Placing art practice into the field of bioimaging: Testing play as a methodological tool to explore and reflect upon art practice

Bioimaging experiments are carried out in discrete labs, and artists are rarely granted access. They are an underused resource for artists-researchers. In this article I demonstrate how I as an artist-researcher can contribute to Art--Science initiatives in pharmacological research by working in an Advanced Imaging and Microscopy lab and responding innovatively to current circumstances in bioimaging. I do this through thinking about scientific and artistic interdisciplinary practice in a playful way. Informed by established play theories and practices from the literature I reviewed, studied, and then adapted. I conducted research at The School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham and evaluated play as an insightful concept to provoke a reaction to scientific methods.