About this Event
Join Experiment 29 in this hybrid in-person/online discussion about shared creative and scientific practices developed during collaborative experiments at the CSIRO.
Be in quick as in-person seating is limited!
There is a continuum of similarities and differences across experimentation, iteration, prototyping and imagination across the disciplines of art and science, and making discoveries through failure sit naturally within artistic practice, scientific research, and engineering. Dr Chris Henschke & Dr Michael Batten found this during their collaborative experiments at the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) during Henschke’s 2018 ANAT Synapse residency. The heuristic toolkits of artists and experimental scientists can appear remarkably similar, even when the language, philosophical assumptions, institutional cultures—and particularly the clothing—are quite different.
Artistic and scientific experiments can both be understood as ways of constructing situations in which something not yet known can emerge. Whether in a laboratory or studio, an experiment is not simply a test of an existing idea: it can produce objects, phenomena or traces that materially exist but whose significance is still unfolding—what Hans Rheinberger calls “epistemic things.” Across these fields, making is the process through which the question itself becomes clearer. In this context, failure is not necessarily problematic. Unexpected behaviour and difference can generate new questions, insights and directions for further research. In these situations, failure is an unsung form of success, a way to producing insights through resistance.
What may be shared most strongly is the experience of the people doing this work: a capacity to remain comfortable with uncertainty, to explore possibilities without knowing the outcome, and to use curiosity, observation and material experimentation to navigate complex problems.
Moderated by Dr Andrea Rassell & Dr Chris Henschke.
Online access info:
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 845 976 8327
Event venue & nearby stays
Experiment 29, 29 Sydney Road, Coburg, Australia
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