This talk describes the art work I have made in scientific laboratories.
I begin by describing the artistic methods used (influenced by surrealism), and how these are imported into scientific environments. The idea is to develop imagery based on recording the overlooked – or a kind of 'underside' - of science.

INFLUENCE OF SURREALISM AND FEMINISM

Methods developed during PhD

• Suspension of the rational mind (importance of darkness)
• The Subconscious
• The Role of Accident
• Ambiguity
• Darkness (shifts away from sight and brings the body into the making process)
PINHOLE CAMERA
• Non-predictive
• Abdication of control over the visual field
• Use of chance
• Changing viewpoints
• Long exposure time
SCIENCE LABORATORY
(a physical space where scientific facts/theories are produced)
The laboratory has the following characteristics:
Geometric
Hard-edged
Purity
Repetition
Whitish light (spiritual?)
Grids/classification

The laboratory is designed to enable the scientist to carry out experiments effectively.
The laboratory’ is conceptualised as a sealed capsule, set apart from the real world, where discipline is imposed on the subjects studied. In ‘the lab’ scientific methods are designed to ensure non-contamination and repeatability. These conditions are premised on a dynamic of power and control that prescribes who is the observer and who is observed. In these circumstances it is necessary for the scientist to cut out his/her own presence from the experiment. My art work – if intermittently - reintroduces the presence of the scientist/human as they carry out research tasks. These appearances will have an element of chance contrasting with the ‘controlled’ culture of the lab.
The writings of social scientist and anthropologist Bruno Latour about science have been useful in understanding the laboratory as a critical space within which scientific knowledge if produced.

LABORATORY LIFE: THE CONSTRUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC FACTS (Latour and Woolgar, 1979)
Wiki abstract: The initial methodology of Laboratory Life involves an 'anthropological strangeness' (40) in which the laboratory is a tribe foreign to the researcher. The study of the lab begins with a semi-fictionalized account of an ignorant observer who knows nothing of laboratories or scientists. In this account, Latour and Woolgar 'bracket' (44) their previous knowledge of scientific practice and ironically ask seemingly-nonsensical questions about observed practices in the laboratory, such as 'Are the heated debates in front of the blackboard part of some gambling contest?' In the asking and answering of these questions, the observer’s understanding of laboratory practices is gradually refined, leading to a strong focus on the significance of paper documents.


PROJECTS:

• GENOMIC DIRT
There is no such thing as dirt – it is simply a substance out of place
Mary Douglas

• TOPOLOGY OF THE GENOME

• MOLECULAR LABORATORY: RE-PRESENTING TIME

• WELLCOME TRUST SANGER INSTITUTE

• FISH-EYE-I BATH BIOSCIENCE TRANSPARENT FISH PROJECT

Details can be found on
http://deborah-robinson.net/home

Authors:
Mary Douglas: Purity and Danger (on ritual/substances out of place)
Michel Serres: The Parasite (on the message/noise)
Donna Harraway: Companion Species (working animals shared pain/ethics)
Lorraine Dalston: Relationship between Observer/Observed
Foucault: On science