Malina Abciber 09

Making Science Intimate Re Thinking Cyberculture

Artists and Scientists collaborating on the burning issues of our time

Roger F Malina Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence November 2009 ABCyber

We know

• That we have built a civilisation that is unsustainable

We need the “hard humanities” • Four hundred years ago Galileo Galilei “invented” the telescope • 150 years ago Darwin published his “Origin of the Species” • ? Developing the new culture that will allow us to create a sustainable civilisation ?

The « hard » humanities • We face rapid cultural change in order to create sustainable societies • Over the next 50 years we must re engineer our cities, our energy and water systems, our agricultural ecologies • History, Anthropology, Arts, but also the « social sciences », the arts and humanities….. • How to re design the « human dimensions of the sciences » • The Arts and Humanities are part of the tool kit for survival • The « hard » humanities: descriptive > proscriptive

We know “landscape artists” but what is a “Climate Artist” ? 1904

2004

Cezanne: Mont St Victoire.........Sabine Raaf: Translator II

We know the taste of water…………..……… But what is the song of CO2 ? Char Davies……………Sarah Jane Pell

Modern Science Doesnt Make Common Sense • Most knowledge about our world now comes through scientific instruments o o

Few people have experience of mediated senses Cyberculture: the human body with new sensuality

• Most of the world isnt on human scales • Nano science • Femto physics

• Our intuition, languages, metaphors, arts are built training on the wrong data for survival

Techno-Science as a Territory for Artistic Experimentation • • • •

Forming intuition on mediated sensory data Designing/Interacting with simulated systems Making sense of dense data, petabyte era Coupling the virtual world to the physical world

• Making Science Intimate • Peoples Science • Micro Science • New Ontologies and Epistemologies –

New Intuitions,

»

New Sensualities

Why Collaborate and Network ? • The burning issues of our times require us to work differently • The Hard Humanities require artists and scientists or engineers to work together – Coupling micro-science to cultural change

• Existing social networks re-enforce old approaches and protect old values – The tyranny of geography and personal history – Our institutional structures reflect other ways of thinking that created an unsustainable civilisation

The LEONARDO organisations and networks: An evolving story…. • Leonardo an organisation founded in the 1960’s – A generation of survivors of World War II – Creation of new international science organisations – A 1950 ‘social contract” between science and government

• Cultural appropriation of science and new technologies: – The “case for art-science-technology interaction”

• The birth of “digital “ culture – Success of the computer art pioneers • R and D budgets of game/entertainment now driving technology

– But now we need RADICAL DIGITAL

And now….? • « Ask Not What the Sciences can do for the Arts… Ask what the Arts can do for the Sciences¨….Roy Ascott – The « Strong Case » for art-science-technology interaction

• Enabling and Promoting the New Leonardos – The mission of the Leonardo organisation and networks – The individual as genius versus the team as genius – The cultural transformation of networked collaborations

Leonardo Publications @ MITPRESS 30 books, 4/year Leonardo Journals Leonardo Electronic Almanac eg: Art and Innovation ( XEROX PARC ) Immersed in Technology (BANFF, Canada). MA Moser/D MacLeod Manovich: Language of New Media Kac: Signs of Life: Art/Biology DaCosta: Tactical Bio Media

Leonardo Organisation activities since 1967 • Working Groups: – Leonardo Education Forum – Lovely Weather: Art and Climate Change – Artists and Scientists in Times of War

• Workshops/Conferences: – Mutamorphosis (extreme environments), LESS REMOTE

• Prizes and Awards • Collaborations : – – – –

ITACCUS Committee for Cultural Utilisation of Space, YASMIN mediterranean rim network REDCATSUR/LATAM new latin american network LASSI Leonardo Asian network

• …over 40 years we have promoted and documented the work of over 6000 New Leonardos

Muliple Modes to Mediated Sensuality • INTIMATE SCIENCE: « ownership of the data about ones own environment » • Peoples or Citizen Science • OPEN OBSERVATORIES : » distributed and open science »

« Open Observatories » • The « RIGHT » to the data that exists about you and your own environment • • Taking data about yourself and your own environment – A knowledge producing community OWNS the knowledge – Extended Senses, New Senses, Intimate Science – Database Aesthetics: Re-Imagining data

• Open Observatories:

.

• The RIGHT to the data that exists about you and your environment

• Micro-Science o Micro Science is to the National Science Foundation What Micro Credit is to the World Bank “PRO-AM” Professional Amateurs • Making science intimate o Owning data about your own environment o Science creating communities own their knowledge o Building intution, language from mediated sensory experience o

• Science- Art Projects and Art-Science Projects • Art driven driven science and engineering • Science driven development of cultural artifacts

The Sound of Trees Growing • David Dunn (composer, sound artist) • Jim Crutchfield ( complexity scientist) • Artist driven recording of sounds of trees growing led to research project in the coupling of ultrasound from trees, beetles, forest fire system dynamics

The Sound of Thinking Collaborations of nano scientist Jim Gimzewski and Artist Victoria Vesna • BLUE MORPH is an interactive installation that uses nanoscale images and sounds derived from the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. • Has led to a project on the « sound of thinking »> Gimzewski is able to monitor the vibration of neurons and convert to sound

Intimate Science Pigeon Blog ( B Da Costa) Inside Outside Handbag (Katherine Moriwaki )

New Corporality; Physical, Virtual Stelarc

Marce li Antunez Roca

Immersion in Extreme Environments Antarctica......Deserts… Marco Peljham and Macrolab

Nano Intuition : feeling molecules Sommerer/Mignoneau

Embedded in Peta-Data Sets Donna Cox

Ruth West

Weather Data Bases Protein Sequence Data DATABASE AESTHETICS: Re Imagining the Sublime

People’s and Citizen’s Science • Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti: Indian People’s Science Networks • Srishti School, Bangalore • Brazil Digital Culture projects • Sergipe « Human Project » o

Humbi Umbi in Brazil

• UK Citizen’s Science groups

• Futuresonic

• Open Hardware, Hacker Culture, Bricolabs….

Crowd-Sourcing • Distributed Science • BOINC : Berkeley Open Infrastructure Network Computing SETI@home search for extraterrestial intelligence o climateprediction.net , climate modelling o malariacontrol.net o

Philanthropy 2.0 and « open innovation » • Eg INNOCENTIVE • Organisations can submit problems for solution • Together with award incentive • Over 300 problems solved to date • Problem solving communities outside the Academy • • Eg www.fundscience.org

How • Artists in Labs • Scientists in Studios • Town Scientists • Micro Science funding • Open sourcing of data about your own world OPEN OBSERVATORIES

• Developing the ‘hard humanities’ to change the content and direction of science

Thanks • www.olats.org • www.leonardo.info • [email protected]