G E N E R A L A R T I C L E
Facilitating Creative Equality
in Art-Science
A Methodological Experiment
M A T T H I A S W IE N R O T H A N D P IP P A G O L DS CH M I D T
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In this article the authors discuss facilitation as a way to develop
creative equality in art-science based on their experiences working
on an art-science project. They suggest that the space in which
representatives from the domains of sciences and arts come together
to collaborate is a trading zone in which novel links and relationships
can be created. They introduce the notion of “boundary method” to
describe facilitation as a method that can endure different meaning-
making strategies and meanings employed by stakeholders yet still
retain its utility for encouraging creativity at a cross-disciplinary
interface rather than within a dominant discipline.
HYBRID SPACES A ND OUTCOMES
The art-science interface can provide a level playing field for
stakeholders, encouraging participants to work more inde-
pendently of the expectations and restrictions of their respec-
tive disciplines. In this article, we discuss project facilitation
as a methodological approach that fosters creative collabora-
tion—facilitation being a moment of what has been termed
the “third space” [1] between the domains of sciences and
arts. For us, the aim here is equal stakeholdership.
While arts and sciences have a long mutual genealogy, one
tends to be instrumentalized by the other: The arts may ap-
propriate scientific ideas and methods, and the sciences may
use artists and artistic approaches to communicate science.
Our question has been how—if at all—art and science stake-
holders can step outside their disciplinary frameworks to cre-
ate new ideas based on equal contributions. Encouraged by
some examples of artistic and scientific concepts, ideas and
practices coming together in developing creative epistemo-
logical and ontological insights [2,3] and influenced by pri-
marily British and European science policy debates around
science in and for society, we suggest that there is potential
for art-science as a meeting place and for its practitioners to
Matthias Wienroth (social scientist), Department of Applied Sciences,
Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, U.K.
Email:
Pippa Goldschmidt (artist), 50 West Holmes Gardens, Musselburgh, EH21 6QW,
U.K. Email:
See
with this issue.
42
LEONARDO, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 42–46, 2017
contribute to developing understandings of identity and so-
cial organization, as well as to contribute to cross-boundary
production of knowledge that is relevant for both domains
[4]. Furthermore, we argue that this role can be fostered
through active work by facilitators. We understand facilita-
tion as a boundary method that operates as a trading zone
of “interactional expertise” [5], encouraging stakeholders to
engage with one another and with new ideas.
The notion of the boundary method borrows from Star
and Griesemer’s “boundary object” [6]. While the latter de-
scribes any material object that does not change its shape but
does change its meaning for its diverse user communities, the
former focuses on processes of translation and interpretation
that can help cross borders among different knowledges and
practices. The aim of using facilitation is to develop (a sense
of) a community of practice [7] in order to encourage learn-
ing and to inform and develop the practice of its members.
This community can be an extradisciplinary space that is fo-
cused on an issue. Extradisciplinarity refers to practices that
take place outside individual disciplines, yet which can feed
new ideas back into disciplinary practice. In this article, we
focus on the problem-led process of facilitation in fostering
a community of practice at the art-science interface.
Our decision to focus on this facilitation method was in-
fluenced by science policy debate, specifically in the United
Kingdom where a relatively rich funding landscape has en-
couraged collaborations at some points of the art-science in-
terface, with research intermediaries such as the Wellcome
Trust and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council providing sponsorship. The growing opportuni-
ties for artists and scientists to mutually and critically en-
gage with one another are in part owed to an expectation of
greater accountability of both publicly funded science and
consumer-oriented technology development to public and
policy stakeholders. Note, for example, increasing require-
ments by charitable funders such as the Wellcome Trust and
the publically funded Research Councils U.K. for their grant
applicants to justify funding in terms of what has widely
been termed “impact,” and the increasingly creative ways
in which those research intermediaries themselves, as well
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as researchers, can respond to public impact agendas by
producing different impact regimes, measurements and dis-
courses. Beyond this logic of accountability, however, a criti-
cal and challenging rationale for art-science has emerged.
