Publication: Hybrid Encounters

“Hybrid Encounters in the arts and sciences. A dialogue.” is the title of a booklet published by the Hybrid Plattform together with the Schering Stiftung. Together with experts of the field we explore how collaborations across disciplines can work, what they can achieve and how they can be supported. The result of this conversation is now available both as a print and online format.

Bergit Arends, Ken Arnold, Berit Greinke and Jens Hauser share between them decades of experience in curating and in realising art and science collaborations within academia, institutions, museums and other contexts, both nationally and internationally. The Wellcome Trust, Tate, Museum für Naturkunde, Medical Museion, Einstein Center Digital Future and National Museum of Art of Latvia are just a few of the institutions they worked with or at and where they put their own spin on how disciplines can come together. In conversation with Nina Horstmann (Hybrid Plattform) and Christina Landbrecht (Schering Stiftung) they tackled the questions of change at the intersection of art and science, how educational institutes have taken up this exchange beyond the disciplines, how such collaborations can foster innovation and what examples showcase the opportunities of such projects. 

The idea for this format of publication was developed when we started the series of Hybrid Encounter events. At these events practitioners from both the arts and the sciences came together to explore whether and how their approaches, their interests and their work enables a fruitful exchange across disciplines. During the events the curiosity and eagerness to step outside of the own disciplinary box was tangible, however, often the question remained as to how this could be done in reality. Picking up on this insecurity as to how to turn a general interest into something more concrete the idea of the booklet was born.

With a topic as multi-faceted as this we weren’t looking for a simplified guide as to how to create successful art and science projects. There just isn’t one fit for all. Therefore, instead of asking experts for individual articles, we asked them to come together for an exchange, allowing for discussion and the joint search for answers. During the conversation many aspects were touched upon, different approaches were presented and (sometimes controversially) discussed. Our intention was unknowingly mirrored through Jens Hauser when he said “if you’re involved in promoting art and science projects the idea is not only to collect the final artwork but to make sure that the conversations along the way are being preserved as well”.

The published booklet "Hybrid Encounters in the arts and sciences" can be picked up for free at one of our events. An electronic version (pdf) is available for download here.