Sciart 2004
In 2004 the Sciart scheme supported over 30 projects through Production, Experiment and Research and Development Awards.
The Invisible Stain
Filmmaker Roz Mortimer (of Wonderdog Productions) will develop an experimental documentary exploring the recently discovered presence of persistent organic pollutants and endocrine disrupting contaminants in the environment, particularly the potential effects of these pollutants on Inuit communities living in the arctic rim. Mortimer will work with Dr Theo Colborn of the World Wildlife Fund; Sheila Watt-Cloutier, International Chair of Inuit Circumpolar Conference; and Eric Long, an environmental researcher at the National Organisation for Inuit.
Award: £100 000
Project Façade
Project Façade will explore historical and contemporary surgical practice in facial reconstruction, particularly the use of bioactive materials in reconstructive surgery. This will include the production of wearable, transformational sculpture garments for the face and upper torso. The project will culminate in a series of exhibitions and a website. Project collaborators are Paddy Hartley, artist; Dr Ian Thompson, Research Fellow at Guy's Hospital; and Dr Andrew Bamji, Curator of the Gillies Archive, Sidcup.
Award: £110 300
Dawn Chorus
Artist Marcus Coates will work with sound recordist Geoff Sample and Peter MacGregor from the University of Copenhagen, to develop an exhibition and education project exploring birdsong. The work will comprise a large-scale bio-acoustic video installation of bird songs sung, with the aid of digital manipulation, by members of the public. The project will explore birdsong as a system of competing processes evolved to optimise species survival.
Award: £98 400
Ex Memoria
Film director Josh Appignanesi will work with Dr Stephen Rose and the Bradford Dementia Group to produce a short fiction film exploring the experience of Dementia through a 'face-to-face encounter'. The film will be distributed on the short film festival circuit and reproduced on DVD. The DVD will be accompanied by training materials to target carers working with the elderly privately and in care homes.
Award: £88 000
Aversion to Contemporary Art
Artist Debbie Ayles uses phenomena experienced during her migraine attacks as a source of inspiration for her paintings, which explore the causes of visual stress. Working with Dr Arnold Wilkins, Professor of Psychology at the University of Essex, the artist will digitise the paintings and alter the spatial periodicity and colour contrast so that samples of the images, thus filtered, can be judged on a scale of 'aversion'.
Award: £14 800
Cardio-active
Artist Pauline Aitken will explore, at a microscopic level, the changes in structure and form that the human heart undergoes as coronary disease manifests. The cellular structures within the human heart will be compared with micrographic images of the plant digitalis - the source of a long-used cardio-active drug.
Award: £14 900
Comedy of Errors - Tragedy of Decisions
'Comedy of Errors - Tragedy of Decisions' brings together academic and artistic approaches to explore questions of public and philosophical involvement in the production of science. The aim is to construct an installation by means of a structured collection of text, audio and video fragments, photographs and artefacts.
Award: £14 700
Ere Be Dragons
'Ere Be Dragons' addresses the current public health issue of obesity and illness caused by inactivity, through the creation of an artwork/game that links health science, creative gaming and contemporary hybrid art. The project will be led by Dr Stephen Boyd Davis (Lansdowne Centre for Electronic Arts, Middlesex University), working with Active Ingredient digital arts organisation and Professor Chris Riddoch of the London Institute for Sports and Exercise.
Award: £15 000
Haunt
Artist Usman Haque will experiment with environmental factors such as humidity, temperature and electromagnetic and sonic frequencies that parapsychologists have associated with haunted spaces, to create an environment that feels 'haunted'. The project aims to explore how our perceptions are intricately affected by environmental factors of which we may not be immediately conscious.
Award: £15 000
Hybrids: Towards a New Typology of Beings
'Hybrids' explores the emergence of biological hybrids in biotechnologies, and our human, personal, moral, aesthetic and socio-cultural responses to them. The project will focus on xenotransplantation and the breeding of GM animals incorporating human genetic material. A series of 'educational' human/non human anatomical models, books and charts will be developed by designer Elio Caccavale.
Award: £15 000
Provincia Adumbrata - encounters in the realm of shadows
Artist Gerhard Lang will work with the New Scotland Yard collection of 37 plaster heads of hanged murderers, cast after execution and preserved by the Crime Museum, London. The artist will explore some of the historical, social and ethical aspects associated with the collection to develop a body of artwork.
Award: £14 600
Small Animal Animations to Reduce Stress
Artist Suky Best will prototype a series of drawn graphic animations that are abstractions from the movements of groups of small animals, insects and organisms. Initially, the animations will be displayed in hospital waiting areas, where their effectiveness in reducing stress levels will be monitored via interview and questionnaire.
Award: £15 000
In Rooms Beyond Museum Walls
Over a period of six months, artist Graham Ainsley will explore the stories and histories of the Natural History Museum's Entomology Department and the individuals who worked there prior to their relocation to the new Darwin Centre complex. The artist, working with photographer Matt Carr, will create a body of work in response to this research.
Award: £15 000
Choreographing for the Brain
The project team will reanalyse the fMRI data obtained in a recent study to identify which features of dance moves optimally excite the three key areas of the brain observed to be stimulated in the previous experiment. The outcomes of this research will be a series of new dance moves designed to target each of these specific areas. Project collaborators are Patrick Haggard, Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL, and Wayne McGregor, choreographer and director of Random Dance.
