In a time of rediscovery of art and cultures of antiquity, artists started out to employ scientific principles and philosophy in order to experiment with daily processes of perception. Artists no longer see their roles in the depiction of religious motives, but want to contribute to the exploration of nature or even outplay it with their work. Based in this new self-understanding of art and a process of societal change, a curious scene can be observed: in 1412, the well-known Florentine craftsman Filippo Brunelleschi stands in front of the Florentine Dome looking at the Baptistery through a strange wooden construction, inviting passersby to look through and to see a perspectively correct representation of the Baptistery. In this way, Brunelleschi demonstrates his newly developed method of central perspective to his fellow citizens. He developed this method from his architectural and sketching point of view by investigating geometry and ways of seeing with the goal to create the illusion of depth in paintings. This is the environment where crossing borders between disciplines to create advancement in different fields is rediscoveredāand the fruitful environment where the often-cited genius of Leonardo da Vinci is born and where he goes through an apprenticeship as painter, in a world where artists start to cross borders and do not want to be part of this reductionist guild of artisans of high professions. Openness and observation of the world are important for these artists to create their progressive artworks, which drives them to employ methods from natural sciences like mathematics and investigations into the body as basic fundamentals of their artistic production. This led not only to artistic development but also to scientific investigations, or to visionary ideas about flying machines, such as those demonstrated by Leonardo da Vinci.
A yearning for this time seems to be prevalent in our current culture, where the call for ānew Leonardosā as figurehead of this fruitful melting pot of art and science is getting louder, as creativity and innovation are major buzzwords that drive economic and social development. Thus, lately, art and science are often named in one sentence: not only as opposite approaches to reality but also as fertile ground for innovation, new perspectives on important questions, deeper understanding of current developments, and exploration of recent technologies to be created. There is an unsatisfied need for this elusive āsomething new,ā which is interesting, helps to make the world a better place, helps to redefine societal structures, lowers production costs, or helps to create a more sustainable life. To create this, no new Leonardos as genius individuals are needed; however, opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange that allow for open-ended processes to investigate nature and new technological as well as scientific possibilities are needed. And an exchange that includes artists with their insatiable thirst for investigation, contextualization, and future visions seems to be a productive way to do so. This weird outcome may be ambiguous, like the weird wooden construction by Brunelleschi, but taking it further in scientific, technological, and artistic context can elevate such an outcome to an important innovation that can be understood retrospectively.
Moreover, the artistic or scientific outcome is not always groundbreaking, but the interaction between artists and scientists can be the critical endeavor to change work processes or set the stone for groundbreaking methods. Thus, it is the process of this interdisciplinary investigation that comprises the most interesting aspect, of which the outcome often cannot be foreseen. Individuals who have insights into different areas are often understood as those artists and scientists who are able to create paradigm-shifting ideas: they are either artists or scientists who want to go deep in their field and are able to draw from their extensive experiences in other fields; they understand connections or analogies (Edwards 2008; Root-Bernstein et al. 2017; Kemp 2016).
But it is not only diverse interests that help individuals to create such insights: as art and science are both fields of deep knowledge and imply long learning processes of methodologies and processes, engagement in collaboration can broaden the scope and connect subtle understandings of well-educated individuals from each field. Therefore, it is important to investigate the interdisciplinary process of artscience collaboration to realize the multifaceted implications for the collaboratorsā knowledge and skills. At the same time, this process can have impressive by-products or lead to enlightening outcomes. This process is thus important, as there is no definite answer as to what the artistic or aesthetic experience does to the recipients, but there are many processes that can take place and are important to consider for evaluating the impact of the encounters with art and artists (Belfiore and Bennett 2007).
The fragmented understanding of the effects of the engagement with art is based on cognitive, psychological, and sociocultural dynamics. Bringing together a few of them to create a more comprehensive understanding of the artscience collaboration process is the major contribution of this book. First things first though: for starters, a little bit of clarification of terminologies is needed, and, moreover, these recent years are not the first time that these artscience attempts have been made since the Renaissance and on which current collaborations build. Thus, a brief overview of the major developments of the twentieth century will be given in the remainder of this chapter.
