In this month's "In Depth" we examine whether science can be creative and we analyse the reasons why the ICM should be interested in art.
The search for common metaphors to understand the world around us comes from far away and is especially useful in the current context of global change, which is forcing us to rethink ourselves as individuals and as a collective on a planet where nature and society are closely related. All this requires an overlapping between the different fields of knowledge, including science, humanities, art or traditional knowledge, the dialogue between which blurs the boundaries between different disciplines and drives new creative research practices.
In fact, the last third of the 20th century witnessed a great paradigm shift in contemporary art: the hegemony of the fine arts entered into crisis and a period began in which research and experimentation in methodologies and procedures were placed at the centre of artistic projects and at the service of the message that the artist wanted to convey. The plastic support was no longer essential and new languages appeared, such as action art, conceptual art or sound and visual arts. From then on, art stopped being based on inspiration and its purpose was no longer only to make people enjoy or get excited, but became an intellectual act with a transforming social function and based on research, experimentation and rigorous work.
At the same time, the rise of the environmental movement and the space age, among others, led to the emergence of dissemination and communication of science, partly as a strategy to initiate mechanisms such as environmental protection or to communicate public health issues, but also to achieve a more informed citizenry able to participate in the construction of the future of society. At the beginning, classic formats such as documentaries, talks or informative articles were used, but little by little new formats were introduced, such as literature, street art or the performing, sound and visual arts. On the other hand, years ago science ceased to be limited to discovering findings and sharing them among colleagues and nowadays knowledge is also shared, in a rigorous and understandable way, with a society that is increasingly participatory.
All this shows that rigor and creativity are shared values between science and art. Who can deny, for example, the visual and conceptual aesthetics of Fina Miralles' laboratory notebooks and the inspiring capacity of recent scientific theories such as Gaia, by James Lovelock, or symbiogenesis, by Lynn Margulis? Questions, conflicts, ideas, curiosity, rigor, creativity and research are the engines that drive both contemporary art and science and, therefore, are key to the construction of knowledge, thought and its power of social transformation.
The Art&Sci concept
The Art&Sci concept was born in the current context of global change, and implies that those linked to art, science, technology and the humanities generate enriching alliances to carry out interdisciplinary projects. For example, there are scientists who have found through art a way to represent their data and link it to an environmental, political or social message, while there are artists who have found in science their engine of inspiration, the starting material and the theoretical support for their work.
Art&Sci is a new reality in the local and international cultural scene and cultural centers such as the CCCB or Arts Santa Mònica, or festivals such as Sónar, Eufònic, Llum Barcelona or Ars Electronica have become showcases for these new interactions. However, at the ICM there have also been successful initiatives linked to this current, such as the collaboration with the artist Anna Rierola, author of the Ancestral Forest, or the participation of the ICM in the City and Science Biennial of Barcelona and in the literary meeting Kosmopolis, organized annually by the CCCB.
These actions give meaning to the will of the Institute, which under the slogan "Research of excellence with social commitment" seeks to promote ocean literacy so that society understands and appreciates the role of the ocean in the planet. In this sense, and with the support and encouragement of the centre’s direction and the Deputy Directorate of Marine Scientific Culture, the ICM's Science and Art program was born, which aims to explore other creative, cross-cutting, horizontal and interdisciplinary paths that generate new channels of conversation with the public.
The ICM’s "Science and Art" program
This initiative aims to deepen the creation of spaces for reflection that impact on the center's ambition to carry out research of excellence with social commitment, distinguishes it as a creative and open research centre and positions it on the map of the cultural tissue of Barcelona with a specific horizon of deployment: the birth of the space for the transfer, participation and dissemination of marine knowledge Barcelona Mar de Ciència.
The program is articulated around three main axes: collaborations with agents in the artistic and cultural field, artistic residencies and the establishment of a research group that will explore the processes and methodologies of Art&Sci. These lines seek to place the science that is done in the centre outside the scope of the laboratory, facilitating access to different audiences and using the multiplying power of art to make the messages and values of the Institute more visible. In addition, this allows the artists to give a rigorous context to their message, while the scientific institution benefits from the artists' ability to think from other perspectives and nurture scientific reflection.
Finally, the program seeks that the interaction, not only with art, but also with other disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology or social sciences allows us to deepen in the divergences, contradictions, paradoxes and convergences between the different disciplines that generate knowledge and contemporary thought, with the final will to imagine and build collectively a possible healthier future for our planet.