Acoustic Space Vol. 15 2016

OPEN FIELDS. Art and Science Research Practices in the Network Society

This Open Fields volume presents artistic research that is located in the contested territory between academic knowledge production and independent creative practices. The book presents the interwoven histories of art and science in the digital age, by investigating the changing role of art in the network society. In previous volumes, we opened multiple conversations about how art can not only criticize and thereby provide a mirror for society, but how it can also more directly intervene in material and social structures. We are now continuing this discussion by asking: How can art and other creative practices meaningfully contribute to the environmental, technological and scientific challenges of our time?

The first chapter is dedicated to contemporary aesthetics and its immediate forerunners, starting around forty years ago. This is followed by a chapter on media art histories in Eastern Europe. The third chapter brings together specific issues in art and scientific research with speculative and phenomenological, and philosophical questioning. And last but not least, the fourth chapter gives an insight into some more recent exhibitions and art projects in which artists, by exploring “open fields”, challenge the notions of art and contemporary aesthetics.

Authors and contributors: Christiane Paul, Ernest Edmonds, Jamie Allen And Ryan Jordan, Laura Beloff, Rajashree Biswal, Jim Boulton, Brogan Bunt, Dana Catona, Ksenia Fedorova, Darko Fritz, Simon Hagemann, Roddy Hunter, Aleksandra Kaminska, Raivo Kelomees And Stacey Koosel, Jung-Yeon Ma, Vytautas Michelkevičius And Lina Michelkevičė, José A. Oliveira, Aneta Panek, Andrew Gryf Paterson, David Thomas.