Biotechne: Interthinking Art, Science and Design – serie

Scottish zoologist D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s visionary ideas in On Growth and Form continue to evolve a century after its publication, aligning it with current developments in art and science. Practitioners, theorists, and historians from art, science, and design reflect on his ongoing influence. Overall, the anthology links evolutionary theory to form generation in both scientific and cultural domains. It offers a close look at the ways cells, organisms, and rules become generative in fields often otherwise disconnected. United by Thompson’s original exploration of how physical forces propel and shape living and nonliving forms, essays range from art, art history, and neuroscience to architecture, design, and biology. Contributors explore how translations are made from the discipline of biology to the cultural arena. They reflect on how Thompson’s study relates to the current sciences of epigenesis, self-organization, biological complex systems, and the expanded evolutionary synthesis. Cross-disciplinary contributors explore the wide-ranging aesthetic ramifications of these sciences. A timeline links the history of evolutionary theory with cultural achievements, providing the reader with a valuable resource.

When artists, scientists, and designers unite they create new ways of thinking and alternative paths to problem solving.The first book to trace the story of British "organic modernism", this ground-breaking open access study tells the story of a collective culture of artists, scientists, and designers in 20th century united by a holistic understanding of the organic world and devoted to collaboration, cooperation, and cross-pollination of the arts and biological sciences.Tracing how artists, scientists, and designers cooperated in various capacities from the Great Depression to postwar cybernetics, this book follows the evolution of philosophical organicism from the British Bauhaus, modern architecture, and surrealism; through to post-war socialism, the welfare state, epigenetics, biology-based art exhibitions; robotic art and design, cybernetics and ecology in art. Reacting against blunt reductionism, organic modernists implemented organicist and emergentist philosophies in scientific labs, design studios, and art ateliers, embracing complexity to solve problems in various scales and arenas, from cells to socialism. Their actions offer a template for finding meaningful agency and problem solving in today's world fraught by global climate disaster, ever-expanding economic inequalities, and backsliding democracyA sequel to Terranova's Art as Organism: Biology and the Evolution of the Digital Image (2016), Organic Modernism reveals the biological roots of cybernetics in the British context.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History.

When artists, scientists, and designers unite they create new ways of thinking and alternative paths to problem solving.The first book to trace the story of British "organic modernism", this ground-breaking open access study tells the story of a collective culture of artists, scientists, and designers in 20th century united by a holistic understanding of the organic world and devoted to collaboration, cooperation, and cross-pollination of the arts and biological sciences.Tracing how artists, scientists, and designers cooperated in various capacities from the Great Depression to postwar cybernetics, this book follows the evolution of philosophical organicism from the British Bauhaus, modern architecture, and surrealism; through to post-war socialism, the welfare state, epigenetics, biology-based art exhibitions; robotic art and design, cybernetics and ecology in art. Reacting against blunt reductionism, organic modernists implemented organicist and emergentist philosophies in scientific labs, design studios, and art ateliers, embracing complexity to solve problems in various scales and arenas, from cells to socialism. Their actions offer a template for finding meaningful agency and problem solving in today's world fraught by global climate disaster, ever-expanding economic inequalities, and backsliding democracyA sequel to Terranova's Art as Organism: Biology and the Evolution of the Digital Image (2016), Organic Modernism reveals the biological roots of cybernetics in the British context.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History.

How did scientists, artists, designers, manufacturers and amateur enthusiasts experience and value the sea and its products? Taking a fresh approach to oceanic history, this book brings together material culture, oceanography, and environmental history to uncover marine object and display histories and the role they played in nineteenth-century culture.Scientific exploration, colonial expansion, industrialization, and the rise of middle-class tourism transformed the way the ocean was seen and experienced. Its mystery, made tangible through processing and representational technologies, captivated practitioners and audiences. Combining essays and case studies by scholars, curators, and scientists, this book investigates the collecting and display, illustration and ornamentation, and trade and consumption of marine flora and fauna, analysing their material, aesthetic and commercial dimensions. Traversing global art history, the history of science, empire studies, anthropology, ecocriticism and material culture, it surveys the currency of marine matter in the economies and ecologies of a modernizing ocean world.By highlighting the relevance and role the ocean world played in modern science and industry, art and culture, this book demonstrates the vital interconnectivity of art and science and the importance of ocean-oriented perspectives in the understanding of modern history.

This open access book takes a queer, feminist, and decolonial technoscience approach to the ecologies that emerge from our entanglements with nonhumans (air, rocks, algae, trees, soil and plants) and computational hard/software. In Plants by Numbers, artists and theorists working with computation address the urgent need to think beyond the human paradigm, opening up new fields of debate that question the troubled relationship between ecosystems and human technology.Organised around three key themes--techno-nature entanglements, plants as resistant agents, and becoming-with-plants--the volume provides a vital pathway through complex theoretical ideas that inform the practices of artists working in the fields of computation and ecology.Fusing art theoretical and art practice approaches, the contributors describe how we might design, make and imagine computational processes differently, or otherwise, through the co-production of artworks with plants. Showing how these artworks might act as communicative media between the biological and technological, Plants by Numbers opens up new potential areas of research whilst producing new ethical-political engagements.The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the University of Michigan.

