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DAB LAB
research gallery
Invites you to a presentation by visiting PhD Fellow Pernille
Leth-Espenen discussing Arts, Science and Technological Mediation.
Pernille visits UTS from the Department of Aesthetic Studies at Aarhus
University, Denmark, please find her abstract attached for further
information.
Interactivation Lab Thursday May 27 at 5pm.
Level 4 courtyard, UTS
Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
University of Technology, Sydney
702 Harris Street, Ultimo
ph 95148016
www.dab.edu.au/dablab <http://www.dab.edu.au/dablab>
ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGICAL MEDIATION
In recent years artworks interpreting scientific representations and
technologies have occurred more frequently. As installation art they
are representing data or processes in nature, in the body, or in
society.
What might be the motivation for this artistic interest in scientific
representations and technologies? According to sociologist of science
Bruno Latour, scientific knowledge is constructed through scientific
representations, diagrams, and measuring devices. Furthermore,
philosopher of technology Peter-Paul Verbeek argues that scientific
representations and technologies are not neutral. Science is becoming
increasingly influential in shaping how human beings interpret their
world. Technologies and scientific representations are mediations of
reality and have ethic consequences as they affect our actions as well
as our conception of nature, of our own body, and of society.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian formalist Viktor
Shklovsky argued that the purpose of art is to remove objects from the
automatism of perception by making familiar objects appear unfamiliar.
In my view, many of these artworks de-familiarize scientific
representations and technologies.
In the talk, I will thus argue that by making unusual, poetic, and
unfamiliar scientific representations, artworks are investigating how
technologies mediate our actions and our perception of the world.
Through this investigation they are also reflecting upon the ethical
consequences of these mediations.
BIOGRAPHY
Pernille Leth-Espensen is a PhD Fellow at the Department of Aesthetic
Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark. Her PhD Scholarship is funded
by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. She is undertaking a residency at
SymbioticA at University of Western Australia until mid May. She was
awarded with Aarhus University’s Goldmedal for her Masters Thesis “The
Status of Nature in Contemporary Art”. She is a co-editor of the
Danish Art Journal Passepartout: http://www.pptout.dk/tidsskrifter/
