MA Art and Science

Course description

Synergies in our Fine Art Programme - incorporating BA Fine Art, MA Art and Science, MA Fine Art, MA Photography, MRes Art: Exhibition Studies, MRes Art: Moving Image, and MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy - create a dynamic context for exploring practices and issues within contemporary culture.

This pioneering postgraduate course responds to a fast-emerging territory for interdisciplinary and collaborative art practice. MA Art and Science gives students an opportunity to interrogate the creative relationships between art and science and how they can be communicated. You'll explore different approaches to making and presenting your work with the aim of proposing and realising innovative outcomes in practice and research.

In its extended full-time mode MA Art and Science gives you the flexibility to access London's richly varied opportunities for work and study while maximising your personal and professional development.

MA Art and Science provides an extensive final unit of 120 credits (45 weeks) enabling continuous development and realisation of a significant programme of work. MA Art and Science supports and is shaped by:

• Exploration of the approaches of art and science to enquiry - how scientific ideas may inform and provoke the making of art, and how practices in art and science may correspond
• Development of knowledge of historical and contemporary contexts, practical processes, research methods and writing
• Learning from, and building, working relationships between artists, medics, mathematicians, anatomists, curators and other professional practitioners engaged in research that investigates art and science
• Student projects through the use of established links with institutions in London such as the Wellcome Trust, Hunterian Museum, Gordon Museum and Natural History Museum
• Development of current thinking on art and science towards further research

About this course

• MA Art & Science lasts 60 weeks structured as two consecutive periods of 30 weeks each (i.e. two academic years) in its 'extended full-time mode.'
• MA Art & Science is credit rated at 180 credits, and comprises two units: Unit One (60 credits) and Unit Two (120 credits).
• Students successfully achieving Unit One may exit at this point with the award of Postgraduate Certificate.
• Both units must be passed in order to achieve the MA, but the classification of the award of MA derives from the mark for Unit Two only.

In year one we expect you to commit an average of 40 hours per week. In year two your study is predominantly self-managed but we expect you to commit an average of 20 hours per week. Across the two years, therefore, you're expected to commit an average of 30 hours per week.

Course rationale

Through their work artists and scientists contribute to a greater understanding of what it is to be human and how we relate to the world around us: both require creative insight in their quest for knowledge and the desire to communicate this.

The relationship between art and science continues to expand the boundaries of understanding and invention, challenging our view of the world. The desire of artists to find ways to understand, represent and reinterpret the world in which they live has resulted in investigation into the phenomena of nature, perception and thought, areas of equal importance in the sciences. Scientists have also defined the nature of their research in ways that address questions of how the measurable can be defined, the invisible envisaged, the senses extended, and perceptions tested. Both artists and scientists seek to develop new ways in which the innovative nature of their discoveries can be made comprehensible and communicated.

This MA offers a structured opportunity to investigate the contemporary and historical context of art and science, embracing the spectrum of interaction, endeavour and the making of forms. The course explores how research and production may have implications for discovery and invention across and within both disciplinary fields and how these may relate socially and culturally.

Together with MA Fine Art and MA Photography, MA Art and Science is situated within the Art Programme. Cross programme lectures and regular installs offer the opportunity for cross course engagement.

Course dates

Autumn term:
Monday 24 September 2018 – Friday 7 December 2018
Spring term:
Monday 7 January 2019 – Friday 15 March 2019
Summer term:
Monday 15 April 2019 – Friday 21 June 2019

Related content

• 2017 Degree Show website
• MA Art and Science website
• London Laser - Art and Science events hosted by CSM and University of Westminster

Course outline

The course explores the creative relationships between art and science and how they may be communicated. It offers you the opportunity to investigate how scientific ideas can inform and inspire artistic practice, to question how art can relate to science, and to consider what the inter-relationships between science and studio practice might be, informing the exploration of new approaches to making and presenting your work.

The course emphasises critical investigation through reflective practice, contextual awareness, practical processes, research, analysis and debate that will support and sustain your Independent project (Unit 2). The ability to collaborate and work with other artists and scientists and professional institutions linked with the course is encouraged and supported.

Unit One: What is interdisciplinary practice?

Through a series of projects this unit explores relationships between art and science, both contemporary and historical, and related critical issues.

Running in parallel with these projects are seminars and lectures that provide a critical and historical context for your research and practical work and address different approaches to research methods. Seminars create a forum in which emerging issues in art and science and the contribution of interdisciplinary engagement with public understanding are discussed.

This focus is complemented by practical workshops and access to places of particular interest. Venues include sites of scientific and historical significance where context is important to understanding.

