A Brief History of The Arts Catalyst

A Brief
History
of
The Arts
Catalyst
1
Introduction
This small publication marks the 20th anniversary
year of The Arts Catalyst. It celebrates some of
the 120 artists’ projects that we have commissioned
over those two decades.
Our new commissions, exhibitions
and events in 2013 attracted over
57,000 UK visitors.
In 2013 our previous commissions
were internationally presented to a
reach of around 30,000 people.

We have facilitated projects and
presented our commissions in 27
countries and all continents,
including at major art events such as
Venice Biennale and documenta.
Our projects receive widespread
national and international media
coverage, reaching millions of people.
In the last year we had features in The
Guardian, The Times, Financial Times,
Time Out, Wall Street Journal, Wired,
New Scientist, Art Monthly, Blueprint,
Dazed & Confused to name a few
as well as extensive radio and
TV coverage.
Our website receives over 50,000
unique hits per year.
Based in London, The Arts Catalyst is one of
the UK’s most distinctive arts organisations,
distinguished by ambitious artists’ projects that
engage with the ideas and impact of science. We
are acknowledged internationally as a pioneer in
this field and a leader in experimental art, known
for our curatorial flair, scale of ambition, and
critical acuity. For most of our 20 years, the
programme has been curated and produced by
the (founding) director with curator Rob La Frenais,
producer Gillean Dickie, and The Arts Catalyst staff
team and associates.
Our primary focus is new artists’ commissions,
presented as exhibitions, events and participatory
projects, that are accessible, stimulating and
artistically relevant. We aim to produce provocative,
playful, risk-taking projects that spark dynamic
conversations about our changing world. This is
underpinned by research and dialogue between
artists and world-class scientists and researchers.
The Arts Catalyst has a deep commitment to artists
and artistic process. We work with artists at pivotal
stages in their careers, providing opportunities for
them to develop bold projects in unusual contexts.
Past projects have involved flying teams of artists
and scientists in zero gravity in Russia, recreating
historical bio-warfare experiments off the coast of
Scotland, setting up live scientific experiments as
art installations, siting futuristic art-science labs in
remote landscapes, and enabling artists’ access to
restricted scientific establishments.
Upcoming projects develop enduring themes around
deep time, autonomous research, bioethics, and
the global commons (oceans, poles, atmosphere
and outer space), working with both established
and emerging artists to create inspiring and thoughtprovoking new art experiences.
Nicola Triscott, Director
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3
Key facts
Primate
Cinema
Rachel Mayeri
2011
Poetic Cosmos of
the Breath
Tomas Saraceno
2007
Key Projects/contents
Ice Diamond
Torsten Laushman
2013
Artists Airshows
2004, 2007, 2012
20 Artists commissions
(P. 22-23)
Data Landscapes
2011
Ice Blink
Simon Faithful
2006
2013–2015
(P. 14-17)
Interspecies
Ice Lab:
Bipolar
Anne Brodie
Weather Permitting
Space Soon
Aleksandra Mir
N55 & Neal White
Jerry Dammers Special
AKA Orchestra
London Fieldworks
Michelle Griffiths
… and guests …
2006
(P. 31)
Arctic Perspective
Initiative
Marko Peljhan
Matthew Biederman
2010–Ongoing
(P. 29)
Astro Black
Morphologies
Flow Motion
2005
2005
Satellite Stories
Joanna Griffin
2008
Kosmica
2011–Ongoing
(P. 18–19)
(P.28)
AIR & CLIMATE
POLAR STUDIES
Makrolab
Marko Peljhan
2002
Bower Birds
Sally Hampson
2005
A
Consilience
Jan Fabre
2000
(P. 31)
INTERSPECIES
SPACE
(P. 24-25)
(P. 10-13)
Seaclipse
Anne Bean & Collaborators
2000
Parallel Universe
Ansuman Biswas,
Paul Wong
1997
The Arts Catalyst
1994–2014
2010–2011
Republic of the
Moon
2011–2014
M.I.R.
