An artist walks into a lab…

Last night while it was getting dark, I looked out of my window into the garden for a while. To my delight, the inner yard is lush and wild, with seven large spruce trees in it. The hedge that separates our wildly overgrown “community garden” from the private gardens on my right is also a wonderful example of the rather reluctant garden maintenance of our property management. Anyway, I'm extremely glad that their only priority is that we don't trip over branches on the small path or actually get stuck in the hedge on our way to work. Last night as I leaned over the windowsill and looked down from the first floor into the flowerbed below me, then at the untamed hedge, it seemed to me that I could just reach out and touch the green leaves at that moment. As if the distance between us wasn't real. The image before my eyes seemed to pulse or breathe slightly. I felt a desire to just climb out of the window and lie down in the hedge. The proportions were slightly offset by this optical illusion. My body felt bigger or more expansive. But maybe it also pulsated slightly, as if the garden and I were always moving slightly towards each other and away again. I felt very alive in that moment. It's not the first time that an evening twilight has presented me with an extraordinary sensual experience. This is probably the magical potential of the twilight hour, which runs through many sagas and cultures.

This play with perception and my relationship to the immediate environment is something that I regard as a crucial part of my artistic process, as well as something that I ultimately want to share with recipients. It is also a form of knowledge to be able to deal with my senses and the processes of my perception and thoughts in this way. Of course, our perception runs automatic most of the time. But it is also a way to dissolve the boundaries between ourselves and our environment, to restore a closer relationship to it, or to rediscover it over and over again. Art is a means that can reveal these diverse forms of perception and being, sometimes by reproducing this process of rapprochement, then making it tangible, experienceable for the recipient.

Science penetrates the surface, dividing the world into innumerable particles in order to understand it. What does understanding mean? Arranging and categorizing, revealing relationships, showing correlations and causalities as well as the difference between the two. What does grasping mean? Is grasping deeper or more profound than understanding? Do I stand and observe when understanding and touch and rummage when trying to grasp a phenomenon? This may sound childish, but the questioning of knowledge and our role in its creation and mediation are important issues for both art and science, as well as for the political potential of both. I see a relation between the fragmentation that defines scientific methods and my own practice of aesthetic relations, by which I also cross and re-cross the boundaries between art disciplines. It might in some way be easier for art to question the relationship between humans and the world. Contemporary science frequently faces the requirements of objectivity and rationality. This protects the knowledge gain yet somewhat limits the processes connected to these epistemological interests. I greatly admire scientists and writers who break convention by writing books for a a broader audience, who have no fear to reveal diverse aspects of their research interest and history. In this regard, I was and am deeply inspired by Monica Gagliano, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Merlin Sheldrake. To name only three. It is in no way about criticizing or dismissing rational/logical thought, and scientific traditions for that matter, but rather reflecting on them and seeing what constitutes their role as traditions of making sense of the world and ourselves as identities in it. For our understanding of the world is also grounded in hierarchies of perception that determine how we process and structure the information we receive.

I guess every century has its battles over the sovereignty of interpretation, at least on a political level. Science as well as art are always also outside of society or the government. Yet when it comes to the challenges we face, especially climate change and its vast effects on the environment and by extension on our lives, the questions of who gets to tell the stories which try to make sense of the world, who is listening to whom, who can even be made to listen, and how do we produce and perceive knowledge are vital. It is exactly at this point that the importance of transdisciplinarity and collaboration in the broadest sense become apparent. For this, we need to acknowledge diverse forms of knowledge, its production and mediation. Science as well as art have always been misunderstood or even instrumentalized by political and economic authorities. If only for this reason, an interdisciplinary approach to the important questions of our time is so fruitful. If science and art strengthen each other in their epistemological, creative, curious and urgent questions and methodologies, they reach not only different but ultimately more people with what they want to say.

This is an exciting topic and lies at the heart of my current artistic agenda. Therefore I was very glad in encountering Adrienne Goehler and her efforts to establish the FÄN ( Fund for aesthetics and sustainability). It strives to firmly establish a platform for the collaboration of artists and scientists. I got to write a statement for this cause and experienced a great excitement in formulating my thoughts and opinions about this issue in a concise manner. The original text was formulated in German. There is an English version below. I very much encourage you to visit their website and spread the word! https://www.fonds-aesthetik-und-nachhaltigkeit.de

MEINE STIMME FÜR DEN FÄN

Häufig habe ich mit WissenschaftlerInnen gesprochen, die sich, ähnlich wie ich im Produktionsdruck der Künste, in den bestehenden Forschungs-Strukturen der Wissenschaft eingeschränkt fühlten. Ich bin Künstlerin geworden, um für immer zu lernen, um die Welt immer wieder neu zu entdecken und aus neuen Perspektiven zu betrachten, und um diesen Prozess schließlich mit anderen Menschen zu teilen. Die Vision eines FÄN begeistert mich! Ich stelle mir vor, wie er neue Räume schafft, in denen das Forschende in den Künsten und das Kreative in den Wissenschaften gefördert werden. Wie er Nährboden für das gemeinsame, stets neugierige Erkenntnisinteresse Beider ist. Wie Kunst und Wissenschaft ihre Einflussbereiche teilen, sodass sie sich gemeinsam in neue Sphären der Gesellschaft und Politik ausdehnen. Wie wir gemeinsam die gezwungene "Produktion" von Kunst in eine Entstehung und ein großzügiges sowie innovatives Teilen von Kunst verwandeln. Und dann lasst uns zusammen spielen! Es geht nicht nur darum, ein Problem zu lösen oder die Welt zu retten. Es geht auch darum, der Welt Hand in Hand und voller Begeisterung und Demut zu begegnen. Nur dann entsteht Veränderung auch von Innen heraus, ganzheitlich und ansteckend. Ich glaube, eine Überbrückung der disziplinären Grenzen, sowohl in den Wissenschaften und Künsten selbst, als auch zwischen ihnen, ist ein, wenn nicht der Schlüssel dazu. Nicht zuletzt begeistert mich der Gedanke an den FÄN als ein Netzwerk und eine Gemeinschaft, die sich gegenseitig stärkt und inspiriert.

ENGLISH:

I have often spoken to scientists who, similar to me within the production-based pressure of the arts, felt restricted in the existing research structures within science. I became an artist to forever learn, to keep rediscovering the world and looking at it from new perspectives, and finally to share this process with other people. The vision of a FÄN excites me! I imagine it creating new spaces in which research in the arts and creativity in the sciences are encouraged. How it will be breeding ground for the common, always curious epistemological interest of both. How art and science share their spheres of influence so that together they expand into new spheres of society and politics. How together we transform the forced "production" of art into a creation and a generous and innovative sharing of art. And then let's play together! It's not just about solving a problem or saving the world. It is also about meeting the world hand in hand and with enthusiasm and humility. Only then does change also occur from within, holistically and contagiously. I believe that bridging disciplinary boundaries, both within and between the sciences and arts themselves, is one, if not the key. Last but not least, the thought of the FÄN as a network and a community that strengthens and inspires one another intrigues me.

copyright Silvana Mammone