Lectures and workshops focusing on theoretical ideas, discourses and critical positions within contemporary art and science offer engagement across our Postgraduate Art Programme. In exploring the interface between practice and research, lectures and seminars develop your ability to evaluate and progress your practice in relation to external bodies of knowledge while building articulacy in critical discussion and writing, enabling you to develop appropriate research methodologies for your Independent Project (unit two). Lectures and seminars draw on the research expertise and interests of staff across our art programmes as well as external guest speakers.

Project work, encouraged and challenged through regular group discussion and tutorials, informs your Independent Project proposal for unit two. The project proposal incorporates an outline of your proposed research methods and addresses issues of relevance, validity and feasibility

Unit Two: Independent project: Art and Science

The unit’s 45 weeks (15 weeks in Year one; 30 weeks in year two) represent a substantial opportunity to realise your independent project successfully. The project takes the form of an in-depth investigation according to an agreed programme of study leading to practical outputs and a written research paper.

Throughout the independent project you develop the practical aspects of your work and identify and establish access to relevant resources. In addition to the significant sources of knowledge and information you are introduced to we encourage you to develop links with organisations and institutions that will support and inform your particular research and project development. You will have a supervisor or mentor (i.e. Personal Tutor) who will guide the progress of your Independent Project. Progress is supported through tutorials, critiques with professionals in relevant specialist fields, and student- directed group discussions.

In year one, if not fully resolved at the unit one assessment point, your independent project proposal is reconsidered at a progress review tutorial (year one, term three). All project agreements include a commitment to forms of submission and to appropriate mentoring and supervision arrangements. At the end of year one you will take part in the interim show in which you will curate and install an exhibition in a public venue outside of the art school. All aspects of mounting an exhibition will be considered including publicity, curation and collaborative working. The interim show is organised and installed jointly with the MA Fine Art and MA Photography.

In year two you continue to be supported in your independent engagement with the realisation of your project and written work. You will meet for critical debates and tutorial support, and take part in interim presentations of your work discussing progress, challenges and discoveries, and issues of form, audience and presentation. A professional practice lecture series across our art programmes also offers insights into publishing practices, intellectual property, funding sources and other areas. The unit culminates with the degree show in which you will present your work in the context of your developing professionalism, and consider curation and placement of works.

A summer term student directed presentation or symposium challenges you to debate key questions arising from your work.

MA Art and Science Programme Specification 2018/19 (PDF, 303KB)

Further reading about this course

MA Art and Science Research Students (PDF 983)

Encounters Between Art and Science (PDF 367KB)

View the MA Art & Science events archive

Industry collaborations

Working with paying clients on live briefs will give you valuable commercial experience which may mean your work being taken forward for production or, if so desired, in the purchase of your intellectual property. All paid projects are conducted within a carefully developed legal framework, which includes student agreements to protect your work and help you realise its commercial value.

Recent client projects in the Art programme include: Red Mansion Foundation. Find out more about the Dr. Martens client project.

Once you’ve graduated, you may be picked as part of a small team to work on a live creative brief, organised by our Business and Innovation department, under the supervision of an experienced tutor. This can be a valuable first step in working professionally in a chosen discipline and has resulted in graduates being hired by clients.

While each year will provide different opportunities for our students, this year we have visited and participated in projects with:

• The Wellcome Trust
• Grant Museum
• Gordon Museum
• Mr William Edwards, Museum Curator
• The Musical Brain Conference
• GV Art Gallery
• Robert Devcic, Director
• MRC Anatomical Pharmacology Unit, University of Oxford
• Prof Paul Bolam
• Dr Megan Dowie
• British Library
• Dr Johanna Kieniewicz
• Wakehurst Millenium Seedbank
• Dr Wolfgang Stuppy
• ArtAkt
• Prof Marina Wallace
• Dr Caterina Albano
• Dr Thereza Wells
• National Gallery London
• Department of Conservation
• Leonardo da Vinci’s Technical Practice: Paintings, Drawings and Influence

Visiting tutors and lecturers include:

• Prof Rob Kesseler
• Dr Angela Last
• Prof Arthur I Miller
• Garry Kennard
• Heather Barnett
• Richard Henry
• Dr Steven Dakin
• Dr Robyn Pender
• Eleanor Crook
• Simon Thomas
• Michael Brooks
• Susan Aldworth

Facilities

• Letterpress

  Find out more about our Letterpress workshop

• Print Workshops (Archway)

  Find out more about the printmaking facility at Archway

• Digital Media

  Find out more about our digital media facility at King's Cross

View all facilities

Staff

Course Leader: Nathan Cohen
Pathway Leader: Heather Barnett
Lecturer: Adrian Holme