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Three Bones | Uncertain Entanglements
Research 30 October–2 November 2024
Installation view: Ernst van der Wal’s Swollen Glands, Studio Cabinet, Three Bones | Uncertain Entanglements, October 31–November 2, 2024. Image courtesy of A4 Arts Foundation.
Title Three Bones | Uncertain Entanglements Dates 30 October–2 November 2024 Location Offsite Tagline A colloquium on art-science collaborations in South Africa convened by Kathryn Smith, Leora Farber and Christo Doherty. Credits

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

Untitled showcase | Kamil Hassim
An overview of select projects at the intersection of art, technology and indigenous systems, including unique sonic and optical instruments designed and crafted by the artist that explore and interrogate the relationships between various histories, global cultural perspectives and contemporary technology.
Sensing Sculptures | Georgia Munnik
My studio cabinet serves as a laboratory to consider the tendency of human olfactory receptors to be non-discriminatory to molecular data. It proposes the capacity of perfumery to explore involuntary exchanges with our immediate environment, referencing the body as a resource for complex scent profiles. My first commercial eau de parfum, PHENOTYPE 13, is a sensual composition with notes of gourmand, leather, salt, mould, and a citrusy-sweet resin. The work-in-progress – ‘sensing sculptures’ – will hold hand-crafted perfumes in their crevices and folds, much like the human body does with its own complex odours.
Swollen Glands | Ernst van der Wal
This studio cabinet features select examples from my art practice, where I’ve engaged with scientific histories and discourses. It uses various artefacts to explore how scopic practices influence our understanding of bodily integrity and human/non-human crossings. I am particularly drawn to those moments where art/science intersections align with queer interests and intimacies. This cabinet offers a space to reflect on the affective potential of such complex entanglements.

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.

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