Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Throughout history, artistic practice has been committed to an attentive observation of everything that affects us as human beings, contributing significantly to the definition of our cultural context. It is not surprising, therefore, that the current location of artistic creation in the university environment and its permanent contact with other fields of knowledge is feeding artists’ interest in scientific advances. This confluence has in turn provoked the revision of artistic practice and its methodological keys to adapt it to the framework of knowledge production in other disciplines of a scientific-technical nature. But this convergence also facilitates the possible interactions between art and science, so fruitful throughout the history of art. Our research group at the University of Salamanca ITACA (Research and Transfer in Art and Audiovisual Culture) has developed in the last year innovative teaching projects with art students and professional artists in order to orientate the processes of artistic enquiry towards those activities and developments of the current science. In this communication we present the working method and the results of the creative work of students of the degree in Fine Arts and artists of the University of Salamanca who have carried out laboratory activities with scientists in the field of neuroscience and genetics and have subsequently exhibited the artistic creations based on the scientific concepts learned. This double exhibition has served to present the complete creative processes as well as the final artistic work and to disseminate scientific concepts based on this dialogue between science and art.