The launch event, at Anglia Ruskin’s Cambridge campus, will feature a talk on ‘Art and Consciousness’ with artist Susan Aldworth and Nicholas Humphrey, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics.
The event is part of the VISUALISE art programme, which will see a range of contemporary artists work with Anglia Ruskin to create exciting temporary public art projects, exhibitions, workshops and events across the city.
Bronac Ferran, curator of VISUALISE, said: “The new Cambridge Art and Science Circle seeks to build an infrastructure of connections that may lead to new partnerships for research and public art projects.
“Cambridge is very much recognised as a centre of science and technology innovation and invention. Art and artists increasingly work in interdisciplinary ways and engage actively through collaborations and residencies with specialists from fields such as genetics, synthetic biology, neuroscience and vision sciences.
“The emergence of public art commissioning opportunities in sites such as the new Addenbrokes/Medical Research Council context and the transformation of the Ruskin Gallery at Anglia Ruskin through the installation of digital screens, make this the perfect time to encourage new opportunities for partnerships across art and science borders.”
To coincide with the launch of the Cambridge Art and Science Circle, Anglia Ruskin will be hosting the ‘Between: Mind, Matter & Materials’ exhibition from 30 January until 3 February.
Featuring work by Susan Aldworth and Karen Ingham, the exhibition looks at how medical imaging technologies have made the body visually permeable as never before and created an explosion in anatomical knowledge. The artists, through a number of video installations on the Ruskin Gallery’s digital screens, ask whether these developments have helped our understanding of who we really are.
Aldworth’s art explores the nature of consciousness. In 1999, the experience of observing her brain live on a monitor during a diagnostic brain scan triggered an ongoing fascination with the relationship between the physical brain and the sense of self. Since then Aldworth has worked and collaborated with doctors, neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, etchers, artists and musicians in pursuit of this elusive subject.
She has observed numerous brain scans in hospitals and undergone further brain scans to try and make sense of the material basis of personality. The film ‘Out of Body’ was made during her residency at the Gordon Museum of Pathology.
Aldworth said: “The time-based works that Karen Ingham and I are showing for our Between show at Anglia Ruskin have never been displayed together before. These films explore different notions of embodiment, and how we are invested in the structure of our brains and our bodies.”
‘Between: Mind, Matter & Materials’ will have a ‘private view’ on Tuesday 31 January at the Ruskin Gallery (6-7pm), immediately followed by the launch of the Cambridge Art and Science Circle in the new Lord Ashcroft International Business School. Both events are free and further information is available by phoning Sarah Jones on 0845 196 2981 or emailing sarah.jones@anglia.ac.uk
VISUALISE (www.visualisecambridge.org) is being project managed by Futurecity and delivered in collaboration with Cambridge City Council.
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For more press information please contact:
Jon Green on t: 0845 196 4717, e: jon.green@anglia.ac.uk
Andrea Hilliard on t: 0845 196 4727, e: andrea.hilliard@anglia.ac.uk