Metamorphoses: Gaming Art and Science with Ovid

In 2010, bio-artist Sarah Craske stumbled upon a very early English translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses in a cobwebby corner of an East Kent junk shop. It dated from 1735, and in its nearly 300 years of existence it had passed from reader to reader, picking up layers of biological history (bacteria, viruses, skin cells) just as surely as the gods of the stories in the volume themselves changed from one thing to another. Science & technology studies scholar Charlotte Sleigh, in conversation with Craske and another collaborator (scientist Simon Park), quickly realised that the book was both a great *object* of study for a science/art project, but also a metaphor for understanding the *ways* in which science and art hybridise to create meaning for us in a world that is packed with data of biological, literary and visual varieties. Just like the real world, this book could be read as a scientific experiment (on the bacteria etc.) or as a literary or aesthetic text.

Under the direction (or refereeing) of Sleigh, Craske and Park will work together on the book to produce an exhibition of hybrid science-art knowledge. For example, they might try and recreate the organisms that have left their genes upon its pages. Or they might in some way metamorphose the book's materials back into their constituent parts (a cow for the leather, a tree for the wood pulp). The only rule is that they must agree on each research step that they take together. As they work together at the lab bench, their arguments and compromises will be documented. This record will be teased out and analysed by the project's observer, Sleigh, seeking out the ways in which Park and Craske understand and misunderstand one another from their positions in science and art. Their research choices, recorded via mind-mapping software and selected by Sleigh, will form the basis for web-based mobile game that encourages visitors to the exhibition (and other users) to reflect on their own opinions and experiences of the art/science boundary: the languages and the practices that are used in each field.

MAIN OUTPUTS
Formal research outputs: a discipline-specific research paper in each of microbiology, art and science & technology studies.

Exhibition output: An immersive installation based on the 1735 volume of Metamorphoses, bringing together arts, humanities and sciences.

Game output: a playful and provocative artwork complementary to the exhibition, this interactive game will be based on a portion of the actual mind map generated by Craske and Park's interactions. The web-based mobile game will be featured (accessed via QR code) at one artistic and one scientific venue (tbc: Royal Academy and Royal Institution). The game will also be featured at the neutral venue of the main exhibition, and spread via social media. The game is prefaced by a self-classification exercise on an art/science spectrum. This data, together with player choices, will be gathered anonymously and may yield interesting patterns for future research concerning choice-making in relation to self-identification as science or arts orientation.

PATHWAYS TO IMPACT
The core of this project's impact is the mapping of language and practice within the sciences and art, their areas of incommensurability, or apparent but false commensurability, and of genuine commensurability. Through the exhibition, game and discipline-specific publication, both parties will thus be enabled to better engage with one another, to practise their own disciplines in a more rounded and humane fashion, and to engage in public dialogue.

Scientists are often interested in, and even amateur practitioners of the arts, but do not have pathways to include these modes of thought and practice in their day-to-day work. Through their engagement with the exhibition, game and published scientific research they will be challenged on some of the easier and more clichéd relationships commonly given between art and science, and through encouragement to reflection (and illustration of good practice) will begin to acquire rigorous and nuanced ways of engaging with the arts. In particular they will be equipped with ways to spot potential misunderstanding (and hence develop understanding) between languages and methods in their own research area and those in the arts. Whilst it is unlikely that a large number of scientists encountering the research outputs will go on to do art/science projects of their own, they will - arguably more importantly - take permission to act and speak more 'artistically' within the research lab, and to develop more humanised forms of practising and communicating science in the public realm (hence, an outcome analogous to the goals of medical humanities).

Artists encountering the research outputs will acquire a more critical view on the practice of science, and begin to find modes of empowerment within the imbalanced power dynamic that currently exists between sciences and arts in the UK. Like the scientists, they will be equipped with ways to spot potential misunderstanding (and hence develop understanding) between languages and methods in their own research area and those in the complementary sphere, and will be better equipped to discuss their relationship within the public sphere. Given the popularity of art/science projects at present, it is to be expected that this project will have particular impact in helping to shape the direction and quality of these.

Thirdly, members of the public not professionally aligned with either arts or sciences will be caused to think critically about their relationship and, one hopes, thereby to develop a critical perspective for future public debates concerning arts and/or sciences and their place in culture.

Finally, the data derived from players of the game will yield material for future sociological study in the art/science arena, though financial scope for this lies beyond the current application.