“Heard” presented by Stanford and Silk
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Interdisciplinary Innovations (pictorials/visual essays)
Presentation Title:
- Heard
Presentation Subtheme:
- Speculative Practices
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
A simple key word search in Google Scholar returns articles on the “site specific installation” of proteins into cells, or electroactive units into layers of dendrons, exposing the authors and creators of “Heard” to a world of drawings, photos and diagrams, a library of analogues illustrating the chemistry of life. Fascinated by how the phrase “site-specific installation” is shared between the disciplines of science and art, the authors looked to create a different kind of analogue. Using Wilson’s Consilience Theory, the authors/artists used multiple sources of evidence to drive a conclusion. In this case, the authors created an artifact that affords a glimpse of sometimes invisible but not insignificant, unheard and unseen connections between all living things. In pushing into the affordances of the materials and technologies, the final artefact challenges traditional conceptualizations of what chemistry, and therefore by extension, what life looks like.
