REVIEW: "Third Matter" at Central Saint Martins, London

MA Science & Art exhibition illustrates
​emerging relationships between disciplines

Leon Radschinski. Image courtesy of Central Saint Martins.

By Anna Marks, contributor

The Art and Science Masters Degree at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, is a pioneering course investigating the collaborations and emerging relationships between art and science. The course examines how best to communicate these relationships and via innovative art practice, encourages students to develop a critical engagement with current scientific research.

"Third Matter" exhibited last month was this year's graduate show, showcasing a diverse range of students’ work. Around the exhibition, there was a continuum of divergent works, illustrating the range of student’s backgrounds - photography, fine art, psychology, medicine, and sculpture. Responding to a variety of scientific topics such as memory, consciousness, smell, black holes, and nonverbal communication, the projects explored how humankind cohabits the world and our ever-changing relationship with organic and synthetic matter.
 
Here are some of the projects:
MA student Virginie Serneels' Motion Has Always Been An Important Part Of Who I am is a collaborative project with ex-classical dancer Clelia Stambo. Serneel’s project explores the dancer’s life and addresses what success means while critiquing how art can overcome trauma.

Virginie Serneels. Image courtesy of Central Saint Martins.

Agnese Basova’s work explores how natural materials can be manipulated and altered e.g. spider webs, slime, and bread mold. Basova creates experimental works, altering natural materials  to create new objects with different biological properties.

Agnese Basova. Image courtesy of Central Saint Martins.

Exploring current research in genetics and its presence in popular culture, Neus Torres Tamarit’s digital installation critiques how genetics interacts with the subject and audience, and how accurately artworks can present scientific concepts.

Neus Torres Tamarit. Image courtesy of Central Saint Martins.

Creating beautiful mathematical illustrations, Nicolas Strappini maps oscillations, pendulum movements, and lichtenberg figures. He does this via harmonographs and Winshurst machines, exploring the way mathematical concepts and physical laws are documented.

Nicolas Strappini. Image courtesy of Central Saint Martins.

Josh Chow constructs installations and striking abstract paintings. He uses a range of mediums to interpret darkness and the fear of the unknown.

Josh Chow. Image courtesy of Central Saint Martins.

Exploring ways of visually communicating climate change, Hannah Scott investigates the impact of plastic on the environment. Scott creates work which allows people to question their life choices and the impact they have upon the environment.

Hannah Scott. Image courtesy of Central Saint Martins.

Leon Radschinski (pictured above) has an interest in cross-modal cognition, specifically how we structure creative processes via embodied experience e.g. sound. His work experiments with how sound can represent an image, and how an image can represent a sound.

Michelle Von Mandel explores the sense of smell, utilizing scent as if it were paint. Mandel investigates her nostalgia for her 90s childhood and creates scents that analyze this phenomenon.

Michelle Von Madel. Image courtesy of Central Saint Martins.

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