art science collaborations

The Australian Network for Art and Technology has been supporting artists working in the areas of art and science engagement since its inception in the late 1980s. A founding principle of the organisation is ‘to establish and develop the interaction between the arts, sciences and technology’. This goal is realised through creating opportunities for artists to access technology and resources through science organisations as well as supporting collaboration and interaction between artists and scientists. (more…)

Artists and scientists, in different but equally fundamental ways, seek out patterns in the natural world and sensitise others to them. Scientists, like artists, validate their work aesthetically, and both make intellectual choices that are governed by a sense of concordance with nature. Science and art together are needed for full description of the world. The belief that they are dissonant and incompatible distorts and misrepresents them both. (Frank Oppenheimer, 1972 in The Museum as Laboratory, The Exploratorium). (more…)

The multifaceted and whimsical collaborative art and science project Fish-bird created by Dr Mari Velonaki, an interactive media artist, and her three colleagues at The Australian Centre for Field Robotics, Drs David Rye, Steve Scheding and Stefan Williams – all three are roboticists- is a fine testament to the fact that art and science can engage with each other in a highly creative, poetic and democratic manner. (more…)

Inspired by the 150th publication anniversary of The Origin of Species, Darwin’s evolutionary treatise, Super Human: Revolution of the Species turns the spotlight on collaborations between artists and scientists and the impact these investigations have on what it means to be human, now and into the future. (more…)

The Synapse Art and Science Residency program is an initiative aiming to support creative partnerships between scientists and artists, science institutions and art organisations. It is a significant national and international program managed by ANAT, and is part of the Australia Council Synapse initiative. (more…)

Arts Victoria’s Arts Innovation program provides support for professional artists to undertake a project with partners in other fields to share their respective knowledge and expertise. (more…)

Growing garments is a concept which is physically being explored by some artists who are using the processes of biological life as their palette. (more…)

Collaboration between the arts and sciences has the potential to create new knowledge, ideas and processes beneficial to both fields. (more…)

For the past decade ANAT has provided opportunities for artists and scientists to work together, in order that their different approaches to creativity, exploration and research may lead us to new understandings and interpretations of the world around us. Here, in their own words, are brief excerpts from some of the participating artists about their experiences at the coalface of interdisciplinary practice. (more…)

As the child of two veterinarians in practice, one of who became a research scientist, you could say I grew up around medicine and science. (more…)

Artists and scientists approach creativity, exploration and research in different ways and from different perspectives; when working together they open up new ways of seeing, experiencing and interpreting the world around us. (more…)