Metamorphoses: Gaming Art and Science with Ovid

2010年，生物艺术家莎拉·克拉斯克（Sarah Craske）在东肯特一家旧货店的一个布满蜘蛛网的角落里偶然发现了奥维德《变形记》（Metamorphoses）的早期英文译本。它的历史可以追溯到1735年，在近300年的历史中，它从一个读者传到另一个读者，收集了层层的生物历史（细菌、病毒、皮肤细胞），就像书中故事的神本身从一件事到另一件事一样确定无疑。科学与技术研究学者夏洛特·斯莱在与克拉斯克和另一位合作者（科学家西蒙·帕克）的谈话中很快意识到，这本书既是科学/艺术项目的一个伟大研究对象，也是一个隐喻，用于理解科学和艺术混合的“方式”，在一个充满生物、文学和视觉多样性数据的世界中为我们创造意义。就像现实世界一样，这本书既可以作为科学实验（关于细菌等）来阅读，也可以作为文学或美学文本来阅读。在Sleigh的指导（或评审）下，Craske和Park将一起为这本书制作一个混合科学艺术知识的展览。例如，他们可能会尝试重新创造那些在书中留下基因的生物。或者他们可能会以某种方式将书中的材料变回它们的组成部分（用牛来制作皮革，用树来制作木浆）。唯一的规则是，他们必须就共同进行的每一步研究达成一致。当他们在实验台上一起工作时，他们的争论和妥协将被记录下来。该项目的观察员Sleigh将梳理和分析这些记录，从他们在科学和艺术上的立场出发，寻找帕克和克拉斯克理解和误解对方的方式。他们的研究选择，通过思维导图软件记录下来，并由Sleigh挑选，将形成基于网络的手机游戏的基础，鼓励展览的参观者（和其他用户）反思自己对艺术/科学边界的看法和经验：每个领域使用的语言和实践。

In 2010, bio-artist Sarah Craske stumbled upon a very early English translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses in a cobwebby corner of an East Kent junk shop. It dated from 1735, and in its nearly 300 years of existence it had passed from reader to reader, picking up layers of biological history (bacteria, viruses, skin cells) just as surely as the gods of the stories in the volume themselves changed from one thing to another. Science & technology studies scholar Charlotte Sleigh, in conversation with Craske and another collaborator (scientist Simon Park), quickly realised that the book was both a great *object* of study for a science/art project, but also a metaphor for understanding the *ways* in which science and art hybridise to create meaning for us in a world that is packed with data of biological, literary and visual varieties. Just like the real world, this book could be read as a scientific experiment (on the bacteria etc.) or as a literary or aesthetic text. Under the direction (or refereeing) of Sleigh, Craske and Park will work together on the book to produce an exhibition of hybrid science-art knowledge. For example, they might try and recreate the organisms that have left their genes upon its pages. Or they might in some way metamorphose the book's materials back into their constituent parts (a cow for the leather, a tree for the wood pulp). The only rule is that they must agree on each research step that they take together. As they work together at the lab bench, their arguments and compromises will be documented. This record will be teased out and analysed by the project's observer, Sleigh, seeking out the ways in which Park and Craske understand and misunderstand one another from their positions in science and art. Their research choices, recorded via mind-mapping software and selected by Sleigh, will form the basis for web-based mobile game that encourages visitors to the exhibition (and other users) to reflect on their own opinions and experiences of the art/science boundary: the languages and the practices that are used in each field.