Microgravity
Interdisciplinary
Research
2000–2004
ECOLOGY
Marching Plague
Critical Art
Ensemble
2006
Truth Serum
Neal White
2008
BIOSCIENCE
2007–2010
MIND & BODY
Endo Ecto
Phillip Warnell
2006
TECHNOLOGY,
SECRECY,
INFRASTRUCTURE
BIOTECHNOLOGY
(P. 20-21)
Prof. AA
Singleton-Guinness,
Jack Klaff
1994
M-Blem:
the train project
HeHe
2012
ENERGY
Konfirm
Jon Adams
2013
Clean Rooms
Gina Czarnecki
Neal White
Critical Art Ensemble
Brandon Ballengée
2002
Window of Opportunity
Ken Campbell
1996
PHYSICS
AND
PHILOSOPHY
Body Visual
1996
(P. 6-7)
SymbioticA Bioart Lab
2004
Labyrinth of Living
Exhibits
Aaron Williamson
Brian Catling
Katherine Araniello
Sinéad O‛Donnell
2011
Transformism
Melanie Jackson
Revital Cohen
2013
Synthesis Lab
2011
(P. 31)
Lab Easy
MadLab
2013
1998–1999
(P. 8-9)
Nuclear
Chris Oakley
Kypros Kyprianou &
Simon Hollington
2008
SEFT-1
Los Ferronautas
2013–2014
Dark Places
Neal White &
Office of Experiments
Victoria Halford & Steve Beard
Beatriz Da Costa
Steve Rowell
2010
Nuclear Culture
2013–2014
Atomic
(P. 31)
4
The Neighbour
Ashok Sukumaran
2009
Talking of the Sex of Angels
Nikky Smedley Company 1996
Fracking Futures
HeHe
2013
(P. 26-27)
5
Overt Research Project
critical excursions
Office of Experiments
2009–2012
Project: Artists:
Year: Body Visual
Helen Chadwick,
Donald Rodney,
Letizia Galli
1996
Barbican Gallery then toured nationally and internationally
Locations:
‘Body Visual’ was one of The Arts Catalyst’s first major projects,
which commissioned Helen Chadwick, Letizia Galli and Donald
Rodney to collaborate with medical scientists to develop new
work, resulting in a touring exhibition.
Helen Chadwick undertook a residency at the Assisted Conception
Unit, Kings College Hospital, producing her series of works
‘Unnatural Selection’, which notably she considered her most
serious body of work. Closely working with scientists and doctors,
Chadwick gained a special insight into the science of human
fertility and processes behind assisted conception. Her
microphotographs of human embryos—which were specifically
donated to her art by couples undergoing IVF—are placed in
jewel-like arrangements interspersed with other images from the
natural world, such as dandelion clocks, evoking the fragile potential of these human stilled lives.
Letitia Galli’s works were informed by the latest findings (at the
time) in the field of neurology, and in particular reflected the effects of the neurotransmitter dopamine on obsessive states such
as drug addiction and falling in love.
Donald Rodney’s photographic triptych ‘Flesh of my Flesh’ was a
deeply personal statement on medical science, reflecting his
feelings about what he considered to be discriminatory attitudes
of certain medical personnel during his long-term treatment for
sickle-cell anaemia.
Portrait of Helen Chadwick
at the Assisted Conception
Unit, Kings College Hospital.
Image: Edward Woodman
Helen Chadwick
Nebula, 1996
Microphotographs.
Image: Jonathan Hill/
Folly Pictures
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Project: Atomic
James Acord,
Mark Aerial Waller,
Carey Young
Artists: Year: 1998–1999
Imperial College Gallery,
London, and then toured
nationally and internationally
including to Kluze Fortress,
Slovenia
Locations:
‘Atomic’ was a series of three artists’ commissions, resulting in a
touring exhibition that explored the cultural and economic legacy
of harnessing the power of the atom.
It placed controversial American nuclear sculptor James Acord —
the only private individual in the world to hold a licence to handle
radioactive materials — who had moved to live on the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation in the USA, into the heart of British science,
Imperial College London, where he created a series of reliquaries
to the nuclear age.
The Arts Catalyst also gave Carey Young her first commission for
which she travelled to Russia to photograph the still
radioactive legacy of the former USSR space and nuclear
programmes, and negotiated access for Mark Aerial Waller to
Oldbury Nuclear Power Station to film his short thriller ‘Glow Boys’,
featuring the legendary Mark E. Smith from The Fall, which parodied
contemporary perceptions and fear of nuclear technology.
