KAREN INGHAM
Reasoned Uncertainties: a case study of the Science, Arts & Technology Network (SATnet UK)
Abstract
SATnet is a network and research centre for science, arts and technology transfer and innovation based in the Faculty of Art & Design at Swansea Metropolitan University, Wales, UK. The project promotes interdisciplinary collaboration between the usually distinct disciplines of fine, conceptual and applied arts, traditional and emerging technologies, and the environmental, physical, and biological sciences and engineering. Creative knowledge is transferred to the creative industry sector via collaboration with practicing artists and academics. The project philosophy is that of ‘reasoned uncertainty’.
At first glance reason and uncertainty may seem contradictory, but we believe that a reasoned and sustainable approach to experimentation and risk-taking is the best route to genuine interdisciplinary collaboration, innovation and knowledge exchange. Artists bring lateral and creative solutions to science and technology. For the artist, science offers new and provocative challenges; artists will ‘perform against function’ pushing the boundaries and revealing new ideas, techniques and technologies, thus promoting a new interface. The interaction between artist, scientist and technologist challenges existing paradigms, enabling a dialectic that leads to synthesis and innovation in both technical and non-technical sectors. Furthermore, the introduction of creative concepts into traditionally ‘non-creative’ sectors can be applied equally as well to solving sustainability issues as to productivity issues. Sustainability is one of the key aspects of this project, as demonstrated by our links to the Welsh Institute for Sustainable Environments (WISE).
Bringing artists and scientists together early on in the research and development stage means they are better placed to create more innovative and sustainable solutions to technological problems. A project that illustrates this process is Paradox and Parasite, which involves collaboration between a photographic artist and a tropical diseases researcher attempting to develop an anti-malarial pheremone trap. Fragile Mass partnered a marine biologist and lens-based artist to work together on an art video aimed at exploring the crucial role of plankton in combating global climate change, while A Measure of All Things, a collaboration between a laser technologist and a conceptual artist, explores the creative possibilities for extreme laser miniaturisation.
But are the demands of industry compatible with artistic experimentation long term, and what might the ethical issues be for an artist working with biomedical or pharmaceutical technologies? This illustrated case study questions what the future may hold for models like SATnet and whether genuine equality of collaboration will ever be possible between such divergent disciplines.
Speaker's bio
Karen Ingham was born in England but raised in the United States, Germany and Norway. She returned to England to study time-based arts in Nottingham and following graduation worked as an independent film director and scriptwriter for the British Film Institute, Channel Four and the BBC before joining the Faculty of Art, Design and Media at Swansea Metropolitan University in 1999. She gained an MPhil with the University of Wales in 2001 and a Doctorate in 2006 with research into historical and contemporary arts and science collaborations in the anatomical theatre. Ingham currently runs a number of research initiatives within SMU including the Centre for Lens-Arts and Science Interaction and The Science, Arts, Technology Network.
In addition to her academic research she continues to be active as an arts practitioner, and her current project, Re:embodiments, is a collaboration with The Hunterian Museum London and is funded by The Wellcome Trust. Her publications are available from amazon.com.