Creative Agar: The Exploratorium’s Artist Residencies
“Through an evolutionary process, a culture has emerged [at the Exploratorium] that nurtures playful investigation, experimentation, and a propensity for taking risks.” - Peter Richards, Founder, Exploratorium Artist-in-Residence Program
I have worked with the Exploratorium’s Artist-in-Residence program for twenty years. During that time, the museum has gathered artists to help us create numerous exhibits on a wide spectrum of scientific concepts, including genetics, navigation, light and color, sound, dynamics, culture, geometry, memory, sports, time, AIDS, water, and vibrations (just to name a few). We include artists in almost all of our activities, because artists–whether on staff or participating in invited residencies–add an essential voice to our investigations of the world around us. Science and art are two of many ways of looking at the world, and I have learned that the most iconic, expressive, and engaging exhibits are usually those that let the viewer see the world through both artistic and scientific lenses. With this dual viewpoint, a visitor can actually flip back and forth as with an optical illusion, to critically examine a subject from both perspectives. This combination of aesthetics, information, and direct experience often creates the most memorable and provocative results.
However, the success of an artist’s residency is measured by more than the product left behind. In fact, many creative experiments, whether developed in the Exploratorium’s machine shop or the artist’s studio, never make it to the museum floor. It is the process, the dialogue engendered during the experiment, which is invaluable, because it often produces unexpected outcomes and innovative solutions to problems yet to be fully articulated. If I have learned anything during these years, it is that ideas are like a well filled with fresh spring water: they are constantly renewing, invigorating, and refreshing. When the relationship between the arts and sciences is symbiotic, the Exploratorium acts much like a catalyst in a chemical reaction, introducing the artist to scientific advisors and staff experts who in turn bring fresh ideas back to the museum. Quite literally, the Exploratorium is an institution fueled by such collaborations.
The importance of this concept of bringing the arts and sciences together to cultivate a creative environment cannot be overstated, and it manifests itself in unexpected and unpredictable outcomes. Here are a few examples:
- A concert cellist from Australia, Sarah Hopkins was interested in experimenting with the corrugated plastic sound toys sometimes called “whirlies.” In 1988, she met Exploratorium physicist and teacher Paul Doherty, who subsequently became deeply fascinated with these seemingly simple playthings. Together, they embarked on an intensive investigation of exactly what was going on when a whirling whirly made its humming music. Sarah left with a better understanding of her newfound concert instrument–and Paul created a full science curriculum based around it. For many years afterward, when Sarah came into town, she invited Paul to perform in her concerts. And to this day, a low thrumming sound can often be heard throughout the Exploratorium as Paul whirls a thirty-foot tube around his head, explaining the complicated physics behind this amazing sound. His interest was emotional as well as scientific: In one issue of the Exploratorium’s quarterly magazine, he noted, “As Sarah played, tingles ran down my spine; her music recalled emotions that I have felt while sitting high in the mountains at night, listening to the wind wail through jumbled blocks of granite. I felt alone in the universe, but at peace.”(For a hilarious and instructive description of that project from Paul’s perspective, please go to http://isaac.exploratorium.edu/~pauld/activities/AAAS/aaas2001.html.)
- In 2007, resident artist Kal Spelletich created a large mechanical sculpture called Master Mind Machine as part of the museum’s new Mind collection devoted to helping visitors investigate thinking and feeling. I was struck by the positive impact Kal had on many of our other exhibit developers. He is an excellent problem solver, has an open personality, and is extremely knowledgeable about technical devices and building techniques. He has formed an especially tight and productive partnership with Ray Gruenig, an electrical engineer and one of our most experienced developers. These two have launched an exploration into human-machine interfaces, experimenting with the possibilities offered by EEGs, sweat-detecting devices, and other ways that people can interact with robots. The results of these unplanned explorations will surely be reflected in upcoming exhibits.
- Sound artist Trimpin visited us in 1990 on a mission to suspend a gamelan–an Indonesian percussion instrument–within a magnetic field. (The intent was to free the gamelan from its usual mount and let the undampened instrument resonate as fully as possible.) Trimpin worked with an Exploratorium engineer to explore new ways of making the project work, and together they refined a technique for using a magnetic field to float the top of a nitrogen tank. The engineer ultimately realized that what they’d learned together would help him redesign an existing exhibit and allow it to work better than it ever had before. As in all good partnerships, both parties got something out of the collaboration.
- Chico MacMurtrie was a young artist who came to the museum with energy, ideas, and passion, and he was ripe for new technical challenges. Dave Fleming, one of our technical experts in the machine shop, introduced Chico to pneumatics. This initial exposure to a relatively simple technology had a major impact on Chico’s work and led to his becoming a major artist in the realm of large-scale mechanical sculptures.
The Process
It’s clear that these and other collaborations have been fundamental to the creation of many unplanned and exciting works. But how do these residencies actually work? Initially, each opportunity is structured organically. Most of our larger exhibit-development projects (often funded by the National Science Foundation), such as our current project exploring nanoscale science, are driven by a diverse team of exhibit developers, scientists, and other staff. The team and I work together to determine a process for identifying and selecting artist(s). This process may include putting out a full-fledged call for proposals or making direct solicitations to individual artists. After receiving proposals and support materials, we work together to reduce the group to a manageable number, and we bring in local artists to present their work to the group. We may invite artists from out of the area for an “exploratory” residency, a one- or two-week opportunity for institution and artist to get to know each other. After we familiarize ourselves with each other, we’re all in a better position to determine the most appropriate collaborations for creating an exhibition or display.
In general, once an artist is selected for a residency, one member of the project team (usually an experienced exhibit developer) is assigned to work directly with the artist. This person acts as a liaison, introducing the artist to the culture of the institution, helping to familiarize them with the procedures and traditions of the machine shop, and acting as a general technical consultant.
This open process insures that the artist has maximum exposure to the various working areas within the museum–and this is key, because I can never predict when or where a productive liaison will crop up. In fact, some of these relationships last a lifetime, the partnerships forged during the residencies taking on new life as the collaborators continue to work on new projects together. (Sometimes, because of a lack of facilities or scheduling conflicts, we have allowed the bulk of a residency to take place offsite. Although such situations can allow for the creation of a successful work of art, they tend to lack the powerful exchange of ideas which I have come to value as the hallmark of a successful residency, presumably because immersion within the Exploratorium culture is a core ingredient in that success.)
In truth, everyone at the Exploratorium benefits immeasurably from being able to work with visiting artists. I am particularly struck by the ability of artists to translate and make sense of our world. They bring fresh perspectives, innovative ways of problem solving, and an extraordinary sense of how to present difficult ideas to a diverse public. In fact, I think of them as a sampling of our public: interesting people interested in being exposed to interesting ideas. When a residency truly “flows,” an interdependent relationship is formed with both artists and institution reaping the benefits, both positively affected by this multidisciplinary discourse. I often refer to this invisible intellectual palette as the “creative agar” of the Exploratorium, a Petri dish brimming with unseen possibility, waiting for a new idea that will ignite the imaginations of both staff and visitors.
Pamela Winfrey is Senior Artist at the Exploratorium.