Above:
Carey Young
Venus Probe, 1998
C-Print
James Acord at his studio
based at the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation, USA
Image: Arthur S. Aubrey
Centre:
Mark Aerial Waller
Glow Boys, 1998
Production Still
Courtesy of Rodeo
Below:
James Acord
Nuclear Reliquary, 1998
Mixed Media
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9
Project:
Microgravity Interdisciplinary
Research (M.I.R.)
Artists & Scientists:
Years: Anna Alchuk, Ansuman
Biswas & Jem Finer,
Alexei Blinov, Dr Anthony
Bull, Ewen Chardronnet,
Kitsou Dubois & co.,
Vadim Fishkin, Dr Kevin
Fong, Dr Rebecca Forth,
Flow Motion, Stefan Gec,
Imperial College Biodynamics Group, Andrew
Kotting, Yuri Leiderman,
Trevor Mathison, Evgeni
Nesterov, The Otolith
Group & Richard Couzins,
Marko Peljhan, Mikhail
Ryklin, Marcel.li Antunez
Roca, Mike Stubbs,
Andrey & Julia Velikanov,
Neal White, Morag
Wightman, Louise K
Wilson, Dragan Zivadinov
2000–2004
Gagarin Cosmonaut Training
Centre, Star City, Russia.
European Space Agency,
Bordeaux, France.
Locations:
One of the most fascinating aspects of manned space flight is the
state of zero gravity: astronauts and objects floating in air.
The Arts Catalyst’s pioneering zero gravity programme enabled
over 50 artists, musicians, scientists and philosophers to access
weightless conditions on parabolic flights, as well as other space
facilities such as the giant centrifuge, at the Gagarin Cosmonaut
Training Centre in Star City, heart of the Russian space programme, and at the European Space Agency. Prior to these flights
(2000–2004), the aesthetic possibilities of zero gravity had barely
been explored, due to its exclusiveness.
Above:
Kitsou Dubois
Trajectoire Fluide, 2000
Production still
Centre:
Ansuman Biswas & Jem
Finer Zero Genie, 2001
Production still
Outcomes of these “flying laboratories” included 16 artist
commissions that continue to be presented in galleries,
museums and festivals around the world, and two scientific papers.
These include Turner Prize nominees the Otolith Group’s first ever
commission, the film Otolith 1; a collaboration between dancer
Kitsou Dubois and the Biodynamics research group at Imperial
College London; and Jem Finer & Ansuman Biswas’ Zero Genie,
in which the artists playfully attempt to ride flying carpets and
smoke a hookah.
Below:
The Otolith Group
Otolith I, 2003
Production still
Courtesy The Otolith Group
and LUX, London
Some of the flights were organised in cooperation with Projekt
Atol, V2 Institute for the Unstable Media, Leonardo-OLATS & Moscow’s
TV Gallery.
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Group photo of the
participants on the
MIR Flight 001, 2001
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Project:
Artists:
Artists Airshows
Anne Bean, Ben Blakeborough,
Miles Chalcraft, Rachel Chapman,
Adam Dant, Simon Faithfull,
Alec Finlay, Flow Motion,
Stefan Gec, Usman Haque,
HeHe, Luke Jerram, Zina Kaye,
Sonia Khurana, Tim Knowles,
London Fieldworks, Ruth
Maclennan, Susanne Norregard
Nielsen, Janette Paris, Esther
Polak and Ivar van Bekkum,
Marko Peljhan,
Tomas Saraceno, Camila
Sposati, Louise K Wilson
Artists Airshow (2004), 2nd
International Artists Airshow
(2007), The Great Glen
Artists Airshow (2010)
Years: Locations:
ormer Royal Aeronautical
F
Engineering Workshops,
Farnborough, Hants;
Gunpowder Park, Essex; HICA,
Loch Ruthven, Inverness-shire
Above:
Anne Bean
Sky Writing, 2004
Image: James Leadbitter
Below:
Loch Ruthven as ‘Wall
drawing wind — lake version’,
performed by Esther Polak
and Ivar van Bekkum. 2010
Image: Kristian Buus
The Arts Catalyst’s ground breaking artist airshows encouraged
artists to work with ideas of flight, aeronautical culture, and the air
as a medium, and gave audiences unique, unusual and rewarding
participatory art experiences.
The first airshow took place at the former Royal Aircraft
Establishment workshops in Farnborough, a deserted research
facility in which covert projects had been developed during WWII
and the Cold War. During the day, hundreds of people watched the
launching of artists’ flying objects, rockets and UAVs, and
experienced installations and experiments through the abandoned
wind tunnels, test tanks and flight simulators.
