Doctoral Dissertation Research: Hannah Rogers: SymbioticA: The Practices of Art and Science

这项博士论文研究改进基金由生物科学理事会和美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术和社会（STS）计划之间的生物与社会倡议资助，支持探索“艺术”和“科学”如何作为界定知识体系的类别的研究。该研究探讨了知识社区如何在不同的背景下对艺术和科学对象进行标记和物质塑造。这项研究的重点是生物艺术家，以及他们如何理解和与生物知识生产相关的材料。通过他们的作品，生物艺术家展示和挑战更广泛的美学、伦理和政治价值观。生物艺术运动的成员使用生物材料和实验室技术来创作对现代生物学提出批判性质疑的项目。该项目在西澳大利亚大学由艺术家运营的生物研究实验室SymbioticA进行人种学研究。SymbioticA的参与者根据对艺术/科学区别的特定理解来定位他们的活动。这种对生物艺术作品的调查可以为思考公众如何通过艺术参与科学问题和科学民主化提供新的途径。这项研究还将通过解开艺术和科学的分类，为知识系统如何运作的学术研究做出贡献。该项目将展示不同背景下的社会行动者如何以“艺术”或“科学”的修辞方式产生知识。这个项目的智力价值在于洞察生命科学中具体批评的本质，并对当前将概念作为类别进行分析的STS奖学金做出贡献。这项研究的一个更广泛的影响是，它调查了艺术如何告知和参与我们对科学的理解。

This doctoral dissertation research improvement grant--funded through the Biology & Society initiative between the Biological Sciences Directorate and the Science, Technology & Society (STS) Program at NSF--supports research that explores the question of how "art" and "science" work as categories that circumscribe bodies of knowledge. The research interrogates how knowledge communities label and materially shape artistic and scientific objects in various contexts. This research focuses on bioartists and how they understand and struggle with materials associated with biological knowledge production. Through their work, bioartists demonstrate and contest broader aesthetic, ethical, and political values. The members of the bioart movement use biological materials and laboratory techniques to create projects that critically question modern biology. This project conducts an ethnographic study at the artist-run biological research laboratory, SymbioticA, located at the University of Western Australia. SymbioticA actors position their activities according to a particular understanding of the art/science distinction. This investigation of bioart work can offer new ways to think about how the public can be engaged in scientific issues and the democratization of science through art.The research will also contribute to scholarship on how knowledge systems work by unpacking the categories of art and science. The project will show how social actors in different contexts rhetorically produce knowledge as either "art" or as "science." The intellectual merit of this project is insight into the nature of specific critiques in the life sciences and contributions to current STS scholarship that analyzes concepts as categories. A broader impact of this research is that it investigates how art can inform and engage our understanding of science.