Extraordinary Renditions: The Cultural Negotiation of Science For the British Science Festival 2013
CHRISTINE BORLAND & BRODY CONDON, FIONA CRISP, CHRIS DORSETT BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead UK
7–12 September 2013

Extraordinary Renditions: the Cultural Negotiation of Science was an exhibition collectively conceived and produced for the British Science Festival 2013 by Christine Borland/Brody Condon, Fiona Crisp and Chris Dorsett.  For the duration of the festival, the Level 1 spaces at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art were used to show evolving projects that variously challenged the instrumental status of art in the promotion of scientific understanding.

Visitors were invited to explore the possibility that art can negotiate the ethical, political and philosophical dilemmas that place scientific achievement outside the ‘ordinary’ and engage with creative approaches that render knowledge, most usually associated with the scientific realm, as a stimulating form of contemporary art.

A symposium and networking event took place during the exhibition that explored how this extra-ordinary knowledge can be ‘performed’, rather than illustrated, and saw the artists share current research and foster new associations with invited scientists, artists, writers and curators.

Participants included Professor Volker Straub, Harold Macmillan Professor of Medicine from the Institute of Human Genetics; artist Mariele Neudecker who had produced artworks with Invisible Dust in collaboration with Deep Sea scientist, Professor Alex Rogers, Department of Zoology, Oxford University; Alan Smith, artist and director of Allenheads Contemporary Arts who ran the cross-disciplinary project “95%”; Alice Sharp, curator and director Invisible Dust, London and Dr. Rob La Frenais, freelance curator and formerly curator of Arts Catalyst, London.

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