The 2nd International Artists Airshow reflected the explosive
nature of Gunpowder Park, formerly a munitions testing ground.
Using engineering and technical expertise, artists attempted to
realise the dream of flight with experiments including a spectacular
one-person flying platform, a trained eagle documenting the
movements of the audience below, and a large-scale pyrotechnic
work that attempted to block out the sun.
The Great Glen Artists Airshow was a two-day event at Loch
Ruthven, in the Scottish Highlands. Artists investigated wind
currents and the flight paths of birds, gave poetry readings and
GPS balloon performances, facilitated participatory flying of
‘suprematist kites’, and rendered a vast smoke drawing, tracing
the contours of the fell landscape.
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This page:
Simon Faithfull
Escape Vehicle no.6, 2004
Image: James Leadbitter &
stills from live video relay.
Next page, above:
Camila Sposati
Yellow Vanishing
Point, 2010
Image: Kristian Buus
Next page, below:
Ben Blakebrough
Winged Self, 2007
Image: Chis Welch
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Space Soon: Art and Human
Spaceflight
Project:
Laurie Anderson, Alan Bean
Jerry Dammers’ Spatial
A.K.A. Orchestra, Kodwo
Eshun, Alexei Federchenko,
Michelle Griffiths, London
Fieldworks, Aleksandra Mir,
N55 & Neal White,
Semiconductor, Jane &
Louise Wilson
Artists: Year:
Location:
2006
Roundhouse, London, UK
For an intense week, The Arts Catalyst took over London’s Roundhouse for ‘Space Soon’, an exhibition of spectacular large-scale
durational installations, accompanied by live events, reflecting on
humanity’s relentless quest to leave the Earth.
The huge interior of the Roundhouse venue (a former engine shed)
was transformed into a rocket factory for a gigantic rocket going
nowhere, ‘Gravity’ by Aleksandra Mir, a monumental, ephemeral
22-metre high sculpture constructed from junk. In the Roundhouse
car park, Danish architects N55 and artist Neal White installed
their inhabited ‘Space Station on Earth’ and set out to investigate
planet Earth, while in the vaults London Fieldworks’ ‘SpaceBaby’
was a live experiment and installation exploring the effects
of long-term sleep pattern disruption (a hazard of space travel)
with scientists from University of Leicester’s Department
of Genetics.
Left:Aleksandra Mir
Gravity, 2007
Image: Marcus J Leith
Events included talks by Apollo astronaut turned artist Alan Bean
(the fourth man on the Moon), and artist Laurie Anderson on her
experience as NASA’s artist-in-residence; Michelle Griffiths’
performance-installation ‘Lunar Capsule’; film screenings; the
premiere of Jerry Dammers’ remarkable Spatial AKA Orchestra; a
symposium on the future of the Moon, and a concert curated
by radio station Resonance FM. A series of creative projects for
young people took place in the lead up to the event.
This page, below:
N55/ Neal White
Space on Earth Station,
2006
Image: Marcus Leith
This page, right:
London Fieldworks
Space Baby, 2006
Image: Kristian Buus
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Project:
Marching Plague
Artists: Critical Art Ensemble
Year: 2006
Filmed on the Isle of Lewis,
Outer Hebrides, Scotland.
Subsequent screenings
nationally and internationally,
including ICA, AV Festival and
Whitney Biennial
Locations:
US arts collective Critical Art Ensemble are known internationally
for their tactical media actions and critical texts, often focused on
controversial scientific or technological developments.
‘Marching Plague’ was a performance and film, commissioned and
produced by The Arts Catalyst, centring on a re-enactment of a
secret germ warfare experiment carried out by British government
scientists sixty years ago off the coast of the Isle of Lewis in
Scotland. The original 1952 series of experiments, codenamed
Operation Cauldron, was part of Britain’s nascent biological warfare
programme, and exposed nearly 3,500 guinea pigs and 83 monkeys to deadly germs such as bubonic plague. Operation Cauldron
concluded that the germs were just as unreliable and
unmanageable over water as they were found to be on the land.
