Sci-Art | Neuston Experiments

The Neuston project was born in 2007 to establish a transdisciplinary dialogue between scientists and artists that would allow them to jointly explore both forms of knowledge, science and art, considering both cultures as an inseparable whole.

The neuston is the set of organisms that inhabit the surface layer that separates water and the atmosphere. Starting from this idea of ​​border, of liminal space, the Neuston, Science and Art project, seeks to explore, know and, if necessary, break the barriers to understanding these two forms of understand the world around us.

After its creation, the project has opened channels of dialogue between the marine scientific community of Galicia and 17 artists, within the framework of 3 experiments conceived from the beginning as transdisciplinary experiments. 

In Neuston Experiment 1: Exploring the interface (2009), the collaboration of fourteen tandems of scientists and artists was established. Based on a scientific publication, the research staff presented to the artist a specific aspect of her work, initiating a dialogue from which the artist made her proposal. Comics, sculpture, pictorial work, poetry. fifteen pieces that showed the results of dialogue, co-creation and the search for intelligibility between professionals (and people) from different fields. The project was translated into a dossier and an exhibition at the Museo do Mar de Galicia (Vigo), which circulated in various parts of the international geography. To discover the artists and research staff involved, access the Neuston Experiment 1 dossier.

It was with Neuston Experiment 2: Sounds of Science (2021) that the project was resumed, within the framework of the G-NIGHT: Noite Galega das Persoas Investigadoras (European Researchers' Night). In this case, with a somewhat different proposal, which involved a single artist, but with a desire to disseminate and direct contact with the audience that stood out in the first year after the start of the 2020 pandemic. A single artist,  Mónica de Nut, was in charge on this occasion of collecting the sounds and ideas, the concepts and lines of research, which were distilled within the Mariñas Research Institute, establishing a continuous dialogue of co-creation for a show vocal and sound presented in the middle of the European Night of Researchers at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vigo (MARCO).

In the latest experiment, the Neuston Experiment 3: In Concert with the Ocean (2022 -2023), music once again became the protagonist thanks to the builder and multi-instrumentalist Abraham Cupeiro. The continuous search for new sounds throughout the world, collected in his latest album Pangea, connected very well with one of the pillars of Oceanic Culture: there is only one ocean that connects us all. Resuming the dialogues between the scientific staff of the Institute and the artist, a work-concert was created in which key concepts about the importance of research and science, especially marine science, were transmitted, taking advantage of the fascination created by the artist's music. sarrian. This concert was performed in VIgo, in 2022, and in the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid (RJB-CSIC) in 2023, following a strategic line that tries to take advantage of collaborations to bring ocean science to inland areas. These last 2 concerts were held within the framework of the European project "Ocean Night: helping society understand the importance of the marine ecosystem" (101061165), an initiative of the European Union financed by the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions (Call HORIZON-MSCA-2022-CITIZENS-01).