In the context of risk and uncertainty discourses [8,9] and,
increasingly so, in debates around responsible and societally
relevant innovation [10], public engagement and art-science
provide novel modes of exploring the ends and means and
the societal understanding and role of science and technol-
ogy, and of constructively engaging with notions of respon-
sibility and societal impact of research [11].
CREATIVITY FROM INTERACTING METHODS
Art-science research can aspire to constitute a mutual ex-
change and coproduction of methodological insights. It sug-
gests a form of hybridity that draws on logics of mobility and
transformation. If we perceive the art-science interface as an
experimental space—with methodology, collaboration and
outcomes—then its projects can provide a meeting point for
different epistemic cultures such as they exist in the various
disciplines of arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences and
engineering, as well as in the public domain. The art-science
interface can operate as protected space for the extradisci-
plinary interaction among these fields, enabling the produc-
tion of knowledge outside of the disciplines, yet (critically)
drawing on and feeding back into them. Kate O’Riordan sug-
gests, “There are some conditions under which art projects
do operate as a kind of interstice” [12]. The case made here
is about art engaging with biology, opening up the aims and
processes of the bioeconomy by critically challenging some
of its discourses and practices. O’Riordan aims to mobilize an
understanding of art-science as a “third space”—a space that
encourages rethinking of dominant economies (their values
and norms, methodologies and frameworks), but arguably
also of epistemic cultures [13]. With a focus on interaction,
the interface nature of the field and, more importantly, the
contribution the field can make to the involved disciplines
and epistemic cultures, we follow Andrew Barry and col-
leagues’ suggestion that cross-disciplinary work [14] does not
only have to be a synthesis of disciplinary knowledges, or a
response to a perceived lack of knowledge, but can also be
a critical reflection of existing knowledges and their limita-
tions. Barry et al. term this mode “agonistic-antagonistic,”
“intended to effect more radical shifts in knowledge practice,
shifts that are at once epistemic and ontological” [15].
In response, we aim to develop a basic framework for the
fostering of interaction between scientific and nonscientific
epistemologies and their practices. This framework takes
art-science interaction as an opportunity for fostering more
equality between arts and sciences by encouraging letting
go of respective stakeholders’ disciplinary restraints while
drawing on their knowledges and competencies, and focus-
ing on creative engagement. As Hilary Rose suggests in her
program for a feminist epistemology for the natural sciences,
the act of bringing together different methodologies in the
process of knowledge production works to counteract pro-
cesses of losing the sense of materiality and actuality [16]. In
the context of art-science as a mode of engaging with science
in and with society, Rose’s approach can be reinterpreted as a
program of contributing to efforts of raising awareness of the
inherently social nature of scientific work and the material
social impacts that science and technology have on society.
In such a program stakeholders in cross-disciplinary engage-
ment at the art-science interface are asked to reflect on social
identities and relationships in interacting with collaborators,
in order to problematize the specific efforts and values of
knowledge production situated in both cultures. Rose refers
to avoiding the “renaturalization” of the labor of those in-
volved. For art-science interactions this means ensuring that
the work of artists collaborating with scientists and exploring
science-related issues, and of scientists keen to engage with
art-science, is not taken for granted, or seen as something
intrinsically artistic or scientific, but rather is seen as being
at the interface of both. Significantly, the work and roles of
the artist and the scientist need to be considered on an equal
footing: The artist is not simply responding to the science,
and the scientist is not only providing scientific knowledge.
Second, and related to the first, the manual and mental labor
of art-science is built upon and aims at establishing relation-
ships—between knowledge, people and locations as well as
among things. For scientists this could mean engaging with
their personal perspective and social implications of their
work, with the practice of making meaning from knowledge.
For artists this could mean engaging with the materiality of
scientific knowledge—often forgotten, for example in ubiqui-
tous analogies relating DNA to an elusive “code” rather than
a physical material—and with the social and cultural aspects
of both cultures of arts and sciences, the use of innovative
metaphors and the genesis of scientific “facts.”
