Presentation 

Art, Nature and Technology is a research network based at the Department of Aesthetic Studies at Aarhus University, where it has focused on the interconnections between the three areas in its title since autumn 2005.

The network draws together researchers from the Department of Aesthetic Studies, the Department of Science Studies and the Department of Information and Media Studies at Aarhus University, as well as research staff at The Steno Museum, and serves as a fruitful forum for interdisciplinary discussion and debate.

The research into the triad of art, nature and technology covers culture-historical perspectives and ranges from medieval handicraft to postmodern convergences.

The research network meets frequently to discuss subjects like hybridity, digital music, the ruined, medieval visual technology, the genesis of illness, cloud formations and pataphysics. Occasionally, other researchers, specialists or graduate students are invited to give a presentation of their work. Furthermore, exhibition concepts have been discussed with curators from The Steno Museum and Statens Museum for Kunst.

The focus of the network is based on observations of current and past convergences between art, nature and technology involving connections and conflicts between the fields that have produced many different kinds of art and theory. This is evident, for example, in antique and medieval culture, where mimetic art was part of a large common domain of artefacts – the Greek techné and the Latin ars. This area was thought to function according to the same principles as nature, given that man finished what nature intended but could not fulfil. Likewise, today art seems to interact more closely with nature and technology than has been demanded by the enlightenment legacy.

The network has organized two seminars:

• Genesis – about creation in art, nature and technology, at The Steno Museum in November 2007
• Art, Nature, and Technology, a session at the annual conference for the Association of Art Historians, Manchester Metropolitan University, April 2009 (chairs: Maria Fabricius Hansen and Jacob Wamberg).

Funding

So far the network has operated without funding. However, the Bikuben Foundation and the Aarhus University Research Foundation are supporting the upcoming conference, which is being organized in collaboration with Statens Museum for Kunst. The conference will take place at the museum on 21-23 January 2010.