Art and Science

Vision Forum has from the outset worked with researchers in the hard sciences to investigate how meetings between specialists in the two fields can inspire creativity on both sides. During one of the (In)visible Dialogue sessions organised by Vision Forum in 2011, Sandra Masur (Mount Sinai, New York) and Laurent Devèze (ISBA, Besançon) underlined how the scientific laboratory has gradually grown more into a communal working place for research and development over the last decade. The practice has shifted to larger research teams where the responsibilities are divided and tasks differentiated, but still retaining a common goal. On the other hand, the artist has retained his/her singular brand name and a more insular process. We have seen movements where artists form groups (Superflex, General Idea), but also artists like Olafur Eliasson and Tomàs Saraceno develop studios that emulate the working methods of architectural firms. But we our preparatory research suggests that by implicating methodologies from the sciences that this can develop further.

Vision Forum sees great potential developing parallel strategies to institutions like the Santa Fe Institute that look at large populations in major cities or the interactions in schools of fish. Here the extended specialization and at the same time demand for amassing and evaluating gigantic amounts of data has forced researchers to collaborate with researchers in the humanities and design. Vision Forum has developed both a practice and the theoretical and digital tools to create situations for true artistic research and production based on the above mentioned working methods.

Performance practice

Vision looks at performance in a very open way and also investigates the porousness between exhibition and performance through projects like Ö- A Möbius Trip. Or by initiating meetings where boundaries between creator and audience is blurred. This is the case in OuUnPo sessions. Vision Forum is also looking for performative aspects in situations like lectures and sometimes creates workshop-like situations where new forms of meeting between researcher and audience is created.

This research has been developed in close collaboration with artists, curators and researchers from different fields and with different geographic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, Together we search for alternative ways of documenting and presenting art and academic research. For more examples about these cross-over look at the information about meetings/seminars and exhibitions/performances.

Research in Contemporary Visual Art

The increased complexity and specialization in academic, scientific and artistic fields (along with the tightened demand on results) means that the dialogues between the disciplines have become increasingly important.

Art, philosophy, science and technology are tools that can help us to make sense of the chaos that surrounds us. However when similar problems are addressed in different fields and genres, they do so in very different ways. We cannot understand art; we can appreciate it; we can derive knowledge from it - art provokes reflection in its audiences. And yet this does not mean that the audiences understand what they experience. It does not even mean that the creator fully understands the finished work. The artist’s relationship to the artwork changes over time and the works that artists produce are like friends from whom we learn and among whom we develop over time. They are not fixed, they shapeshift. As artists, we co-create poetic knowledge together with the audience in the process of producing and living with our work. 

We cannot over-emphasise how art’s modes of production and functionality differ with respect to other processes found in contemporary society. Yet, this does not mean that art is disconnected from the worlds of commerce, science and technology – quite the opposite. It functions according to another logic.

This difference is also the reason why dialogue between genres remains essential. It allows us to stay focused on what we are doing. If you ask what an artist is, a good answer could be “a person who continuously leaves his/her comfort zone.” Maybe that goes for all creators? Dialogues between genres remain essential because they force us into a continual departure from what we know and remind us that we have to deal with the fundamental paradoxes of our lives. Not an easy task, but a deeply inspiring choice of life!

When the dialogue in a genre or discipline becomes too self-contained, it is bound to go stale. When we move outside our comfort zones, we become aware of our own vulnerability. We become aware of the limits of our knowledge and working methods. We have to remain far humbler when we approach another genre or discipline. 
 
The life of the artist has a poetic twist to it. We are always trying to undo what has been done before and to push the boundaries farther. But being an artist is a proposition, an evasive state/role that is activated like flashes in a thunderstorm. We cannot reduce “I travel” to “I am a travelling being” anymore than we can interchange “I think” with “I am a thinking person.” Thought is not a constant. It is a predicate that passes ceaselessly from one thought to another

Vision Forum working methods build on experience and has been developed in our networks, where members with eclectic backgrounds from all over Europe meet at regular intervals in different places and contexts. These meetings are meant for the members to inspire each other, provoke each others curiosity and to dialogue with the local artistic and scientific network. We aim to create knowledge that will travel in time and space - experiences that are valuable as you move through life and also as you travel across the globe.

In Vision Forum we have seen the importance that each participant formulates their own definition how art, philosophy and science operate (and how they interact). The discussions around definitions of disciplines remain some of the most exciting and also conflictual in all forms of cross-disciplinary exchanges - what art and democracy have in common is conflict.

About us

Vision Forum carries out research, meetings and production in contemporary visual art across borders. We also offer select educational modules in collaboration with KSM at Linköpings Universitet. We organisemeetings, seminars, exhibitions, performance events, create publications, run a residency and produce films.

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