Frontier is a term that traces back to the Middle Age France, and was used to describe territories that lie near the borderline of the other state or sometimes even beyond. It also means a region at the edge of a settled area, especially during the period of expansion to the Wild West in North American development. Frontier is a territory with undefined borders, which exist in a state of temporary movement. Science-art is exactly this kind of borderland, where sophisticated research is taking place leading the humankind to a new vision of the world. 

The exhibition «Frontier» to coincide with the 5th anniversary of Laboratoria aims to investigate the boundary characteristics of science-art. For art it is an opportunity to step onto the territory of the experiment; for science it is a field of an unbarred experiment and reflection. Artists respond to the new tendencies in science and technology very sensitively and emerge as pioneer explorers; sometimes they have to work with expressive media that have not gained critical acknowledge yet. The results of these experiments are hybrid artworks that take all possible shapes and forms. Science-art is biological, robotic, generative art, performances, based upon the most recent scientific developments, audio-visual, interactive and virtual environments. A short time ago science-art was still regarded as a marginal zone of contemporary art, though today we already see it as a full fledge participant of artistic development. 

In the course of its research Laboratoria has distinguished several types of science art that depend upon the ability of the artist to step onto the territory of science and upon the ways the artist transforms his visual language. According to the level of engagement of artist and scientist into the process and to the way in which the borders of art and science are trespassed, it is possible to allocate the resulting artworks into three groups.

THE BORDERS OF UNDERSTANDING: SYMBIOSIS OF ART AND SCIENCE 

The artist and the scientist perform as co-authors of the artwork. The disciplinary border dissolves. Scientific issues are investigated critically and with the help of new media. 

Sergey Shutov (consultant – neurobiologist Konstantin Anokhin), The Ministry of the Truth of Peace Dove, 2011-2013 

Dovecote is a scientific station for observation and experiments, investigating the behaviour of doves. On the screen installed inside the construction the 3D cartoons are projected. The main characters of these cartoons are pigeons that behave in an unusual way; for example, they jump as if they were sparrows. One can follow the reactions of pigeons either in real time or through a web-cam. The exhibition will show the results of recent experiments with the bread pigeons and others.

THE BORDERS OF POSSIBLE: ARTIST-ENGINEER

This group comprises of artworks in which contemporary technologies and new visual language come first. 

::vtol:: (Dmitriy Morozov), сonus, 2013 

The ornament of a seashell is read by self-made digital microscopes, then analysed by the computer algorithm and transformed into the sound. The artist uses the shells of a tropical shellfish Conus – the bright ornament of the shells reminds the visualization of the arithmetic models, such as cellular automata.

THE BORDERS OF FEELINGS: ART IS DOMINATING

These are the projects where artists, staying in the frameworks of their habitual language, advert to science as a field of artistic inspiration. 

Where Dogs Run art-group. The Faces of the Smell, 2012 

The viewer has to step inside the perception zone of the snuff tubes. The construction generates the portrait of a viewer in accordance to his smell. Gas detectors scan the olfactory pattern while the specially created program transforms the air content data into the facial features data that is in the end visualized as a composite picture. 

Natalia Zintsova, The Border, 2012 

The waves are approaching the coast one by one. Each new wave leaves its trace on the sand. One wave drags a rope into the sea, the other – throws it back to the shore. Every time the rope is taking a new shape. The artist carries out an experiment trying to materialize the evasive border between the land and the sea.