Rose’s program not only encourages the agonistic-antago-
nistic mode of knowledge production, it also provides an ap-
proach to reflecting on the problems of art-science as a third
space emerging in practice [17]. The art-science field as an
epistemic and ontological program—particularly in its aim
to move beyond the logics of accountability and legitimation
as well as innovation—is faced with an issue that Jean-Paul
Fourmentraux has identified: “The interdisciplinary hybrid
known as ‘research and creation’ lacks a stable identity” [18].
Art-science collaborations are mobile and temporal, usually
project-based, comparable with “boundary organizations”
[19,20] that emerge in response to a perceived issue and can
dissolve once the issue has been deemed to be addressed.
Fourmentraux’s notion of “research and creation” is valu-
able in reimagining art-science as a mobile interface that en-
courages experimentation and aims to change sedimented
relationships between the interface’s objects and their audi-
ences, and between its stakeholders. Experimentation and
the researching of novel methods for producing knowledge
are meeting points that can be conceptualized as (temporary)
communities of practice [21]:
• As a domain of shared and/or overlapping identities
and interests—rendering art-science engagements
an extradisciplinary and professional interface,
informing the cultures of art and science and
improving output;
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Wienroth and Goldschmidt, Facilitating Creative Equality in Art-Science 43
• As a community arising out of interaction in joint
learning and generating new ideas and insights,
and a sense of mutual responsibility contributing
to communal identity building; and
• As a shared repertoire of practices.
We suggest understanding the art-science interface as an
experimental setting for testing and developing methods.
Disciplines of both epistemic cultures draw on a range of
comparable techniques and values that have general meth-
odological aspects in common: research into the investigated
subject, established frameworks (or schools) of technique
and technologies, experimentality, rigor, peer review, em-
phasis on originality, aesthetics and claims to interpretations
of reality. Both fields mobilize disciplinary frameworks and
have professional standards. To that effect, Edward Bulwer-
Lytton has posited that “art and science have their meeting
point in method” [22] and this idea is also reflected in sug-
gestions that aesthetic values can be part of physical science
and mathematical theory [23,24].
FACILITATING ART-SCIEN CE COLLA BORATIONS:
LESSONS LEARNED
In 2012 we ran an art-science pilot project that brought to-
gether a small number of practitioners across different ar-
tistic and scientific disciplines with the aim of producing
creative outcomes loosely inspired by or connected to genet-
ics and genomics. The aims of this pilot were to identify how
to effectively develop a sense of an art-science community
of practice and help future practitioners to produce work
together. The project involved six participants, divided into
pairs, and required each pair to collaborate on an output over
the course of nine months. Two of the pairs were made up
of a scientist and an artist-practitioner, respectively. (One
of the artist-practitioners was Pippa Goldschmidt, who is
an ex-scientist but not an expert in the field of genetics and
genomics.) The third pair consisted of two artists from dif-
ferent disciplines (poetry and photography).
It seemed inevitable at the time that the science of genetics
and genomics would be seen as the starting point because
that was the most visible focus and content within the insti-
tutional context of the ESRC Policy and Research Genom-
ics Forum (now defunct) and in the context of the funders’
interests in making genomics more publicly accessible. Par-
ticipants from the arts expressed feeling a disadvantage in
not being “experts” in this scientific discipline. In response,
facilitation between the scientific and the artistic approaches,
and between participants, emerged as a vital method. The
two facilitators (one of whom was Goldschmidt) tried to shift
the interests of the group into a deliberately wider territory by
fostering a discussion bounded by quotations about artistic
and scientific practice from a wide range of artists, musicians,
philosophers and scientists. This discussion had the benefit
of allowing all the participants to identify their own interests
and (indirectly) their expertises and visibly supported them
in feeling that they were participating in a more level play-
ing field. It was interesting to observe that the artists’ use
of and interest in technology (such as photography) helped
them establish common ground with the scientists and al-
low a “way in.”
Three key learning points emerged. First, facilitation is
vital. Particularly in the first phase of the engagement, the
practitioners look to the facilitators to identify and deter-
mine the boundaries of a complex, multidimensional space.
