Al -Sayegh, Mouhannad

Avendaño, Miguel Ceballos

Peng, Fanke

English

University of Canberra Research Repository

10/03/2020 Embracing Innovation Volume 5 – Craft ACThttps://craftact.org.au/blogs/past-exhibitions-2015/embracing-innovation-volume-5 1/4EMBRACING INNOVATION VOLUME 5Embracing Innovation Volume 524 July – 29 August 2015Stephen Barrass and Nadège Desgenétez (University of Canberra and Australian National University);Maureen Faye-Chareon (independent practice); Tim Frommel (University of Canberra- Craft ACT: Craftand Design Centre 2014 Emerging Contemporary Exhibition Award recipient, UC, Faculty of Arts andDesign); Mehrnoush Lati  and Dr Judith Glover (RMIT); Dr Scott Mayson (RMIT); Terumi Narushimatogether with Dr Stephen Beirne, Matthew Dabin, Kraig Grady, and Associate Professor Christian Ritz(University of Wollongong); Dr Fanke Peng (University of Canberra),  Mouhannad Al-Sayegh  and MiguelAngel (University of the Arts London, UK); University of Canberra Design team: Dr Eddi Pianca togetherwith Dr Stephen Trathen, Dr Carlos Montana-Hoyos and Bill Shelley with Olympic Winter Institute andAustralian Institute of Sport; Norwood Viviano (Grand Valley State University, Michigan, USA); StuartWalker (Lancaster University, UK)10/03/2020 Embracing Innovation Volume 5 – Craft ACThttps://craftact.org.au/blogs/past-exhibitions-2015/embracing-innovation-volume-5 2/4 Terumi Narushima with Dr Stephen Beirne, Matthew Dabin, Kraig Grady, and Assoc. Prof Christian Ritz 3D printed microtonal  uteEmbracing Innovation Vol 5 by Dr Susan OstlingIt seems this annual exhibition Embracing Innovation–that highlights cross-disciplinary research usingdigital technologies to innovative ends, and pioneered in Australia by Craft ACT: Craft and DesignCentre– has a precedent. The precedent I am suggesting could be Laboratorium, an exhibition-projectrealised by curators Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Barbara Vanderlinden in Antwerp in 1999. Described as aninterdisciplinary project interfacing the scienti c laboratory and the artist's studio, it had high aims–none less than to "search the limits and possibilities where knowledge and culture are made".1 Thebeginning of the new millennium, the curators thought was surely the time to  nally "transcend theanxiety of interdisciplinary practice"2. Laboratorium, then set to do this through initiating dialoguebetween disciplines starting "where the artists and the scientists experiment and work freely"–the"workplace"3. The following questions were posed: "How can we bridge the gap between thespecialized vocabulary of science, art and the general interest of the audience…?" "What is the meaningof laboratories? What is the meaning of experiments? When do the experiments become public andwhen does the result of an experiment reach public consensus? Is rendering public what happensinside the laboratory of the scientist and studio of the artist a contradiction in terms?"4The project consisted of inviting practitioners from a range of  elds to set up a place to work, makingworkplaces, workshops or laboratories within abandoned o ce spaces in Antwerp over the summer of1999. Some of these were a laboratory 'of doubt', 'a cognitive science' laboratory, 'a highway' forchoreographic investigations, and the  rst laboratory of Galileo. Some artists and scientists decided towork in the Museum of Photography making among other things a temporary and moveable structure10/03/2020 Embracing Innovation Volume 5 – Craft ACThttps://craftact.org.au/blogs/past-exhibitions-2015/embracing-innovation-volume-5 3/4for archives and experiments. Weekly colloquiums were held with performances and presentationsgiven by the participating artists and scientists. Then there were guided tours to 'hidden' laboratorieson Open Laboratory Days–where those laboratories as part of universities, harbour management, thezoo, and police stations, opened to show visitors what was made, measured or tested daily in theseplaces. Pathways led through the city to take visitors between laboratories and studios. As well, therewas the two-day "Theatre of Proof: A Series of Demonstrations"–a lecture program created by thesociologist of science Bruno Latour who brought together luminaries from science and art to takeaudiences on curious journeys of investigation. David Weston for instance with "Nature: the UltimateLaboratory", demonstrated how what isn't known, or wasn't intended is most likely to be a future threat;or, Xavier Le Roy's performance "Product of Circumstances" traced his life as a scientist working onbreast cancer research, and also learning to