Reaching the Limit

When Art Becomes Science

Beatriz da Costa

The politically oriented artist engaged in technoscientific discourses faces significant chal­lenges. She has to be versatile within the theoretical framework developed in disciplinary areas such as science and cultural studies, acquire the technical and/or scientific skill base needed in her chosen area of investigation, and develop an artistic language appealing to peers in her field while remaining accessible to a nonexpert audience. In addition, for the more activist-inclined artists in this area, interactions with other (nonartist) activist groupings are often indispensable, resulting in yet another set of skills and modes of interaction to be acquired.

Given the limited funding opportunities for most artistic endeavors, especially the ones that dare to affirm politicized discourses as part of their creative processes and public manifestations, the acquisition of such a broad range of skills can be difficult. For the privileged few entering a flexible, muitidisciplinary Ph.D. program, a long-term research residency, or other kinds of work environments designed to support these types of knowl­edge acquisition, the in-depth development of such a practice might be a possibility. But let's be realistic. Not only are the above options limited in their capacity but, in addition, most politically oriented artists became "radicalized" through real-life experience, com­monly define their place of research outside the walls of academia, and only reluctantly admit their partial dependence on the latter to begin with.

However, given the educational system in the United Stales, which places art educa­tion, with the exception of a few independent art schools, inside the university, members of this more radical strain of artists often find their employment and source of income back in the academy itself, even if preceding activities which led to a mature practice took place in less sanctioned environments. Not only are job opportunities outside the university scarce (even more so than within it), but direct access to the locations where science is being conducted is often a necessity for those who wish to become active

When we ask what type of role the intellectual should assume once she has rejected the impetus to function as the "bringer and master of truth" in our society, Foucault might urge us to consider the distinction between the "universal" and the "specific" intellectual.1 Unlike the 'universal" intellectual, whose duty was to serve as "the consciousness/conscience of us all" and whose primary task was to fulfill this mission through the written word, distanced and removed from the people who were identified as the supposed beneficiaries of such discourses, the "specific" intellectual emerged out of a group of people that was originally not given the status of intellectuals at all. Engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and other scientists were respected for their expertise and specialized knowledge, but were by no means given the role of transcen­dental context providers. Citing J. Robert Oppenheimer as an example, Foucault identifies a moment in history in which the intellectual was held accountable by political powers, not because of his [sic] discourse, but precisely because of his expertise and specialized knowledge.2 Oppenheimer himself is described as one of the pivotal figures who simul­taneously assumed both roles: the "specific" intellectual, given his knowledge and dedi­cation to the discipline of physics, and the "universal" one, given the effect the nuclear threat had on the world at the time. His discourse became, by necessity, a universal one.

Today, we find ourselves in a university environment filled with "specific" intellectuals. Unlike the philosophers of the past, these individuals are confronted with everyday struggles and share similar adversaries with the working and middle classes outside of the academy: the ideological and economic influence of multinational corporations (on knowl­edge production, among many other things) and capital at large, as well as the judicial and police apparatuses.3 Imposed cooperation with the forces described above, combined with the expertise field by the "academic intellectual," has influenced the intellectual's ability and responsibility to participate in the political shaping of society as well as in the "process of politicizing intellectuals themselves."4 Direct confrontation with an "adver­sary" at hand is often all that is needed in order to reflect on one's own position of power and ability to act. The conduct of "objective" and "pure" research, independent from the political "outside" becomes a less and less plausible position to hold at a time in which industrial, military, and political interests are directly tied to funding provided by the respective institutions.

What type of role is the artist engaged in the technosciences (certainly ranking among the most vulnerable disciplines subjected to the powers described above) to assume in this context? How can the artist function as an activist intellectual situated between the academy and the "general public" in an age in which global capital and political interests have obtained an ever-increasing grip on the educational and public environments where technical, scientific, and artistic knowledge production occur?

Before we delve into such issues, let us first look at the environment that gave rise to this type of knowledge production and examine more closely the figure that we might call the "political technoscientific artist."