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  • Science in Context. Special Issue: Writing Modern Art and Science
  • Amy Ione
Science in Context. Special Issue: Writing Modern Art and Science Linda Dalrymple Henderson , Guest Editor. Cambridge Univ. Press, London and New York, December 2004. Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 423-635. ISSN: 02698897.

Comparing recent writings on art and science with comments from earlier centuries brings to mind the degree to which our conclusions reflect the context of our era. Often discussed is how the process of adapting our minds and sensitivities to new views of reality and living systems re-frames ontological and epistemological debates, influences scientific theory and experimental design, and imprints art theory and practice. Less discussed are the roots of contemporary activities, many of which are traceable to late 19th through mid 20th century events. This is the period primarily covered in Linda Dalrymple Henderson's special edition of Science in Context titled "Writing Modern Art and Science." This superb collection offers methodological models that contextualize how developments in science play a critical role in an artist's cultural context. One of the strengths of the book is that the contributors offer well-researched information that illustrates conjunctions among art and science without trying to "prove" conjunctions exist, or conflating science with technology. As a result, the volume offers research that elevates the field on its own terms by elucidating points of intersection.

This is not to say that issues joining art, science and technology are absent. Anne Collins Goodyear's essay "Gyorgy Kepes, Billy Klüver and American Art of the 1960s: Defining Attitudes toward Science and Technology," for example, juxtaposes the two figures named in her title. After acknowledging that, due to similarities in their work, the two names are frequently linked, Goodyear demonstrates that there were philosophical and practical differences between the artist Kepes and the engineer Klüver. Her vehicle for distinguishing their contributions is a comparison of the organizations they nurtured (Kepes, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Klüver, Experiments in Art and Technology).

Goodyear's stated intention was to reveal both how the cultural conditions of the 1960s contributed to the perceived need for such agencies and how interactions between art, science and technology reflected, at once, the culmination of aspirations reaching back to the opening decades of the 20th century and a perceived break with the past. Yet, what was most impressive was the power of her tightly argued essay to reach beyond its own focus through the questions she examined. The author's unique insight into the distinct origins of such organized collaborations between art, science and technology [End Page 498] ties the personal to societal concerns so effectively that she touches on issues that continue to haunt the many practitioners. One of the most thought-provoking aspects of the text is the way it brought to mind the many who wrestle with whether collaborative projects work best within academic settings or without a traditional base.

Barbara Larson's contribution, "Odilon Redon and the Pasteurian Revolution: Health, Illness, and le monde invisible," was remarkably contemporary despite its focus on an historical figure. Larson speaks of how the Symbolist Odilon Redon incorporated the invisible world of microbes into his works on paper. Centering the argument on scientific/medical issues that stimulated this artist's creative process allowed the author to expand on Redon's work beyond his metaphysical and symbolist views. Of particular interest is her discussion of his anxiety over invisible biological danger, a perspective that resonates among many still.

Equally compelling were Peter Geimer's "Picturing the Black Box: On Blanks in Nineteenth Century Paintings and Photographs" and Oliver A.I. Botar's "László Moholy-Nagy's New Vision and the Aestheticization of Scientific Photography in Weimar Germany." Although both interrogate the status of photography in relation to art and science, the differences between the two essays serve to accentuate the range we find in the literature related to these topics, and in this volume as well. Geimer looks at the work of Edouard Manet, Thomas Kaife, Albert Londe, Arthur Worthington and others to show how scientific and artistic practices were re-configured in...

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