STEAM, Ars Electronica’s, Virtual Garden. In Keplers Garden

STEAM

Demystifying Arts and Sciences through Playful Creative Technologies

Jo Berry (UK)

Jo Berry has implemented playful, creative methodologies to seek art’s value, purpose and interpretational impact when it takes as its start point advanced imaging and microscopy. Her claim is that art can be a significant contributing factor to new directives in advanced imaging and microscopy; its impact intensified through applying play as a method to interrogate ideas, processes and outcomes. She offers a new model of research, which engages play as the critical driver to accomplish a more agile, accessible and open method of examining science via a different set of criteria. This hypothesis is based on my own prior experience as a researcher working directly with scientists and experiencing scientific method where I became convinced that artists should be central to scientific inquiry not just working on the periphery. As it would seem there needs to be a paradigm shift within science which, she claims, can be activated through examining play through art and identifying its effect on aspects of culture, creativity and aesthetics.

The research she has undertaken has its roots in a collaboration of over 10 years with the School of Life Sciences, Nottingham University and their project Advanced imaging and Microscopy. Hijacking Natural Systems funded by Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England, Derby City Council and Derby Museum & Arts Gallery. This was a highly successful project nominated by Nottingham University for The Times Higher Education Award and cited by the Wellcome Trust as an exemplar of a successful Arts and Engagement project. Artwork from this project was featured in the BBC4 TV series The Beauty of Anatomy presented by Dr Adam Rutherford.

The work focused on understanding the events that happen inside cells in response to Grehlin, and how this information could be used to develop drugs that turn hunger on and off as possible treatments for obesity and diabetes. The research and artwork produced provide a visual interpretation of how the hunger hormone Grehlin stimulates the body’s cells.