The facilitators in this pilot tried to convey the fact that they
considered the boundaries to be permeable and flexible,
and after a period of time of discussion and work together
it became clear that the practitioners had gained confidence
in setting their own boundaries and areas of interest. Sec-
ond, initial acknowledgment of practitioners’ professional
achievements and interests is important; if we imagine
each practitioner’s work in this type of project as a journey
through this multidimensional-bounded space, then it is
helpful to allow practitioners to identify for themselves their
starting points, usually based around their own expertise, in
this space.
Third, it takes time to establish trust between practitioners.
This seems obvious, but projects that are goal oriented and
funded by organizations keen to see visible outputs may not
have enough time built in with no purpose other than to
create good working relationships. We used informal “play”
with physical objects such as refrigerator magnets, Plasti-
cine and colored pencils to help break down barriers between
practitioners and allow them to generate ideas. While we
expected that participants might feel this to be “child’s play,”
the contrary became apparent: Scientists quickly associated
these approaches with their own practices of presenting re-
search ideas. Identifying a project as being ostensibly “about”
or “inspired by” a scientific subject (in this case genetics)
creates tension about the resulting “accuracy” of the outputs.
And when their professional reputation relies on accuracy,
scientists find it hard to let go. We found it helpful to re-
mind participants that the project’s aim was not to narrate
or communicate science but to create something inspired by
a scientific issue.
One of the aims of this pilot was to see if the scientists
would be willing to work alongside the artists and jointly
produce a creative output. Such a collaboration did happen in
one of the partnerships: The artist visited the scientist in her
lab and then wrote a poem, which the scientist then decided
to illustrate using visual images from the work carried out
in her laboratory. A more conventional starting point of this
pilot would have been to encourage the artists to respond to
the genetics research, as in traditional models of art-science
collaborations. But by encouraging the artists and scientists
to work together in this new space, we attempted to put a
greater emphasis on the process of creation rather than sci-
entific content. Did this in fact persuade the scientists to do
something different from their usual “scientific” processes?
To answer the question fully requires consideration of what
their daily scientific work actually entails, but enriching a
poem using scientific metaphors and images may be a step
away from the usual scientific process, or it may be con-
sidered essentially similar to conveying ideas in a scientific
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paper. More generally, an attempt to move art-science proj-
ects into a more “symmetrical” space needs to start by iden-
tifying exactly what is entailed in the practices of the relevant
sciences and arts.
Some of the key challenges of cross-disciplinary projects
relate to the nature of the collaboration and the identifica-
tion of the relevant tasks, such as agenda-setting, transpar-
ent communication and social interaction. Participants may
find it difficult to understand each other’s skills outside the
relevant disciplinary frameworks and may find it necessary
to remind each other of their qualifications. Scientists can
feel that their work and research program may be judged or
undermined by artistic practitioners with very different skill
sets in the process of opening it up. Facilitation can ensure
that communication between collaborators commences and
continues. The facilitator opens up space to exchange and
explore via the use of various imagery, tactile work (for ex-
ample, in reproducing metaphors and images as well as prac-
tices by using materials) and play with words, their meanings
and their relationships to the scientific issue.
Simultaneously, the facilitator sets broad boundaries for
the “problem” to be addressed by the collaborators, who will
look to the facilitator for indications that what they are doing
is within the terms of engagement. Facilitation thus aims to
aid understanding of the different methodologies and experi-
ences at the interface.
Furthermore, the facilitator can foster an environment in
which the competencies and knowledges of participants are
respected and equally involved in the engagement process.
There is a certain amount of pressure on the facilitator in
framing the problem, yet the facilitation process needs to
encourage and prepare space for discussing a subject matter
arising out of science and technology in mixed contexts, that
is, not purely as a scientific issue to be responded to in artistic
ways but also as an opportunity for the scientist to rethink
scientific work “outside the laboratory.”
