Just a few random comments related to the discussion Eric has initiated. Between 1997 and 2007, Critical Art Ensemble did quite a few art/science/politics projects. When speaking about those projects we would say, “it looks like science, but its not.” If someone wanted to engage us as scientists, we would, but that didn’t make it science. We were not using the scientific method to produce information to be reviewed and replicated by our scientific peers. Rather we were appropriating the vision engines of science that we needed to make a political point. We needed them to lead our viewers/ participants to places where they could see and understand their stake in how a scientific or a technological development would manifest itself in the world. To understand what kind of policies were being made around these developments, and to understand if they were in their interest. We were trying to create informed (amateur) interventionists regarding key issues that would impact society and/or the planet.
One of the reasons we stopped doing these projects was due to the fact that our experience of the ArtSci world was that it was not progressive. In fact, our experience was that most were unknowing agents for the neoliberals. Aestheticizing the domination of nature, acting as lab public relations agents, and worst of all making science look mysterious and cultish. “Only a genius like myself can understand the mysteries of art and science.” And people believed it. The contempt we had for that attitude is difficult to describe. The alienation that they would create was unforgivable. We would tell people that scientific work is not that difficult to understand in a general sense, and that lab work is little more than following a cake recipe. Not wanting to be affiliated with so much of the work that was being generated was why we stopped, and returned to doing art and politics without the sci. Perhaps it’s better 10 years later. Someone please show me that my opinion is an artifact of the past. And while I am on ethical bankruptcy, I do think it’s important to address educational institutions, because they are bureaucracies that endure even when there is regime change. Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) culture as it now exists in the US at tech universities is the worst, and it’s what many state universities now aspire to so they can promise jobs to the debt slaves formerly known as students. (The Ivy League schools will remain universities proper, so the wealthy may do as they will.) In STEM culture, students are absolved of all criticality. It’s all problem-solving education. Just solve the technical problem, it’s someone else’s job to make the policy. If something horrible happens in society or the environment, it’s not your problem—it’s the policy-makers problem. And just to make sure you won’t accidently stumble into a place where you might have a critical thought, the arts and humanities will be purged from the campus. Welcome to Cal Tech (often ranked as America’s top university). We do need to do something on college campuses before art is reduced to drawing and art appreciation and English is reduced to technical writing courses. The purge is on. “Amateur” is another term that needs to be called attention to again. In the US the term is in crisis. Right now it means that any know-nothing with an opinion (amateur) should be considered equal to or better than experts, specialists, and those who have reviewed a topic with interest and care so that they may participate in a knowledgeable way in debates on the issue (what an amateur should be). This is part of the reason the US currently has a political system packed with total incompetents. In a moment of total double-think, particularly among populists, ignorance equals intelligence and capability. I am unsure whether ArtSci should be a discipline unto itself. I’m cautious. It makes me think back to the 80s when all the radical break-away English and Philosophy professors started semiotics departments. Don’t see many of those any more.
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