This open access book takes a queer, feminist, and decolonial technoscience approach to the ecologies that emerge from our entanglements with nonhumans (air, rocks, algae, trees, soil and plants) and computational hard/software. In Plants by Numbers, artists and theorists working with computation address the urgent need to think beyond the human paradigm, opening up new fields of debate that question the troubled relationship between ecosystems and human technology.Organised around three key themes--techno-nature entanglements, plants as resistant agents, and becoming-with-plants--the volume provides a vital pathway through complex theoretical ideas that inform the practices of artists working in the fields of computation and ecology.Fusing art theoretical and art practice approaches, the contributors describe how we might design, make and imagine computational processes differently, or otherwise, through the co-production of artworks with plants. Showing how these artworks might act as communicative media between the biological and technological, Plants by Numbers opens up new potential areas of research whilst producing new ethical-political engagements.The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the University of Michigan.

This book examines the history and future of space as a site of social justice and gender equality. Rather than simply a platform for imagining the future, it cultivates alternative modes of inquiry around space as a possible speculative platform for social and cultural enquiry. Bringing together essayistic reflections, artworks, and interviews with space scientists, engineers, and astronauts past and present, Space Feminisms inspects the transformation of terrestrially held notions of gender, race, class, and ableism as they migrate to the extraterrestrial, whilst drawing new connections between feminist thought and extraterrestrial power structures.Space Feminisms makes a radical enquiry into how earthly power structures are already expanding into our skies, facilitating a collaborative and interdisciplinary platform for scholars, artists, and designers to imagine radical constructions of human futures beyond Earth. At the intersection of scientific, cultural, social, and artistic speculations, the book unites leading scholars, scientists, artists, and designers to develop innovative tactics and disruptive participations to create generative, alternative, and radical futures of and in space.

This book examines the history and future of space as a site of social justice and gender equality. Rather than simply a platform for imagining the future, it cultivates alternative modes of inquiry around space as a possible speculative platform for social and cultural enquiry. Bringing together essayistic reflections, artworks, and interviews with space scientists, engineers, and astronauts past and present, Space Feminisms inspects the transformation of terrestrially held notions of gender, race, class, and ableism as they migrate to the extraterrestrial, whilst drawing new connections between feminist thought and extraterrestrial power structures.Space Feminisms makes a radical enquiry into how earthly power structures are already expanding into our skies, facilitating a collaborative and interdisciplinary platform for scholars, artists, and designers to imagine radical constructions of human futures beyond Earth. At the intersection of scientific, cultural, social, and artistic speculations, the book unites leading scholars, scientists, artists, and designers to develop innovative tactics and disruptive participations to create generative, alternative, and radical futures of and in space.

This interdisciplinary anthology examines the relationship between developments in biotechnology and both artistic and literary innovation, focussing in particular on how newfound molecular technologies and knowledge regimes, such as CRISPR gene editing, alter conceptions of what it means to be human.The book presents 21 essays, split across four parts, from a coterie of artists, theorists, historians and scientists which examine the symbiotic relationship between humans, animals, and viruses as well as the impossibility of germ-free existence.The essays in this volume are urgent in their topicality, embodying the exhilarating yet alarming zeitgeist of contemporary nonhuman-to-human viral transmission and gene editing technologies. Ultimately, Art and Biotechnology reveals how art and biotechnology influence each other and how art has shaped the discussion around gene editing and the socio-cultural aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is essential reading for students and researchers focussing on science and art, environmental humanities, and ethics.

This interdisciplinary anthology examines the relationship between developments in biotechnology and both artistic and literary innovation, focussing in particular on how newfound molecular technologies and knowledge regimes, such as CRISPR gene editing, alter conceptions of what it means to be human.The book presents 21 essays, split across four parts, from a coterie of artists, theorists, historians and scientists which examine the symbiotic relationship between humans, animals, and viruses as well as the impossibility of germ-free existence.The essays in this volume are urgent in their topicality, embodying the exhilarating yet alarming zeitgeist of contemporary nonhuman-to-human viral transmission and gene editing technologies. Ultimately, Art and Biotechnology reveals how art and biotechnology influence each other and how art has shaped the discussion around gene editing and the socio-cultural aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is essential reading for students and researchers focussing on science and art, environmental humanities, and ethics.

