"The Art of Discovery" discusses an ambitious educational program taught by the artist which incorporated locative media, contemporary art, site specificity, and creative work as a proposal for the integration of art, technology and science

Susie J. Lee

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SISSA – International School for Advanced Studies   Journal of Science Communication ISSN 1824 – 2049   http://jcom.sissa.it/  JCOM 8(2), June 2009  Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0  Comment SCIENCE CENTRES AROUND THE WORLD SEE UNREST FOR ART AND SCIENCE IN SOCIETY  The art of discovery  Susie J. Lee  ABSTRACT: "The Art of Discovery" discusses an ambitious educational program taught by the artist which  incorporated  locative  media,  contemporary  art,  site  specificity,  and  creative  work  as  a proposal for the integration of art, technology and science. The students from the museum stood at the corner of the street, GPS in one hand and nebulous clue in the other.  One of the students staring at the screen finally yelled, “Down the hill and to the right!” We navigated through the city, students periodically calling out directions based on the GPS.  There were times of reversals and backtracking, but always movement with analysis of our  position,  until  the  GPS  stated  that  we  had  arrived  at  our  destination.  At  the  site  were directions for a project that an artist had conceived for the teens to experience at that very moment in that very specific location. Each student found a balloon with the words “The soul of the city is the space between the buildings,” printed on it. I have been asked to write about the role of art in science and the role of science in art, perhaps because I am often assumed to be a translator between these two worlds.  For ten years I studied science and medicine, and for the most recent ten, I have worked as an artist. With little overlap in training, it is often perceived as a challenging conversion from one sphere of learning to another.  Certainly, it can appear that artists and scientists stand on different planes, simultaneously indifferent and curious of the other’s sphere of inquiry and pursuits. Nevertheless, I thought it entirely natural to retain both identities as a working  artist, and now I find myself in quite good company of other artists who wear multiple hats, as they  pursue  roles  as  makers,  writers,  testers,  curators,  and  theorists.    As  contemporary  art  evolves through its specializations and fields, its practitioners have sought to break down these divisions to varying levels of hybridizations in their work.   They were to release the balloons, follow them, trace their paths, and explore the city through the movements of the balloons.  This was one of seven projects developed over the summer, in a studio art class which combined GPS, GoogleMaps and other mapping tools with the activity of geocaching.  “So what exactly is ‘geocaching?’” I had initially asked the educational director.  “It’s  this  popular  high  tech  treasure  hunt  adventure  game,”  she  explained.  “People  create caches in remote locations and upload clues and navigational coordinates onto this website, where you can then go on these treks to find the locations which will contain a cache of trinkets.  You can take a token and also leave something behind.” Inherently geocaching was a mishmash of  old  and  new,  and  in  further  discussions  we  recognized  there  were  great  opportunities  to naturally expand this activity to incorporate the arts, particular site-specificity and locative arts. Digital and new media art seem poised naturally to be areas which can relate to science as there is a common language of technology.  However, technology is not the same as science. Applications of science  are  realized  through  technology  and  invention,  which  can,  in  turn,  facilitate  more  complex developments of science; science and applied science form a feedback loop in which technology lays a foundation for further advancements in scientific understanding.  In artists’ hands, however, technology becomes a medium of sociocultural relevance and communication.  Sometimes the technology is used as intended; other times it is subverted.  Regardless of its function, what both science and digital art must recognize is that technology is ultimately a vehicle, a constantly aging, soon to be obsolete, vehicle.  For S.J. Lee  2  its relevant moment, technology, used intelligently and thoughtfully, has the potential to move us closer to better understandings in science and art. We invited seven artists to conceive projects for this class, “Geocaching and Art in the Public Realm.”  These  artist  caches  ranged  from  the  balloon  guidance  through  the  city  to  musical compositions  based  on  car  colors.    Students  recorded  sounds,  documented  video,  took photographs,  and  created  maps  and  journals  of  their  experiences.  And  of  course,  the  GPS tracked their meandering paths through the city, recording time, location, and space.  At a subconscious  level,  the  students  began  to  understand  why  the  technology  of  GPS  was  so attractive  to  artists  who  saw  the  potential  in  this  instrument  to  investigate  perspective  and documentation at a human and transportable scale.   Can art be truly integrated and understood within scientific paradigms?  Where might these two worlds potentially intersect and how can that dialogue be facilitated?  