Critical Art Ensemble’s film juxtaposes archival footage of the
original sea trials alongside the artists’ DIY re-creation of one of
the experiments, using harmless biological simulants to investigate
whether microbes can be sprayed effectively over the sea at living
targets—guinea pigs (in this case, looked after by members of the
Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)—a mile
away. Through the film, Critical Art Ensemble aim to address and
dispel some of the public fear of “bioterrorism”, which they claim
has been provoked and exploited by governments to initiate
biological warfare programmes, diverting funds from valuable
research in global public health and emergent infectious disease.
Thirty guinea pigs and an
animal protection
supervisor wait to be
sprayed with harmless bacteria―Bacillus subtilis and
Serratia marcescens
―as part of Criticial Art
Ensemble’s DIY
re-enactment of
Operation Cauldron.
Royal British Navy
Operation Cauldron, 1952
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Critical Art Ensemble
Marching Plague, 2006
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Project:
Poetic Cosmos
of the Breath
Artist:
Tomas Saraceno
Year: 2007
Gunpowder Park,
Essex, UK
Location:
Tomas Saraceno’s ‘Poetic Cosmos of the Breath’ was the public
launch of the artist’s large inflatable experimental solar dome,
which was inspired by the dome created by Dominic Michaelis in
1975 for the film Hu-Man.
Commissioned by The Arts Catalyst, Saraceno’s dome was launched
at dawn on 22 September 2007 at Gunpowder Park, Essex, and at
that point was the artist’s first major outdoor project in the UK.
At sunrise, members of the public gathered to watch the launch.
The dome—made of translucent sheeting and iridescent foil—was
laid out on the ground, held down by sandbags. Applying the
principles of solar heated air balloons and utilising the change of
temperature at dawn to create a greenhouse effect, the audience
witnessed—and assisted—the artist and his team to waft air under
the sheeting. Slowly, the giant dome filled with air, lifted off the
ground and expanded as the sun rose, the colours of the foil
spectacularly shimmering in the dawn light.
In 2013, ‘Poetic Cosmos of the Breath’ was re-presented by the
artist at a temporary sculpture park in Hong Kong.
Tomas Saraceno
Poetic Cosmos of the
Breath, 2007
Images: This page:
Adriana Marques
Left Page: David Cottridge
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Project:
Moon Goose Analogue:
Lunar Migration Bird Facility
Artist: Agnes Meyer-Brandis
Year: 2011–2014
First presented in the
thematic exhibition ‘Republic
of the Moon’ at FACT,
Liverpool. Subsequent
presentations include
exhibitions in the UK, (London
and Newcastle), Belgium,
Germany, Austria, Spain,
and USA.
Location: Agnes Meyer-Brandis’s poetic-scientific investigations weave
fact, imagination, storytelling and myth; past, present and
future. In ‘Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Bird Facility’,
a major commission by The Arts Catalyst, the artist develops
an ongoing narrative based on the book The Man in the
Moone, written by the English bishop Francis Godwin in 1603,
in which the protagonist flies to the Moon in a chariot towed
by ‘moon geese’.
Agnes Meyer-Brandis
Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar
Migration Bird Facility, 2011
Production stills
Meyer-Brandis re-imagines this story for the 21st century
by hand-rearing eleven moon geese from birth as future
astronauts on a farm in Pollinaria, Italy. She gives the goslings
astronauts’ names, imprints them on herself as goose-mother,
trains them to swim and fly, teaches them about orbital
mechanics and the dangers of space debris, and takes them
on expeditions. The commission manifests as a film, series of
photographs, models, vitrines of the geese egg shells,
and a control room in which visitors can interact with the
moon geese via a live feed from their remote moon
analogue habitat in Pollinaria.
Above:
Agnes Meyer-Brandis
Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar
Migration Bird Facility, 2011
Production stills
Centre / Below:
Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar
Migration Bird Facility at the
Bargehouse, London, 2014
Image: Delfanne
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Project:
Fracking Futures
Artists:
HeHe
Year:
2013
Location:
FACT, Liverpool, UK
‘Fracking Futures’ by Paris-based artist duo HeHe (Helen Evans
and Heiko Hansen) was a largescale, technically ambitious
dynamic installation, co-commissioned by The Arts Catalyst and
FACT, Liverpool.
HeHe transformed FACT’s main gallery into a micro-scale fracking
landscape, recreating with precise detail the sounds, tremors and
risks of a hydraulic fracturing operation—complete with noisy
drilling, pounding subwoofers simulating tectonic tremors, sporadic
fireballs bursting from the earth, and oily emissions discharging
into a murky lake of waste water.
