Andreas Broeckmann. The Difficult Dialogue Between “Art” and “Science”

Abstract

In my presentation, I want to speak about some of the formal, institutional and conceptual dimensions that condition the encounter between artists and scientists. While the current debate about “art-based research” has mainly evolved over the past decade, discussions about the notion of “artistic research” began in the 1990s. The discourse about “art and science”, in contrast, goes back to the 1960s. These different historical layers and trajectories also imply a rather large number of differing approaches and experiences in a host of artistic, academic and informal contexts. When considering the encounter of “art” and “science”, one of the seminal conceptual problems is that both words (art, science) refer to hugely differentiated and inhomogeneous fields of discourse and practice. While it is at times strategically useful to speak in summary and blanket terms, I believe that it is important to be aware of the practical and programmatic specificities of historical and current activities in this realm, with its hugely divergent temporal and economic structures, and systems of monetary and symbolical gratification. Successful “art/science” initiatives have often resulted from the passionate work of individuals, and from particular institutional constellations, and were as transient as these constellations.

Andreas Broeckmann, PhD (DE) is an art historian and curator who works at the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg and is the Director of the Leuphana Arts Program. He was the Founding Director of the Dortmunder U – Centre for Art and Creativity (2009-2011) and Artistic Director of ISEA2010 RUHR, the 16th International Symposium on Electronic Art in the context of the European Cultural Capital, Ruhr.2010. From 2000 to 2007 he was the Artistic Director of transmediale – festival for art and digital culture berlin, and from 2005 to 2007, an artistic director of TESLA – Laboratory for Arts and Media in Berlin. From 1995 to 2000, he worked as a project manager at V2_Organisation Rotterdam, Institute for the Unstable Media. Independently curated exhibitions include projects at Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, FACT Liverpool, Hartware Dortmund, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Media Art Biennale Seoul, Skuc Gallery in Ljubljana, at TENT/Witte de With in Rotterdam, and with Kontejner / MaMa in Zagreb. Broeckmann studied art history, sociology, and media studies in Germany and Britain. He holds a PhD in Art History from the University of East Anglia, Norwich/UK, where he researched the use of portrait photography in the 19th-century human sciences. He is a co-founder of Les Jardins des Pilotes and of the Berlin-based media association mikro, and he co-maintains the Spectre mailing list. He is the editor of “Place Studies in Art, Media, Science and Technology. Historical Investigations on the Sites and the Migration of Knowledge” (with Gunalan Nadarajan, Weimar 2009), and of “30 Years After Les Immatériaux” (with Yuk Hui, Lüneburg 2015). The publication of his monograph about 20th-century machine art is forthcoming (2016).