In recent years, collaborations between art and science have evolved in an increasingly diverse and sophisticated way, becoming a fertile ground for innovation and infinite possibilities. This interaction is fueled by the belief that boundaries between disciplines can be crossed to produce unique synergies and create new perspectives and ways of understanding. The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze argued that true thought is heterogeneous and should not be confined to disciplinary boundaries. He argued that an interdisciplinary approach can contribute to developing new concepts beyond the traditional knowledge boundaries.
META Spațiu – a contemporary art gallery from Timișoara, created in 2022, has created the first space in Romania dedicated to transdisciplinary collaborations between art and science, realized in partnership with the Politehnica University of Timișoara. MV sci-art is a center of science and contemporary art that aims to generate discovery, dialogue, and transdisciplinary collaboration and has managed, in the last year, to actively contribute to the consolidation of the cultural ecosystem of Timișoara. This is how the Sci-art your life! program took shape!- an art and science program that promotes contemporary artistic and scientific phenomena and actively involves the people of Timisoara in their development. Within the project, a set of activities was articulated that explored and facilitated the collaboration between visual arts and applied sciences, between students and trainers, between the artistic environment, the university environment and the public space, through exhibitions, interventions, research, communications, workshops and work sessions.
The intersection of visual arts, techniques and applied technologies, and sciences defines today’s visual culture. However, specific tools and vocabulary are challenging, and the training period for both arts and technical university students tends to follow the model of closed specialization, which excludes or under-cultivates hybridizations. The need for training to discover and apply such hybrid forms is found beyond the area of cultural and artistic interest. It becomes one of the most effective models – arguably the only viable model – for identifying solutions at a global level – economic, urban, social, and educational, in fields that have applicability and impact in multiple aspects of life. Starting from these premises and continuing an important tradition, defining for Timișoara, but also for the innovation of the visual language, META Spațiu and the Polytechnic University of Timișoara have created a partnership through which art and science meet in the space of anticipation and the future.
*The review can be read in its entirety in the first printed issue of Empower Artists Magazine available for purchase online here or physically in Cărturești, La Două Bufnițe bookstores and META Spațiu Gallery from Timișoara.
Cover photo: Image from the exhibition POROUS MATTER, MV sci-art, Timișoara. Credit image: Benjamin Blendea. Courtesy of MV sci-art.