Peoples Republic of South Devon

The science of art

May 22nd, 2008

Back at the start of March there was the fascinating ESRC Festival of Social Science Week. We mention it now because Claire Packman’s article (below) included, among others, Tony Hill, who’s taking part in the Flipside Film Festival tonight in the Laws of Nature/Downside Up event, at Plymouth Arts Centre at 8.30pm. Read on to find out what science and art can do for each other, and get a quick insight into Tony Hill

“South-west-based artists found themselves head-to-head with scientists and social scientists at a unique event in Exeter.

International experimental filmmaker Tony Hill and Falmouth artist Robin Hawes were among the invited speakers at Science in the Dock, Art in the Stocks: Convex/Concave, a one-day public workshop.

Part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science Week, the event took place at Gallery Terracina, an old warehouse that sits on the dockside between the river and the canal at Haven Banks, Exeter. Against the background of an exhibition of work by Nicky Thompson, Deborah Robinson and Caroline Burke, other speakers included sociologist of science Professor Harry Collins, expert in animal vision Dr Julian Partridge, ocean biologist Dr Samantha Lavender and psychologist Dr Ian Gordon.

“Convex/Concave brought together artists and scientists to share ideas about vision and perception and to engage with one another’s work and modes of representation,” explains Deborah Robinson, artist in residence at Egenis, the Centre for Genomics in Society, based at the University of Exeter, which organised the event.

“The gallery has been fulll for the whole day and evening,” says Gallery Terracina owner Cristina Burke-Trees. “The access to scientists and artists in such a relaxed atmosphere really appeals to everyone and we had some very interesting discussions.”

Director of Egenis Professor John Dupré says the experience was productive for everyone.
“Complex biological and biotechnological phenomena seem very different from a sociological or visual arts perspective,” he says. “Bringing the different views together in context can be illuminating for all sides.”

Tony Hill’s work has been shown at many art galleries, including Tate Britain, and at international film festivals. His short films explore different ways of looking at the world.

“The medium of film has great potential for seeing in ways unlike normal perception,” he says.
“Using a wide range of unusual techniques I am exploring familiar environments in such a way that we must see them with new eyes.”

Many of Tony’s films have been made with purpose-built equipment. His ingenious camera mounts enable complex and seemingly impossible movements.

He showed short extracts from a number of his works, including Too See, Downside Up, Water Work and Expanded Movie. He also showed the whole of the brief but remarkable A Short History of the Wheel.

“I’m trying to undermine our perceptual habits and recreate a sense of wonder,” he says, an aim in he which he succeeds admirably. The audience was spellbound.

Ways of seeing are very much at the heart of the work of Robin Hawes, who showed a series of photographic images produced as part of Private View: The Nature of Visual Process, a collaborative project with cognitive neuroscientist Professor Tim Hodgson.

“My creative practice revolves around the ways in which evolution and the human brain have shaped the nature of our internal experience; our understanding of the external world and the influence this has in determining a common notion of ‘reality’,” Robin says.

“This project highlights the interanlly constructive and indiosyncratic aspect of visual perception. In essence, each time someone contemplates a work of art, that work of art is re-created internally by the brain. The project set out, in part at least, to make visible this hitherto internal, unique and unshared nerological event.”

In his closing summary Professor Bob Witkin expressed his concern that society tends to centralise science and marginalise the arts, particularly in education, where children are encouraged progressively to detach from their own visceral experience in interpreting the world.

Responding, Professor Steve Hughes, co-director of Egenis, who conceived the workshop, expressed the hope that events of this kind, which reveal what artists and scientists share, will help to reverse any marginalisation of one by the other.

• Tony Hill, Laws of Nature/Downside Up event, at Plymouth Arts Centre at 8.30pm. £6 (or £4.50)

(Image from Tony Hill’s Downside Up)

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Entry Filed under: Arts, Society