Fieldwork - A Conceptual Methodology Linking Science and Art

Abstract

Fieldwork - A Conceptual Methodology Linking Science and Art.

This exegesis presents the outcomes of artistic fieldwork in the Arctic and the Antarctic - locations which are the focus of intensive scientific exploration and research. The primary fieldwork site for my research was the South Pole and fieldwork there in the austral summer of 2006/17 was completed under a US National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Fellowship in collaboration with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.

This project researches interconnections between the aspirations, methodologies, and outcomes of scientific and artistic inquiry as demonstrated through the mode of fieldwork. The field provides a cleared space of work for comparative investigation of the methodologies and approaches of science and art. Artmaking and astrophysics are approached as two congruent practices of fieldwork. Both entail challenging logistics, the deployment of sensitive, hand-made and untried instruments, improvisation and adjustment to accommodate field conditions and unexpected contingencies, and comprehending and interpreting the resulting data.

Objectivity is as a key aspect of both contemporary art and science, and instruments act as devices of constraint to reduce subjectivity in both. The conceptualisation of instruments as devices of constraint within both science and the visual arts proved to be an effective research strategy. This approach has allowed me to consider scientific instruments from an artist's perspective, to design and create my own instruments for deployment in conjunction with scientific instruments, to develop collaborations with scientists and to locate my research within an original analysis of aspects of contemporary art practice.

The artistic outcomes of my fieldwork take a conceptual approach to making art connected to the Antarctic and Arctic environments that goes beyond the pictorial, narrative and didactic. The outcomes are analysed using original perspectives derived from scientific analysis. My approach has been to reconsider the terms 'field', 'noise', 'signal', 'pareidolia', 'artefact', 'instrument', 'transcription' and 'transduction'. These terms are used as lenses through which to examine contemporary artistic practice and the outcomes of my own research. It is argued that the circumscription of these concepts and the location of cultural and physical fields in which they can operate delineates a common ground between science and art.