An Unsung Refrain of Science

摘要

A lifelike model of an art collector floats face down, dead in a pool while his naked lover (a live model) lounges indoors listening to music. Elsewhere, an artist swings a mallet at huge gilt-framed mirrors, sending shards of glass flying. These elaborate installations (Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset's The Collectors and Michelangelo Pistoletto's Twenty-Two Less Two, respectively) on show at this year's Venice Biennale either parody or epitomize contemporary art as an exercise in navel-gazing-it's your choice. Amid the buzz of the art world, however, there is another theme: the clear if unsung refrain of the influence of science and technology on contemporary art. It is there in the use of scientific imagery, methods, and technology and in an engagement with cutting-edge science.