(Groningen, Netherlands and Potsdam, Germany)
Often considered as entirely incompatible realms, art and science have much more in common than we might realise at first. So understands the Max Planck Institutes of Colloids and Interfaces and Molecular Plant Physiology. The organisation selected the Brazilian duo Otavio Schipper and Sergio Krakowski and the German artist Agnes Meyer-Brandis for an eight-month artistic residence program named Knowledge Link through Art and Science (KLAS). The artists have been working side by side with researchers in German and Dutch labs to develop a new artwork bridging contemporary art practices and scientific research. The resulting pieces will be presented in an exhibition next in September in Berlin, Germany.
Schipper and Krakowski’s project evokes the possible material conditions for the origins of life on Earth. Along with the material components, the artists intend to present a sonic landscape, based on the scientific research currently being developed by the mentioned scientific institutions.
Artificial intelligence, computational music theory, electronic engineering and neuroscience are some of the techniques employed in the creation of their previous works. While Schipper holds a B.A. in Physics and is known for mixing technology and art in his works, Krakowski is both a jazz musician-slash-contemporary sound artist and a Mathematics PhD.
– I believe artists can certainly contribute to the advancement of science, a field that requires both imagination and creativity as elementary tools for its development – says Schipper, in an interview published in the “Aesthetics Get Synthetic” brochure. The symposium, which took place in November last year, reunited researchers, artists and curators whose fields of interest are located in the intersect between culture and science. – Perhaps artists can help connecting people to scientific knowledge by proposing new subjective experiences and new ways to deal with concepts and materials, stimulating our sensibility and imagination towards the unknown.