Art-Science Undisciplined: A Playbook for Transformative Collaboration is available now! This is a practical and imaginative guidebook for practitioners and supporters who seek to nurture long-term, intellectually rigorous, and values-based artist-scientist collaborations.
Co-written by me and my long-time collaborator Janani Balasubramanian.
When we began working together, our core question was one of potential. We were asking – when an artist and scientist commit to a true co-creative process, what becomes possible? We were not yet concerned with the outcomes, which would emerge over time, but we were mutually invested in the hunch, the inkling, the unknown. What has since become possible is what drove us to write this book, to incite other spaces of potential and the creation of new worlds altogether.
Reviews
“Science, like art, is a profound expression of human creativity. This book imagines the possibilities when the two meet and articulates a compelling vision for artist-scientist collaborations, inspiring readers to play and explore—to create—beyond disciplinary confines.”— Keivan G. Stassun, MacArthur Fellow and Professor of Astrophysics, Vanderbilt University
“Janani Balasubramanian and Natalie Gosnell are your thoughtful, inviting, and—above all—necessary guides to the terra incognita of arts-science collaboration. The world they map in Art-Science Undisciplined is ambitious and practical and it has the potential to transform not just this field but the nature of collaborative inquiry.” — Jake Pinholster, Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
“A wondrous playbook that invites us to imagine a future unbound by silos, where artists and scientists dream together—conjuring and cultivating worlds that weave the poetic with the empirical. This daring, playful collection is an inspirational journey into ‘undisciplined’ ways of being, knowing, and becoming. A true dreambook, it offers a brilliant blend of creative strategy and alchemy, calling us to bring our whole selves—and the full expression of our curiosities—into shared spaces of practice and possibility.” — Eleanor Savage, President and CEO, Jerome Foundation
History
Ever since the beginning of our collaboration, Janani and I have been committed to helping other artists and scientists step into the world of art-science collaboration. Much of the original visioning and scoping of the book occurred during our Leonardo@Djerassi residency in summer 2023. After obtaining our book contract in fall 2023, we went through two intensive writing sessions in March and June-July 2024, while I was on sabbatical. We have spoken about the book at the Worlds in Play conference in January 2024, as guest speakers at Djerassi Open Studios in July 2024, and in the Encounters podcast produced by Stanford Arts, released August 2024.
Support
We received a 2024 Sloan Foundations Book Grant to support development of the book.