new technologies. 
• These accomplishments are incidental to the artistic goals. 
• Science and technological development have a long history of accidental discovery.
• Artistic research can contribute to this kind of discovery.

• Science depends of careful documentation of experiments. 
• Artists are typically quite generous in sharing insights, solutions to problems, new tools they developed, technical information, etc on an ad hoc basis but documentation of these details is typically not part of the documentation of art events. 
• Should it be?
• Might not this kind of information become an important part of exchange among artists as they move into technical and scientific investigations?
• Might it not become part of the exchange between the arts and science/technology?
• For many years the Journal Leonardo has served as an archive for this kind of information and now many artistsÕ web sites include these details. 
• The future of art as an independent zone of research may depend on development of ways of sharing and archiving this information.

What is needed to maximize artist contribution to research?

• Artists would need to continue to educate themselves about the scientific literature in fields of interest and to acquire high level skills and knowledge necessary to become active practitioners in research. 
• They would need to at least consider classic techniques scientists use for design of experiments, which allow for clarity about results. 
• Also, artists would need to consider more careful documentation of their research so it might be useful for others outside the arts.

• Scientists would need to find a way to open themselves to contributions by researchers outside their disciplines. 
• They would need to find a way to temporarily suspend the rigidity of their expectations about following protocol in order to entertain the value of unorthodox research questions, practices, findings and technologies coming from outside. 
• They would need to consider the value of a parallel art research community composed of individuals with active creativity, high levels of literacy in related fields,  and a willingness to engage actively in research even though it might be pursing questions which seem wacky, irrelevant, frivolous or in bad taste and might be conducted in ways considered strange or careless.
• Indeed a radical self doubt and appetite for alternatives is supposed to be a core value of science.   - The parallel world art research could be seen as and institutionalized way of filling this function.