Mischievous yet provocative, ‘Fracking Futures’ drew attention to
the polarised debates surrounding this controversial gas extraction
technique, that on the one hand regard fracking as a valuable way
to obtain new energy sources and achieve economic growth, and
on the other are alarmed by its potential environmental dangers
and disruptions.
Refraining from making a particular stand, HeHe’s installation
opened a discursive space for this pertinent local issue (Northwest
England has vast reserves of underground shale gas), as well as
playfully highlighting pressures on public arts organisations to
generate new sources of income.
This page and opposite:
HeHe
Fracking Futures, 2013
Image: FACT
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Experience & Learning
Our experience and learning programme offers people, from many
backgrounds, the opportunity to explore ideas, develop skills and
create new work, thematically crossing art and science.
We run labs, workshops and field trips for both artists and the
general public, opening up rarefied fields of knowledge. For
example, ‘Lab Easy’ with Mad Lab offered hands-on workshops in
DIY biology: from culturing bioluminescent bacteria to Tiki-style
DNA extraction. We even took the lab to Deptford Market!
We offer a dynamic range of workshops and participatory projects
for families and young people, from one-off workshops to extended
projects such as ‘East of Eden’, in which - over an 18-month
period—artist Lucy Stockton-Smith with Sandwich Technology
School designed, built and utilised two geodesic domes in the school
grounds to explore the benefits of organic gardening versus
hi-tec agriculture.
We enjoy bringing together experts and the public, in relaxed social
environments, to explore new ideas and alternative perspectives in
science and culture. Our hugely popular Kosmica series—a regular
London-based salon event exploring the art, science and culture of
outer space—has gone global, with Kosmicas in Paris, Hasselt and
Mexico City.
Above:
Participatory workshop
Satellite Stories led by artist
Joanna Griffin at the
Mullard Space Science
Laboratory, Surrey, 2008.
Centre:
Cellular Gastronomy–
An Alternative Sunday Lunch,
a Lab Easy workshop where
participants learnt skills in the
art of fermentation, 2013.
Nahum Mantra and Anais
Tondeur’s performative ritual
A Case for Levania as part of
Kosmica Mexico City, 2013.
Below:
East of Eden by artist Lucy
Stockton-Smith SandwichTechnology School, 2004–6.
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Research
Underpinning The Arts Catalyst’s commissions and exhibitions
programme is our extensive research strand. The Arts Catalyst
team researches, lectures and publishes internationally on subjects
including art and ecology, and cultural aspects of space exploration,
nuclear energy and polar research.
From our ground breaking artistic and scientific experiments in
zero gravity, we were invited by the European Space Agency (ESA)
to develop a cultural policy for the International Space Station.
Through our long-standing interest in the polar regions, including
projects such as Bipolar and the Arctic Perspective Initiative, we
were commissioned by the British Council in 2013 to curate the
international touring exhibition ‘Ice Lab: New Architecture and
Science in Antarctica’. Our SymbioticA BioArt workshops and
Synthesis (synthetic biology) laboratory were pioneering
initiatives in the rapidly growing interest among artists in
contemporary bioscience.
We facilitate long-term residencies for artists at world-class science
institutions, as well as multidisciplinary research projects, such
as Makrolab, conceptualised by artist Marko Peljhan, a nomadic
sustainable art/science laboratory that can host teams of
researchers working and living alongside each other in
remote environments.
We organise talks, critical discussions, and major thematic
conferences, held in partnership with organisations including the
Tate and the Royal Institution.
This Page:
Scientist and penguin in
Antarctica perusing Ice Lab
exhibition publication, 2014.
Right page, top to bottom:
Arctic Perspective Initiative
(API) makeshift media lab in
Arctic Canada, 2009.
Image credit: Matthew
Biederman
Makrolab in Perthshire,
Scotland, 2002
Image credit: Tim Knowles
Production still of Melanie
Jackson’s The Urpflanze
(Part 2), 2012 commissioned
by The Arts Catalyst as a
direct result from the artist
participating in the Synthesis
laboratory.
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Partnership is key to work of The Arts Catalyst. We collaborate
with world class galleries and museums, universities, arts
organisations, science agencies, research centres and festivals.
