麻豆传媒

鈥淎 lot of sound and light, signifying nothing.鈥� That was The Guardian鈥檚 notoriously acerbic art critic Jonathan Jones鈥檚 by Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda, whose installation Supersymmetry resulted from a stint as artist-in-residence at CERN, the high-energy physics laboratory in Geneva.

Jones concluded that the array of beeps, whooshes, dazzling strobes and light pulses basically seems to be rubbing its head and groaning: 鈥淏low me, this is complicated stuff.鈥�

And what else should we expect when an artist unschooled in science comes face to face with cutting-edge physics? 鈥淎rt and science, we feel, should have something to say to each other,鈥� said Jones. 鈥淏ut perhaps they speak different languages after all.鈥�

Sci-art scepticism

It鈥檚 a sentiment shared with biologist Lewis Wolpert, .

But Jones seemed to be under the impression that Ikeda鈥檚 agenda, as one of the participants in the project established in 2010, was to explain to us what the physicists are doing. It wasn鈥檛. Artists taking part in the programme were free to develop their own responses to the particle-smashing, and to take inspiration wherever they found it. 鈥渒idnapped鈥� scientists and held them hostage underground in the pitch dark; set dancers loose among readers in the CERN library.

Packaging science, not making art

Jones鈥檚 response to Supersymmetry shouldn鈥檛 surprise us, though, because it鈥檚 not so different to that of many scientists who come across artist-in-residence schemes at their institution. Many artists have complained that scientists assume they are there to help disseminate their research: to find attractive ways of packaging the science in a public-relations exercise.

I鈥檝e heard one artist lament that scientists imagined her role was to help them prepare their diagrams. And I recall seeing a 鈥渟ci-art veteran鈥� (a scientist) argue that, because scientists have the money and artists have the glamour, what a great job they could do together selling science!

In an article in a double issue of that I coedited with Si芒n Ede on art and science collaborations, Ariane Koek, who founded the Arts at CERN scheme, recounts some of the other obstacles she encountered when she began working at the lab. Scientists would expect the artists to conjure up work virtually overnight 鈥� because how long does it take to invent a bit of art? It鈥檚 not as though it鈥檚 the theory of supersymmetry, after all.

A still yawning gap

Other papers in these issues reveal more of the dark underbelly of sci-art: conflicts about ownership of the work, artists鈥� insecurities about their lack of institutional affiliation or secure source of funding, and scientists deciding that (perhaps enraptured by how pretty their microscopy images look when blown up to poster scale) they can be artists too 鈥� because you don鈥檛 need qualifications for that, right?

This is the side of sci-art that you don鈥檛 get to hear so much about. It鈥檚 often assumed that anything that brings science and art together, bridging C. P. Snow鈥檚 hoary old Two Cultures gap, can only be a Good Thing. There鈥檚 also an expectation that both sides will benefit, irrespective of the asymmetry that commonly exists in such relationships.

In reality, the collision can be anything but creative. As well as a tendency to view the arts as handmaid of the sciences, there exist some unreconstructed scientists whose view of art stops at the Impressionists and who persist in thinking that it is about making something nice to look at.

I remember a meeting on 鈥渃hemistry and art鈥� some years ago at which the instigator, a distinguished chemist, was baffled beyond belief that an artist would make what were allegedly sealed cans of his own faeces. (That artist was , way back in the 1960s.)

Grasping the science

Does this mean that Jones was right after all 鈥� that artists and scientists speak different languages? Perhaps, on the whole 鈥� but this misses the point. When artists take inspiration from science, they need to get to grips with what the science is about; no one is served well by naive misrepresentations. And many put in a great deal of effort to achieve that understanding.

But then they must be free to do with it what they will, because what otherwise is the point of art? This might mean that what interests the artist is not what the scientist thought was important, and indeed it鈥檚 not unusual for an artist to become fixated on some aspect of the research that the scientist barely noticed or cared about: semi-legible theoretical noodlings on a blackboard, say.

The artist might even want to criticise the science, to the possible consternation of the scientists or funders expecting something celebratory or bedazzling. Little of value, at any rate, tends to emerge from brief encounters; it takes time to foster rich, productive and mutually sympathetic collaborations.

The question 鈥� perhaps the only important one 鈥� should be: is the art any good? Lots of sci-art is not, and its worthiness doesn鈥檛 compensate. Critics like Jones are still as likely to ignore it as to slate it. The only answer is to make work that鈥檚 too good to ignore.