Bench: Workshopping New Work
- andrewcarnie
- Jul 20
- 3 min read
We spent time last week testing-workshopping some new work for the project BENCH.
The phrase “bench to bedside” first appeared in journals in the late 1990s and since then has become a byword for gold standard impact: the translation of abstract ideas into practical outcomes. The idea of a laboratory bench evokes images of scientific knowledge production and conjures powerful images of exploration and experiment, protocols and equipment, health and safety. However, the origins of this evocation and the reality of the lab bench are rarely questioned
The bench is implicitly a point along a journey, isolated from the process of knowledge sharing, necessarily preliminary to publication. It is practical and governed by protocols, health and safety, uniforms and regulations. The bench occupies a space that is both situated and abstract but fundamental to the process of science. Bench “to” is a journey of different guises: abstract to practical, ivory tower to gritty reality, clean and aseptic to messy and human. It embodies changes in scale of activity and the spaces that scientific practice occupies. Being ”at the bench” defines the “working” discovery scientist.
We want to interrogate the nature of the lab bench and test its affordances in a series of interventions by 4 artists working with a static lab bench in a gallery space. We imagine an evolving research project to define questions about benchness in the domains of metaphor, workspace, community, authenticity, value, validity, identity
Andrew Carnie is an artist and academic at Winchester School of Art, Southampton University. His practice often involves a meaningful interaction with scientists. He is part of the Critical Practices Research team where his interests lie in exploring the self, through notions of hybridity, in organ transplantation and immunology. Other themes and ideas are often based on neurology, the brain, and how we get a sense of ourselves through scientific ideas, and images The work is often time-based in nature, involving slide dissolve systems or video projection onto complex screens. In darkened spaces layered images appear and disappear on suspended voiles, the developing display absorbing the viewer into an expanded sense of space and time through slowly unfolding narratives that evolve around them. His work has been exhibited at the Science Museum, London, Natural History Museum, Rotterdam, Design Museum, Zurich, Exit Art, in New York, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Great North Museum, Newcastle, Pera Museum, Istanbul, Dresden Hygiene Museum, Morevska Gallery, Brno, and the Daejeon Museum of Art, South Korea amongst many others, most recently the Hatton Gallery and Vane, Newcastle.
Hear about the work at
Read about the work at Catalogue.
See more work at the website: http://www.tram.ndo.co.uk/artworks.htm
At Axis web: http://www.axisweb.org/p/andrewcarnie
Current exhibitions and projects: http://andrewcarnieexhibtionsandstuff.blogspot.com/
Science and art blog: http://scienceandart--andrew-carnie.blogspot.com/
Optogenetics project: http://globaleyeartsoptogenetics.blogspot.co.uk/?view=magazine Heart project: http://www.andrewcarnie.org.uk/heart/index.html http://distributedbodies.blogspot.co.uk/?view=magazine
Neurology project: http://artandsciencethewintertree.blogspot.co.uk/?view=magazine http://theprojectedtree.blogspot.co.uk/
Website: http://www.andrewcarnie.co.uk
Archive of work: http://andrewcarnie.org.uk/archive/index.html
Supported by The Artists Agency: https://www.theartistsagency.co.uk/andrew-carnie/
All images: courtesy of the artist Andrew Carnie
Andrew Carnie Artists: Art: Art Work: Science: Art and Science: Science and Art: SciArt: Art Science: Drawing: Print: Photography: Installation: Video Art: Paint: Painting: Oil Painting: Paint Online: Watercolour Painting: Drawing: Sound Art: Sculpture: Modern Art: MOMA
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