Convenors:
Christo Doherty
Chair of Research
Wits School of the Arts
Leora Farber
Director
UJ VIAD Research Lab
Kathryn Smith
Chair of Research
SU Visual Arts
Participants:
Alana Blignaut
Scribe
A4
Ralph Borland
Interdisciplinary Knowledge Worker
Lemeeze Davids
Curatorial Researcher
A4
Josh Ginsburg
Director and Chief Curator
A4
Kim Gurney
Independent Reseacher
Marina Joubert
Senior Communications Researcher
SU CREST Research Centre
Fritha Langerman
Associate Professor
Michaelis School of Fine Art
Brenton Maart
Research Coordinator
UJ VIAD Research Lab
Steven Sack
Director
Cape Town Science Centre
Hugh Sillitoe
Artist-in-Lab Fellow
Wits Innovation Centre
Studio Cabinets:
Kamil Hassim
Georgia Munnik
Ernst van der Wal
Producer:
János Cserháti
A4
Host:
Three Bones Residency founded by Tarik Yilidrim
A three-day-long colloquium convened by Kathryn Smith, Leora Farber and Christo Doherty brings together practitioners from the visual arts, science communication and education sectors in an attempt to re-orientate our understanding of the value of art’s entanglement with science. While such interdisciplinary work has developed to the extent of prompting revisionary efforts in countries like England – the Wellcome Collection’s #postArtScience colloquium in 2017 being particularly notable – in South Africa such engagements have been somewhat siloed and fragmented. “It is important,” Sarah Ahmed notes, “that we think not only about what is repeated but also about how the repetition of actions takes us in certain directions.” The act of storytelling, bridging philosophical enquiry and aesthetic experimentation, emerged as a particularly salient way of tracing the multivalent trajectories of scientific practices and their ethical implications. Accompanied by three ‘Studio Cabinets’, with artworks and processes from practitioners evidencing sustained engagements with scientific methodologies and their ways of producing images and other media, the potential of these narratives shift modestly into view.
"We hope to emerge with the foundations of a pracademic network to support research and practice at the intersection of art and science, via our respective institutional affiliations, as well as our professional and informal networks."
– Kathryn Smith, SU Visual Arts Chair
–
Set alongside the vineyards of Groot Constantia, Three Bones is a research retreat founded by multi-disciplinary philosopher Tarik Yildirim. Three Bones invites practitioners from the arts and sciences to engage in creative and scholarly pursuits. Participants are accommodated in a sprawling residence that offers opportunities for communal activities, access to a multitude of hikes and meanders (with Three Bones bordering protected heritage environments and the Cape’s fynbos mountain reserve) and a private studio for each practitioner.
Thursday, October 31
09.00 | Arrival, coffee, explore studios, set up presentations | All | |
09.30 | Welcome and Orientations | Kathryn Smith | |
09.45 | VIZ.Lab and the ‘third culture’ | Kathryn Smith | |
10.15 | A4 and Artistic Enquiry | Josh Ginsburg | |
10.30 | Bone Flute - A Memento Mori | Ralph Borland | |
11.00 | Samuele Makoanyane. Fragile entanglements. Low fired ceramics, trace fossils taking a poet for a walk | Steven Sack | |
11.30 | COMFORT BREAK | ||
12.00 | Working with university science collections and natural history museums | Fritha Langerman | |
13.00 | Studio Cabinet: Swollen Glands | Ernst van der Wal | |
13.00 | LUNCH | ||
14.30 | Kick-starting Interdisciplinary Innovation: The Wits Artists-in-Labs programme | Christo Doherty | |
15.15 | Establishing the BioArt + Design Africa research strand at the University of Johannesburg | Leora Farber | |
16.15 | Curatorial evolution of the Bioart and Design Africa research programme at the University of Johannesburg | Brenton Maart | |
17.00 | Studio Cabinet: Untitled showcase | Kamil Hassim | |
18.00 | Talking Walk/Solo Decompress | Optional | |
19.00 | Dinner |
Friday, November 1
08.30 | Arrival, coffee | ||
09.30 | Studio Cabinet: Sensing Sculptures | Georgia Munnik | |
10.00 | Sci-art linkages as bridges between science and society | Marina Joubert | |
10.30 | Huge Sillytoe - Reflections on attempting to (not) explain the unfathomable in art and science | Hugh Sillitoe | |
11.00 | What If: Artistic thinking on uncertainty and what sustainability means | Kim Gurney | |
11.30 | COMFORT BREAK | ||
12.00 | Discussion: Map current practices and orientations in art-science-tech interactions | All | |
13.30 | LUNCH | ||
14.30 | Discussion/mapping continues | All | |
16.00 | Ways forward | All | |
18.00 | Talking Walk Solo decompress | Optional | |
19.00 | Dinner |
Saturday, November 2
09.30 | Cape Town Science Centre | Main Road, Observatory | |
11.00 | Kyle Morland’s Notes on a grid | blank projects, Lewin Street, Woodstock | |
12.00 | A4 Arts Foundation | Buitenkant Street, District Six | |
13.00 | Lunch at the Lebanese Bakery | Constitution Street, District Six | |
14.30 | Thato Mogotsi: Curator tour of Nolan Oswald Dennis’ Understudies | Zeitz MOCAA, Waterfront | |
16.00 | Tapi Tapi African ice cream experience | Lower Main Road, Observatory | |
19.00 | Casual dinner at Three Bones |
Studio Cabinets
Select Bibliography
Ahmed, S. (2010) ‘Orientations Matter’, in Coole, D. & Frost, S. (eds.) New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham & London: Duke University Press, pp.234–257. Available here.
Elkins, J. (ed.) (2007) Visual Practices Across the University. Paderborn, Germany: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Available here.
Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Noë, A. (2015) Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature. New York: Hill & Wang.