When scientific research explores artistic questions
Swiss visual artist Alan Bogana created a multimedia project, Light-Oriented Ontologies, which explores interactions between light and matter using scientific techniques © Alan Bogana
From visual arts and sculpture to sound, film and puppetry, all projects led by the four artists in the College of Humanities Artist-in-Residence (AiR) program, ‘Enter the Hyper-Scientific’ started in the same way – and, indeed, in the same way as any scientific project: with a question.
Starting in the spring of 2022, EPFL hosted four artistic residencies. Each artist worked closely with one or more EPFL laboratories to create a project, which was exhibited at the EPFL Pavilions in early 2023: Spheroids (by Joel Kuennen), Rational and Irrational Numbers (by Riccardo Giacconi), Synthetic Landscapes by Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, and Light-Oriented Ontologies (by Alan Bogana).
Here, each artist takes us on a journey through the process of answering their questions, using a unique combination of methods that blurs the line between artistic and scientific inquiry.
I think that a common aspect of art and science is the relationship to the unknown and how we deal with it; what kinds of questions we ask ourselves
© Joel Kuennen, Spheroids, 2023