The Arts Catalyst warmly thanks the following
organisations, who have supported and worked
with us over the past twenty years:
Ars Electronica
A Foundation, London
AND Festival Artquest
Atholl Estate
Autism Research Centre,
University of Cambridge, AV Festival, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Baltic, Gateshead
Barbican, London
Bournemouth University, Media School
British Antarctic Survey
British Embassy, Moscow
British Library
Canada House, London
Cell Project Space, London
Central Laser Facilty, STFC Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory, Oxford
Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science,
University of Kent
Centre for Mountain Studies, Perth College
Cheltenham Science Festival
CNES (French Space Agency)
Cornerhouse, Manchester
CREAM, University of Westminster
DadaFest
Delta Utec
Edinburgh Art Festival
Edinburgh Zoo
Ellipse, France
European Space Agency
European Space Research & Technology Centre,
Netherlands
FACT, Liverpool
Farnborough Air Sciences Trust
Film & Video Umbrella
Flat Time House, London
Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, Star City,
Russia
Gallery Oldham, Manchester
Goldsmiths College, London
HICA, Scotland
HMKV, Dortmund, Germany
Horniman Museum, London
Hull Time Based Arts
Hunterian Museum, London
ICA, London
IMERA, Mediterranean Institute of
Advanced Studies
Imperial College of Science, Technology &
Medicine, London
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
International Astronautical Federation
John Hansard Gallery, Southampton
John Moore University, Liverpool
Kings College, London
Kings College Hospital, London
Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico
La Maison de la Photographie, Paris
Landscape + Arts Network Services,
Gunpowder Park
La Societe de Curiosities, Paris
Leonardo/OLATS, France/US
Ambika P3, London
Arts Council England
Artist Links Brazil
Arts & Humanities Research Board
AT&T
Brazilian Ministry of Culture
British Council
British Telecom
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
City of Dortmund
City of Ljubljana
COPUS
Creative Partnerships
Daiwa Foundation
Economic and Social Research Council
Embassy of Mexico, London
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
European Commission Culture Programme
European Commission Seventh Framework Programme
Goethe Institute
Henry Moore Foundation
Heritage Lottery Fund
Higher Education Active Community Fund Highland Council
Highland Culture Fund
Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Leverhulme Trust
London Film & Video
Development Agency
Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia
Mobitel
Mondriaan Foundation
National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA), Mexico NESTA
Nevis Partnerships
Open University
Paul Hamlyn Foundation
Pfizer
Science & Technology Facilities Council
Scottish Arts Council
Sir Rattan Tata Trust Wellcome Trust Lighthouse, Brighton Lighthouse, Glasgow Lilian Baylis Theatre, London
London Zoo
Lorna, Iceland
Lux, London
MadLab, Manchester
Matts Gallery, London
Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL
Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester
National Centre for Biological Sciences,
Bangalore, India
Natural History Museum, London
Old Operating Theatre, London
The Open University
P3, London
The Place, London
Projekt Atol, Slovenia
Queen Mary University of London Resonance FM
Roehampton University, London
Roundhouse, London Royal Aeronautical Engineering Workshops,
Farnborough
Royal Holloway, University of London
The Royal Institution London
Royal Society of the Arts, London
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
SCAN Science Museum, London
Science Museum, London
Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge
Sevenoaks Wildfowl Reserve, Kent
Shape
Slade School of Art, UCL
Soho Theatre, London
South London Gallery
SPACE, London
SpaceArtOne, France
Srishti School of Art, Design & Media,
Bangalore
St Barts Hospital, London Stills, Ediburgh
Storey Art Gallery, Lancaster
super/collider
SymbioticaA, University of Western Australia S-Air, Sapporo, Japan
Tate Britain, London
Tramway, Glasgow
transmediale, Berlin
University College London, Department of
Geography
University College London, Department of
Molecular Biology
University College London, Department of
Science & Technology Studies
University of Leicester, Department of Genetics
University of Newcastle, Intersections
V2, Rotterdam
Waag Society, Amsterdam
Yard Gallery, Nottingham
Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Z33, Hasselt, Belgium
32
2014 team:
Staff team: Nicola Triscott, Rob La Frenais, Gillean Dickie, Jo Fells, Claudia Lastra, Sandra Ross
Doctoral researchers: Lisa Haskel, Jareh Das
Associates: Nahum Mantra, Ele Carpenter, Z Amber Richter, Annabel Huxley, Katrin Davison
Board: Elizabeth Lynch, Ansuman Biswas, Lucie Green, Dave Jago, David Thorp, Chris Welch
“The Arts Catalyst is one of the most exciting organisations
I have worked with. Their events are some of the best I have
ever been to. Viva The Arts Catalyst!!!!”