Simply stated, science is reductive, while art is expansive.  What is meant by this is that in its inquiry and pursuit, science seeks singular answers while art attempts to create open connections. Through empirical investigation, science seeks concrete answer  to  questions  and  validation  in  reproduced  and  consistent  experimentation.  Art  aims  for  the distinctiveness of “One.”  Subject to dynamic interpretation, the meaning transforms over time as a reflection of society’s perspectives.  A shared and common level of inquiry is necessary for one world to engage the other.  An object placed in a science center may provoke questions of “How” and “What does this do?” but the same object placed in a museum may lead to questions of “Why?” and “What does this mean?”  Connections and further edification can encourage a dialogue between these two perspectives.   The projects offered both familiar and challenging moments for all the students, as the teens came from entirely different backgrounds.  Some had never taken an art class before but were expert geocachers and handled the GPS with ease.  Others had taken only traditional drawing and painting classes but had little exposure to contemporary art.  And then there were a few who didn’t even have a cell phone but were simply open to anything.  Inherently participatory, and sometimes performative, every project engaged the teens with their surroundings and required them to use their observational and critical skills to document what transpired at that place and time. The students enthusiastically embraced each project’s intentions, as the expanded what they knew and what they could learn, Finding the cache and tracking its path was one part of the adventure, while recognizing what the words “the space between the building is the soul of the city” as one followed the balloon was completely another. A model that incorporates elements that both art and science centers can latch onto is paramount for a successful  integration  of  these  two  disciplines.    In  the  geocaching  class,  students  created  their  own methodologies  to  analyze  clues  and  interpret  GPS  data.    There  were  explorations  and  inquiries, hypotheses and tests.  Upon arrival, the caches introduced fairly sophisticated social concepts such as psychogeography,  history  and  fiction,  globalism,  and  locality.  Creative  works  were  developed  in response to their experiences. As well, in this experiential and site specific environment, there were unexpected and poetic moments to pause within before the next part of the adventure was revealed.  This flow from science to art, the pursuit of one type of inquiry to the other, is entirely possible, as well as fulfilling, as I have observed not only in teaching, but also in my own practice.  The creation of work is  a  balance  of  science  and  art.    Attempts  to  control  variables,  methodical  deductions  and  logical organizational steps are found in my material explorations. There are constantly evolving iterations of ideas, tests, and observations.  I step back and watch what emerges, and I say, “This isn’t working. Why isn’t it working?” So the process begins again.  Sometimes, one small thing will fall into place, and when that happens, I don’t ask why it is right.  When it works, I stop asking why just for a moment before moving onto the next step.  The blue balloon sat for a long time underneath a car, then suddenly took off in a gale of wind, skipping across the road, dancing in front of a bus, then picked up by an elderly woman.  She stepped onto the bus and let it go, and it was picked up by a young boy. The student followed the boy and his family until they went inside to eat, and the blue balloon hovered outside the building until catching another gust of wind and heading upwards.  For a moment, spontaneity, mapping, technology, art, deduction, analysis and discovery converged, and it was almost palpable, the feeling of “What’s next?”  3  The art of discovery     In both science and art, the anticipation, standing on the precipice of “what’s next,” is completely shared, understood, and appreciated.  It could be a lovely first introduction of one to the other. Author Susie J. Lee is a new media artist in Seattle Washington. Her work merges digital technologies with physical materials, codifying phenomena into systems of experiential art. Metaphorical touchstones on the interstitial moments of human connections are evoked through the time-based activation of light, sound and water’s phenomenological properties. She was born in Hershey, Pennsylvania and grew up in Grand Forks, North Dakota. She was awarded a Bachelors of Science in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and a Masters in Education at Columbia University. She received her MFA at the University of Washington. Susie is represented by Lawrimore Project in Seattle and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro in Italy. E-mail: susielee11@gmail.com. *The class “Geocaching and Art in the Public Realm” was taught by Susie J Lee in the summer of 2008 at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle WA.  This project was curated as an exhibition of student work  by Yoko Ott as “Happiness Mapped on Their Faces, Curiosity the Twinkling Eye’s Course” at the Frye Art Museum.         HOW TO CITE:   S.J. Lee, The art of discovery, Jcom 08(02) (2009) C06  

The art of discovery

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