In a new era of global virology that requires novel methodologies to improve the comprehension of viruses and viral phenomena, Viral Behaviors explores the cultural, material, and artistic significance of viral agents.Across a rich variety of case studies stemming from different areas of interest—covering literature, the graphic arts and scientific visualization, as well as performance, installation and bioart—this book asks whether embracing the complexity of viruses, rather than obsessively measuring, dissecting, or precisely mapping their parts and manifestations, may provide new methodological directions in the intersection of scientific thinking and artistic practice. The book examines the struggles and successes of science and technology to tame the elusive nature and behavior of viruses, and the potential of art-based and cross-disciplinary collaborations to better communicate their complex making and intense entanglement with the world at large. Combining perspectives from art, philosophy, science and technology, it places biological and informational viruses alongside each other, revealing that, while the two types of agents affect the world in very different ways, their histories and manifestations contain surprising similarities that speak to a cultural continuum. Viral Behaviors unravels the extraordinary mobility of viruses across disciplines, and their intersection with all aspects of culture, rather than their import within one specific disciplinary realm. It shows how the numerous attempts by artists, scientists and professionals to tackle, represent and appropriate viruses, and their intricate dynamism, can lead to new nuanced and sophisticated understandings of these substances and their related phenomena, and reveals the contribution of non-measurable or non-traditional practices in their construction and dissemination.

In a new era of global virology that requires novel methodologies to improve the comprehension of viruses and viral phenomena, Viral Behaviors explores the cultural, material, and artistic significance of viral agents.Across a rich variety of case studies stemming from different areas of interest—covering literature, the graphic arts and scientific visualization, as well as performance, installation and bioart—this book asks whether embracing the complexity of viruses, rather than obsessively measuring, dissecting, or precisely mapping their parts and manifestations, may provide new methodological directions in the intersection of scientific thinking and artistic practice. The book examines the struggles and successes of science and technology to tame the elusive nature and behavior of viruses, and the potential of art-based and cross-disciplinary collaborations to better communicate their complex making and intense entanglement with the world at large. Combining perspectives from art, philosophy, science and technology, it places biological and informational viruses alongside each other, revealing that, while the two types of agents affect the world in very different ways, their histories and manifestations contain surprising similarities that speak to a cultural continuum. Viral Behaviors unravels the extraordinary mobility of viruses across disciplines, and their intersection with all aspects of culture, rather than their import within one specific disciplinary realm. It shows how the numerous attempts by artists, scientists and professionals to tackle, represent and appropriate viruses, and their intricate dynamism, can lead to new nuanced and sophisticated understandings of these substances and their related phenomena, and reveals the contribution of non-measurable or non-traditional practices in their construction and dissemination.

What role do the visual arts play in the emerging commercial spaceflight industry, and vice versa? This book considers the relationship between art practice and space science, presenting new methodologies for art-sci collaboration informed by non-terrestrial contexts. Regarded widely as an irreverent luxury accessible to only a select few, commercial space exploration seems an unlikely setting for contemporary art practice. However, faced with the inevitability of this developing industry and the new environments it presents, a new field of creative practice is emerging. In Art in Orbit design theorist Barbara Brownie argues that these new environments offer novel opportunities that are yet to be fully recognized by the creative industries.Throughout the book, Brownie explores the contexts, questions, challenges and opportunities for creative exploration of form, materials, and the body, in space. Drawing on original research in the STEAM subjects, the book highlights how artists, engineers, and theorists have begun working in close collaboration to reconsider practices that have been taken for granted throughout the history of art practice, demonstrating how ideas about orientation, weight, balance, and the familiar behaviours of art and craft materials are all radically altered in the microgravity of orbital space.The research presented is supplemented by 9 original case studies from sculpture, craft, performance, and land art, together with exclusive interviews with artists who have produced work for space. Taking an original, critical approach to the spaceflight sector, Art in Orbit sets out to define a new field of artistic practice and the real-world impact of art-sci collaboration. It provides a template for developing new narrative strategies for space projects which will engage artists, scientists, and collaborative teams from across disciplines.

What role do the visual arts play in the emerging commercial spaceflight industry, and vice versa? This book considers the relationship between art practice and space science, presenting new methodologies for art-sci collaboration informed by non-terrestrial contexts. Regarded widely as an irreverent luxury accessible to only a select few, commercial space exploration seems an unlikely setting for contemporary art practice. However, faced with the inevitability of this developing industry and the new environments it presents, a new field of creative practice is emerging. In Art in Orbit design theorist Barbara Brownie argues that these new environments offer novel opportunities that are yet to be fully recognized by the creative industries.Throughout the book, Brownie explores the contexts, questions, challenges and opportunities for creative exploration of form, materials, and the body, in space. Drawing on original research in the STEAM subjects, the book highlights how artists, engineers, and theorists have begun working in close collaboration to reconsider practices that have been taken for granted throughout the history of art practice, demonstrating how ideas about orientation, weight, balance, and the familiar behaviours of art and craft materials are all radically altered in the microgravity of orbital space.The research presented is supplemented by 9 original case studies from sculpture, craft, performance, and land art, together with exclusive interviews with artists who have produced work for space. Taking an original, critical approach to the spaceflight sector, Art in Orbit sets out to define a new field of artistic practice and the real-world impact of art-sci collaboration. It provides a template for developing new narrative strategies for space projects which will engage artists, scientists, and collaborative teams from across disciplines.