Art, Technology and Symmetrical Collaborations

Abstract

Although science and technology continually present artists with new tools for conceptualization and expression, any meaningful engagement with complex technologies requires access to sizeable bodies of specialist knowledge. This paper argues that it is only through appropriate forms of collaboration with domain experts that artists can hope to exploit the special capabilities of new technologies, and that existing paradigms of collaboration, rooted in the historical separation of artist and artisan, are outmoded and inappropriate. Instead, a more symmetrical model of collaboration is proposed, derived partly from recent work in computer-mediated cooperative design, and partly from the author's own experience of working with visual artists. The model, which acknowledges the creative and intellectual contribution of the technologist as co-producer, is distilled into a set of practical guidelines.