Commissioned Artists:
Tomas Saraceno, 2014
Support Us
The Arts Catalyst is an educational not-for-profit
charity. In the past 20 years, we have delivered
over 120 artists’ projects that experimentally and
critically engage with science and technology. We
are leaders in our field with an enviable track record
for producing ambitious and ground-breaking
projects. Through our work we open up to artists
and the general public areas of knowledge and
investigation that are generally perceived as
scientific or technological.
We are acknowledged by Arts Council England as an
important leading cultural organisation and in
recognition receive an annual grant to support our
work as part of their National Portfolio of directly
funded arts organisations. In 2013 this grant was
£267,000, and our annual budget is £400–500,000.
To deliver our work, we therefore need to raise up to
50% of our funds each year from trading, individual
donors, grant-making bodies and companies.
If you would like to be part of our future by
supporting The Arts Catalyst financially, then we
would like to hear from you. Together we can make
sure that we continue to deliver provocative,
playful, risk-taking art projects that spark dynamic
conversations about our changing world for the
benefit of society. For a discussion about how you
would like to support The Arts Catalyst’s work,
please contact Nicola Triscott:
[email protected]
+44 (0)20 7633 0435
Designed by Åbäke
with Margherita Huntley
Printed by xtraprint
Type faces: Tahoma
(Matthew Carter 1994)
Comic Sans (Vincent
Connare 1994)
34
The Arts Catalyst (Ltd)
Registered Charity
No 1042433
Company Limited
by Guarantee,
Registered in England
No 2982223
James Acord
Jon Adams
Marcus Ahlers
Laurie Anderson
Marceli Antunez Roca
Katherine Araniello
Lise Autogena & Joshua Portway
Brandon Ballengée
Anne Bean
Steve Beard & Victoria Halford
Andy Bichlbaum
Matthew Biederman
Ansuman Biswas
Ben Blakebrough
Anne Brodie
Ken Campbell
Brian Catling
Oron Catts
Helen Chadwick
Miles Chalcraft
Rachel Chapman
Ewen Chardronnet
Adam Chodzko
Revital Cohen & Tuur Van Balen
Tom Corby, Jonathan Mackenzie + Gavin Baily
Richard Couzins
Critical Art Ensemble
Gina Czarnecki
Beatriz Da Costa
Jerry Dammers’ Spatial AKA Orchestra
Adam Dant
Kitsou Dubois
Anna Dumitriu
Jan Fabre
Simon Faithfull
Jem Finer
Alec Finlay
Vadim Fishkin
Flow Motion
Letizia Galli
Stefan Gec
Andy Gracie
Joanna Griffin
Michelle Griffiths
Antony Hall
Sally Hampson
HeHe
Simon Hollington & Kypros Kyprianou
Melanie Jackson
Luke Jerram
Zina Kaye
Sonia Khurana
Jack Klaff
Tim Knowles
Andrew Kotting
Torsten Lauschmann
Yuri Leiderman
London Fieldworks
Los Ferronautas (Iván Puig Domene &
Andres Padilla Domene)
Ruth Maclennan
Nathalie Magnan
Trevor Mathison
Rachel Mayeri
Alistair McClymont
Agnes Meyer-Brandis
Aleksandra Mir
Kira O’Reilly
Sinéad O’Donnell
Chris Oakley
Office of Experiments
The Otolith Group
Lucy Panesar
Katie Paterson
Marko Peljhan
Benedict Phillips
Esther Polak & Ivar van Bekkum
Nicolas Primat
Simon Robertshaw
Steve Rowell
Tomas Saraceno
Semiconductor
Nikky Smedley
Snæbjörnsdóttir | Wilson
Camila Sposati
Lucy Stockton-Smith
Mike Stubbs
Ashok Sukumaran
Jon Thomson & Alison Craighead
Kate Tierney
Andrey & Julia Velikanov
Mark Aerial Waller
WE COLONISED THE MOON (Hagen
Betzwieser & Sue Corke)
Weather Permitting
Neal White
Morag Wightman
Aaron Williamson
Jane & Louise Wilson
Paul Wong
YoHa
Carey Young
Adam Zaretsky
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www.artscatalyst.org
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