Daniel Kohn’s 'Data Sets' Art Intersects Science Opens at the Broad Institute, 5/6-8/15

Daniel Kohn's "Data Sets" exhibit will open at the Broad Institute on Thursday May 6th and will be open through August 15th.

"Data Sets" features Cynthia-Reeves artist, Daniel Kohn's Art Intersects Science exhibition at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Through a series of conversations and residences at the Broad Institute, Kohn explores the phenomenological discourse surrounding their vanguard genome projects. As a result, Kohn's own visual language and artistic method transformed as he was exposed to the scientific method, challenges, and technologies of genome research.

Opening on May 6th, 2010, Kohn's exhibit at the Broad will feature the fluid, large-scale, multi-paneled compositions that he painted in response to his close partnership with genomic scientists.

Contemporary genomics looks at the genome as a total system rather than focusing on a single gene. The genome is not simply a chain of 3.2 billion nucleotides, but a dynamic system in which these elements interact (to form genes and other elements) and give rise to self-replicating life. In order to explore this system, genomicists routinely collect extremely large amounts of data, which they analyze to find meaningful relationships and patterns. Kohn's new works employ a similar methodology.

The collaboration between Golub and Kohn began in 2003, after Golub emailed Kohn to say that he had seen his commissioned works at the Wheatleigh Hotel, Lennox, MA. Golub speculated about the connections between art and science, which are usually seen as distinct, even opposite pursuits. In those early email exchanges, the two men found that they shared a common perspective: both fields can be fundamental in nature, each seeking to create a vision of the world within a historical tradition, using the tools of that tradition, and to communicate that vision to others. Golub expressed the need to both explore dimensionality and communicate a world-view to others, and Kohn realized that this description of science echoed his own concerns as an artist.

 

During Kohn's time at the Broad, he developed a visual catalogue of his experience manifested in over one thousand 8" x 8" digitized watercolors, which he calls his "dataset". The dataset parallels discussions with scientists and helped Kohn develop his own visual thinking, and has served as a resource to study the patterns of Kohn's artistic output, and to develop and create new compositions. Both the scientists and this artist ask: how can our evolving, understanding of high-dimensional and dynamic systems inform a visual language? Conversely, how does visual language structure and communicate a body of knowledge, and ultimately influence how we see it?

For further information, visit online at www.cynthia-reeves.com.