The Institute of Unnecessary Research
The Institute of Unnecessary Research is a concept by Anna Dumitriu and looks at the relationship of artists to science and research. Anna is listed as Director, other artists are listed as department heads, mimicking the institutional model. There are depts of Artificial Life, Neurofeedback, Cross-Species Communication and so on. The project is both web based and event based via interactive performances.
Artists are innovators, if a new piece of technology or a new medium, becomes available; artists want to try it, to experiment with it, to push the boundaries. Some artists take on the role of a scientist in almost a performative way and some scientists equally take on the role of artist. Attitudes to science, medicine and art have changed over the last five hundred years, in that whilst Science has become more formalized, Art has become increasingly less so. By stepping outside the testable hypothesis artists are free to go off at tangents, to get bogged down in aesthetics and be mavericks.