Award: £5000
Seeing Clearly: Light, sculpture and the eye
Cataract is the largest cause of blindness in the world, and results in opacities of the ocular lens. 'Seeing Clearly' will aim to raise awareness of this condition by a series of lectures and practical workshops involving porcelain sculpture and experiments on light transmission through those sculptures. Project collaborators are James Crabbe, Professor of Protein Biochemistry at the University of Reading, and Margaret O'Rorke, ceramic artist.
Award: £5000
An Indefinite Continuity
Artist Drew Mulholland will undertake a period of research to explore the links between psychology, geography and memory through a series of field trips, interviews and site-specific evaluation. The research involves conducting interviews with writers, filmmakers, curators and habituees of specific psycho-geographically significant areas and the feelings and perceptions they have experienced.
Award: £5000
Relative
'Relative' is an artistic exploration of the recent history of 'everyday' madness. Filmmakers Tim Shore and Gary Thomas will conduct an investigation from their own (lay) perspective, and will probe secrets, mythologies and hidden narratives of madness that weave through their personal family histories. The results will be developed into an artist's film/installation project.
Award: £4300
Anatomy of Knowledge
Artist William Cobbing will work with curators and archivists to explore their museums' collections as environments in which to stimulate artistic intervention by considering the metaphorical relationships between structures of anatomy and human knowledge. The artist will use this research period to develop experimental ideas for site-specific artworks.
Award: £4600
Bridging 2 Cultures Day
The Silbury Group, a group of artists, will facilitate a day of workshops bringing together international artists, medical staff from local hospitals in Milton Keynes and scientists based at the Open University to explore crossovers between their disciplines and co-create a series of artworks. The work produced will be exhibited locally and documented on a CD-ROM and website.
Award: £2700
The Man Who Discovered that Women Lay Eggs
The project team from Full Beam Visual Theatre, Bristol, will work with a group of scientists and science communicators through a series of workshops and discussions to develop ideas for a theatrical performance based on two questions: how culture and religion have shaped understandings of women's bodies, and how these ideas inform contemporary understandings of women - their biological and social roles.
Award: £5000
Soft Materials
'Soft Materials' addresses the relationship between mind, body, technology and imagination. A model of neural interfacing will be created through a dance performance with robots and 'body awareness' trained dancers. The dancers will 'simulate' a model of neural interfacing by responding to the robots' movements, which in turn will respond to external stimuli. The project is led by artist, Daria Martin working at the Artificial Intelligence Lab, University of Zurich and is supported by The Showroom Gallery, London.
Award: £5000
In-spire
Artist Michael Burton and architect Jason Pearson will work with Emma Reading, Head of Dance Science at Laban, to study the ephemeral qualities of aerobic respiration as a central, involuntary process that takes place during dance performance. The research aims to give an insight into these biological processes through the creation of a real-time, instantaneous interface (using digital and telematic technologies).
Award: £5000
Locomotion Experiment
'Locomotion Experiment' will bring together artists with different physical abilities, through a series of workshops to experiment with mobility aids with the aim of creating a series of dance sequences. Students from Glasgow University will create designs to support movement development, inspired by the creative process and the requirements of the performers.
Award: £5000
D'Alembert's Dream: A feasibility study
The project team will undertake a feasibility study towards the dramatisation of Denis Diderot's 'D'Alembert's Dream', a seminal 18th-century text envisaging the cosmos as an entirely material creation that conceptualised consciousness as a physiological phenomenon. The aim is to produce a contemporary dramatisation of the text, involving the visions and ideas of current biomedical scientists.
Award: £5000
Now You See It, Now You Don't: Change blindness unveiled
This project focuses on the psychological phenomenon of change blindness, which is a failure to notice dramatic changes to visual scenes, often because the change is outside the observer's focus of attention or does not conform to their expectations. Jan de Fockert, Lecturer in Psychology at Goldsmith's College, will collaborate with artist Arnaud Desjardin to create a series of short films and animations.
Award: £5000
Let's Experiment with Our Selves
Artist Neal White will undertake a three-month residency at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) to investigate the phenomenon of 'self-experimentation', a sensitive subject within contemporary biomedical research. During his placement the artist hopes to underpin some of the socio-cultural, political, ethical and financial parameters that shape this subject in both artistic and scientific fields.
Award: £5000
Rodent Respect
Troy Margrie, from the Department of Physiology at University College London, will work with artist Julia Kuhl to undertake a series of interviews with scientists who use rodents as experimental subjects. The interviews will be free form and anonymous. The artist will respond to the interview material through a series of drawings. Audio and visual material will be brought together and presented in an exhibition.
Award: £5000
Exploring the Intimate Experience of Biomedical Self-test Kits
Interaction designers Indri Tulusan and Roger Ibars will undertake a period of research to explore the 'experience' of using home fertility test kits. By inviting a group of individuals to take part in a 'trial', the team will collect documentary material through interviewing the participants about their experiences.
Award: £5000
Fictional Memory
'Fictional Memory' is a collaborative study of the relationship between observation and recall. Artist David Fryer and neuroscientist Daniel Kelly will use video surveillance and audio recording equipment to capture real life events from the day-to-day lives of a subject group. This 'digital memory' will be used as a benchmark to compare the subjects' own autobiographical memories.
Award: £5000