dance; or, Pierre Laszo's "A White Costume and a BlueSurprise" unravelled the social history of the lab coat; or Martha Rosler's "Romances of the Meal",delved into the industrial kitchen as a social site and cultural metaphor. And, as part of the mix BrunoLatour re-presented an abridged text of Louis Pasteur's April 7, 1864 Sorbonne Lecture "OnSpontaneous Generation" including in it a demonstration of some of the basic experiments Pasteurdeveloped to convey his position that spontaneous generation was merely the fault of poor laboratorypractice.Could be said then that Laboratorium was able to "search the limits and possibilities where knowledgeand culture are made"? Probably not. However Laboratorium and its substantial catalogue, suggests avigorous stirring of knowledges and no doubt contributed in part to the interest in pursuing, a decadeto follow, the art/science collaborative research turn. Interestingly Peter Galison and Caroline Jones intheir paper "Trajectories of Production Laboratories/Factories/Studios" in Latour's "Theatre of Proof"analysed the way the science laboratory and the artist's studio in the 1950 and 60s in the US, had bothcome to function somewhat like a factory. The physics laboratory grew to "factories of physics"employing hundreds of staff. And for the artist's studio, Andy Warhol's Factory became a case in point.The authors say that at this time artists and scientists jettisoned the "genius" model to become an"executive" where authorship expanded into "multiple-author functions"5. Fifty years later it is againeasy to draw parallels with the places where artists and scientists work–this time, it could be said tobe in part a dust free computer zone.This is part of a deeper trend. Henk Slager in The Pleasure of Research notes the changes that havetaken place in both art and science through a shift in "ontological anchorage"6. Slager attributes this tothe trigger set off by Marcel Duchamp's nominalist approach to art, and the "methodological pluralism"introduced by the philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend in his in uential 1970s publication, AgainstMethod. While Duchamp's call was to remove "habit encrusted assumptions" about art–cooking it up"fresh each time"7, Feyerabend asserts the value in an open-ended approach to research, where "allmethods and ways of perception are in their basic premise possible and nothing is excluded whenaiming to understand the world"8. Latour identi es how this shift in perspective for both art andscience enables connections through emerging methodologies of research9. Predetermined premisesare not the starting point. Rather questions arise from the processes of investigation.Where as Laboratorium functioned as a catalyst for seeding ideas of possible collaborative venturesbetween artists and scientists, Embracing Innovation: Volume 5 brings us the realisation of someCRAFT ACT: CRAFT AND DESIGN CENTRECraft ACT: Craft and Design Centre is supported by the ACT Government, the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy -an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments, and the Australia Council for the Arts - theAustralian Government's arts funding and advisory body. 10/03/2020 Embracing Innovation Volume 5 – Craft ACThttps://craftact.org.au/blogs/past-exhibitions-2015/embracing-innovation-volume-5 4/4recent projects, developed through self critical and self-re exive research. All projects visualise orrealise through interdisciplinary forms of inquiry, objects that have a pertinence for our time. Allobjects carry imagination and skill, there is a thoughtful use or application of materials, and ethicalconsiderations are foregrounded, as are relational considerations with users. Latour identi es "locality,particularity, multiplicity, realities and naturalities"10 as valuable outcomes of research. EmbracingInnovation exhibits works, which attest to these qualities.Dr Susan Ostling, Senior Lecturer Fine Art, Queensland College of Art, Gri th University  Level 1, North Building, 180 London Circuit, Canberra ACT 2601.The work of CraftACT is also generously supported by private sponsorshipLINKSFOLLOW US  CONTACT US+61 2 6262 9333craftact@craftact.org.auJOIN OUR MAILING LIST TO BE AMONG THE FIRST TO FIND OUT ABOUT EXHIBITIONS, EVENTS AND ARTISTOPPORTUNITIESSearchAbout usVisit usContactDonateEnter your email here Subscribe

Evolving Stitching, Embracing Innovation Volume 5

https://researchsystem.canberra.edu.au/ws/files/32717458/Embracing_Innovation_Volume_5_Craft_ACT.pdf

Evolving Stitching, Embracing Innovation Volume 5

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