1.1 First Things First
Artists and scientists are creative in their work; they produce knowledge and create exciting artworks. They have different workflows, are concerned with different practical issues in their work, and approach bigger problems from their own perspective. However, artists and scientists are often concerned with similar topics: some focus on environmental issuesāsuch as climate changeāor societal issues, while others are interested in technologies; secrets of the universe are as fascinating to artists as they are to scientists. Although there is this call for new Leonardos and people who are able to engage across the fields, as we saw in the case of Filippo Brunelleschi, often it is important to take a step outside the own professional field and look into other fields to create something new that is relevant for art, science, and society. In our society, where art and the scientific disciplines create deep knowledge that often relies on previous training in different disciplines or mastering very specific technologies, if an artist or a scientist wants to draw from other disciplines and go beyond superficial knowledge or rough application of methods, the most interesting way to learn and implement new skills is to collaborate.
This is where artscience collaboration starts: basically, it refers to a process where artists and scientists work together on a project or relevant research question. These projects can aim to produce a joint outcome, like an interesting artwork, or to work with a scientific idea. Further reasons why artists or scientists or even their employers are interested in doing so can be manifold: artists have their artistic goals and scientists their scientific goals; organizations even have additional goals like human resource development, project development, or cultural change. Nevertheless, the basic idea is that the artist and the scientist collaborate and bring together their ideas and skills; thereby, they are tackling bigger problems or research questions they are interested in. The duration can be quite variable: some are short-term projects of a few weeks, other are projects that go on over half a year or up to several years. Such long-term collaborations allow the partners to develop project ideas and realize them. Sometimes, based on the experience of specific projects, artists and scientists develop an ongoing working relationship.
The intensity of the collaboration can differ. For example, some corporate and scientific institutions invite artists to stay at their facilities for a certain amount of time to produce an artwork or to get inspired by the scientific work being done there. This does not necessarily imply that one artist and one scientist or a scientific group will work together intensely on a specific project, but it can mean that the artist invites scientists to discuss and contribute to certain phases of their work. All different types of intensities of collaboration can add value to the work of artists, scientists, and organizations, but they can lead to different kinds of outcomes.1 Intense collaborations are more likely to bring new insights or personal development processes to all participants, whereas less intense processes, for example, can affect motivation and networking opportunities or lead to smaller learning processes. How the interaction affects artists, scientists, and organizations is much dependent on the situation, personalities, and organizational cultures involved. Nevertheless, knowledge about the aspects of the collaboration process can help to frame the interaction in a more detailed way toward the needs of artists, scientists, and organizations.
Artist-in-residence programs are a more formalized opportunity to realize artscience collaboration within organizational structures. These programs provide artists with the opportunity to work at a scientific organization or to stay at an organization where they can work and collaborate with scientists. The formal structure of the āartist-in-residenceā program says nothing about the intensity of the artscience collaboration or about the length of the interaction. Nevertheless, residencies are often longer than two months. Most programs that allow for shorter stays call these āvisitsā instead of residencies. To qualify as a program, these formats offer regular opportunities for artists. These residencies imply that the artists stay at the scientific organization over a certain amount of time for collaboration. Some programs have a clear focus on the collaboration process or artistic intervention in the scientific process; others offer these residencies to create new art pieces that are based on these new experiences and collaboration processes. Some programs include the opportunity for commissioned artworks based on the experience during the residency.
In contrast to the growing number of artist-in-residence programs offered at scientific organizations or by cultural organizations in collaboration with scientific organizations, there are rarely scientist-in-residence opportunities. There are several reasons for this. For scientists of many STEM2 disciplines it is difficult to work for a few months in an artistic environment without access to scientific facilities. Moreover, within a scientific career path, it is often difficult to spend a sabbatical outside for personal development and learning processes that do not immediately contribute to scientific outcome which can be published and is important for future funding and positions.
Another term that is more and more often used is āarts-based initiatives,ā sometimes also called āartistic interventions.ā These terms more generally point to initiatives that bring art into organizational contexts, mainly to reach an organizational aim. The term arts-based initiative is perceived as more neutral than artistic intervention. Artistic interv...