It is critical for the engagement process, as well as for the
outputs, to ensure that the scientific content does not solely
drive the engagement and that the scientists are involved in
the intellectual and physical production of art-science meth-
odology and outputs. How, for example, might a scientist
respond to a creative piece of writing about science and in
turn create a piece of literary text, painting, sound, sculpture,
etc., herself? Or could participating in the art-science process
influence scientific practices? [25] Similarly, for the artist the
interaction offers choices about exploring different method-
ologies and metaphors.
All of the above points require the facilitator to acknowl-
edge, and indeed problematize, the inherent power asym-
metries in art-science collaboration. Initially, an artist might
have more control over the output generation, while the sci-
entist has a stronger notion and understanding of the scien-
tific subject. As the facilitation program of the art-science
interaction encourages collaborators to challenge and de-
velop views, the asymmetries shift. Eventually, a vital issue
is that of the impact of collaborative work. This work needs
to be made visible not only to the collaborators as publics of
each other, but also to wider audiences. The framing of the
work changes how it is received—by the collaborators, by
other practitioners and scientists, and by funders and the
wider public. The subject matter of the engagement has a
considerable role to play in developing facilitation at the art-
science interface.
CONC LUSION
Technoscientific practices and discourses spanning science
and society provide a rich subject matter for art-science in-
teraction. Similarly, facilitation provides an opportunity for
testing personal and professional tools and processes for
their suitability to the interaction, its aims and its audiences.
Participants act as each other’s audiences in the interactional
processes of experiment with and introduction of ideas and
methods. An obvious question this raises is why any scien-
tist should be interested in such an engagement, particularly
when illustrative modes of art-science seem to serve science
well. While two structural drivers may encourage commit-
ment in art-science projects—that of funding for artists
and that of impact demonstration by scientists—interest in
shared problems and the cross-disciplinary experience play
a significant role in such engagements. Both the interest in
exploring a scientific concern from a different perspective
and the interest in broadening the scope of established meth-
odological approaches and metaphors can be drivers for the
involvement of scientists and artists alike. Researchers whose
daily practice brings them in contact with other disciplines
and methodologies within and outside their fields may find
it more interesting and “easier” to engage at another inter-
face such as that of art-science. Developing cross-epistemic
engagement and outcomes and outputs requires individual
investment. The interest and belief in collaborating with dif-
ferent, and likely unfamiliar, epistemic cultures form part of
the basis for actual cross-disciplinary practice and knowl-
edge production to challenge existing cognitive and affective
boundaries and constructs.
We have discussed facilitation as an opportunity to en-
courage participants to release themselves from their dis-
ciplinary constraints in collaborating creatively at the
art-science interface. Our view is practice-informed and
influenced by the normative ambition of encouraging and
affirming the equality of role and commitment from the
sciences and the arts while aspiring to foster collaborative
work that can inspire. The art-science interface conceptu-
alized here is constituted in the facilitated creative process,
encouraging mutual recognition and an open mind to the
process and potential output. This facilitation process offers
a “third space” emerging in interaction that can and should
aim to open up existing economies of practice, of value and
of thought. Facilitation as a boundary method refocuses on
the individual scientist and artist as collaborators who have
yet to explore each other’s position toward a subject matter,
negotiating subject, process, techniques and agenda of the
boundary-crossing project.
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Wienroth and Goldschmidt, Facilitating Creative Equality in Art-Science 45
Acknowledgments
This article was inspired by a pilot project funded by a Knowledge Trans-
fer grant from Edinburgh University (Grant #G79007) and Creative
Scotland. We thank Lisa Matthews for her contributions to the project
and all our participants. Thanks also go to the reviewers of an earlier
version of this article.
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Manuscript received 20 November 2014.
MATTHIAS WIENROTH is an academic scholar and knowl-
edge broker at the interface of the sociology of science and tech-
nology; public and policy engagement; and governance and
ethics studies.
PIPPA GOLDSCHMIDT is a writer of science-informed prose
and poetry and an art-science practitioner. She is the author
of the novel The Falling Sky, the short story collection The
Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space, and co-editor of
the anthology I Am Because You Are, all published by Freight
Books.
46 Wienroth and Goldschmidt, Facilitating Creative Equality in Art-Science
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