Nathaniel Stern: teaching everyone how to sustain their work with entrepreneurial thinking
Arts Research Africa Dialogues (apple podcast)
In this dialogue Prof Christo Doherty speaks to Professor Nathaniel Stern, an artist, writer and teacher who holds a 50/50 dual appointment at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as a Professor in Art and Design and Mechanical Engineering where “he teaches artists how to engineer, engineers how to art, and everyone how to sustain their work with entrepreneurial thinking.”
Nathaniel’s most recent art project, a travelling exhibition, called “The World After US (TWAU): Imaging techno-aesthetic futures”, is a fascinating and constantly mutating physical melange of botany and discarded electronics that challenges viewers to imagine “what our digital media will be and do in the world after us”. One aspect of the TWAU project, called “The Wall After Us”, was was recently featured as part of the SYM|BIO|ART exhibition at University of Johannesburg. The exhibition launched the newly formed Creative Microbiology Research Co-Lab at the University of Johannesburg led by Prof Leora Farber.
Nathaniel also has a long association with Johannesburg and the Wits School of Arts. With a Masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, he was responsible for designing and teaching the first years of the Interactive Media studio programme in the Digital Arts department. Over that time he also won the Brett Kebble Art Award in both 2003 and 2004, thus earning the first recognition for interactive and digital art in the South African art world. Following his time in Johannesburg, he went on to do a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland writing his dissertation on interactive art and embodiment.
Since his PhD, Nathaniel has created a dazzling range of exploratory art projects, often in collaboration with other artists, scientists and engineers. In fact the journal Scientific American says Stern’s art is “tremendous fun,” and “fascinating” in how it is “investigating the possibilities of human interaction and art.” I urge listeners to visit his website to get a grasp of the extent of his artistic and writerly practice. In this discussion, we talk about the TWAU project; and the experience of installing the “The Wall After Us” working remotely from the US together with the curatorial team at the FADA gallery. We also explore Nathaniel’s thinking about aesthetics and the relationship between aesthetics and activism, especially the climate activism that is central to his work. Finally we unpack the Startup Challenge which Nathaniel directs at Lubar Entrepreneurship Centre at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. I think that the expanded notions of both innovation and entreprepreneurship that Nathaniel deploys in the programme are of great value for similar work at Wits, and in South Africa more broadly.
Useful links to Nathaniel’s website, books, exhibitions, and papers:
His website: https://nathanielstern.com
His latest published paper, together with Johannes Lehmann and Rachel Garber-Cole: “Novelty and Utility: How the Arts May Advance Question Creation in Contemporary Research”. Leonardo (2023) 56 (5): 488–495. DOI https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02400
The TWU site, with downloadable PDF of the exhibition catalogue and a video documentary: https://nathanielstern.com/text/2020/catalog-the-world-after-us/
Nathaniel’s first book, with downloadable intro chapter:
Ecological Aesthetics: artful tactics for humans, nature, and politics
The Lubar Entrepreneurship Centre webpage: https://uwm.edu/lubar-entrepreneurship-center/student-startup-challenge/#
Related artworks:
Other related texts:
SYM | BIO | ART
The catalogue to the exhibition SYM | BIO | ART: INTRA-ACTING AT THE CRITICAL NODE BETWEEN BIOTECHNOLOGY AND CONTEMPORARY ART (FADA Gallery, 2023) – a gorgeous 106-page electronic publication – celebrates the creative visual outputs, scholarship and political agency of the first exhibition of UJ’s Creative Microbiology Research Colab.
The Foreword by UJ Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Letlhokwa Mpedi, underlines imperatives of the arts and sciences working together, quoting African American engineer and astronaut Mae Jemison who said, “Sciences provide an understanding of a universal experience, Arts are a universal understanding of a personal experience…they are both a part of us and a manifestation of the same thing…the arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity.”
The Introduction by CMRC founders Professors Leora Farber and Tobias Barnard locates the work of the Colab internationally and, more importantly, within the African continent. They note that, “[Creative Microbiology Research]…can be a powerful platform for African…bio-art/ design practitioners – to express and address concerns that are relevant and particular to the continent – be these socio-political, historical or environmental.”
The essay by Dineo Diphofa – titled Intra-actions and Intra-sections: Bioart as a means of Critically Engaging with the Colonial Canon – provides an art historical and political context for contemporary bioart practice. Diphofa draws parallels between canons and exhibitions as dynamic sites of evolution and flux – not static and dogmatic as history tries to make us believe, but “as sites for inquiry, critique and debate.” The essay defines for the reader the broad themes underpinning the exhibition, which “include intersectionality, environmental politics as well as colonial discourses pertaining to race. More specifically, these themes include an exploration of the colonial impact on land ownership and labour; indigenous connections to the land and language; displacement; the exploitation of natural resources; pollution, and ecological degradation.” By examining and interpreting how the artists and artworks on exhibition challenge colonial dichotomies, the essay maps ways in which bioart may be applied to undo the inner workings of coloniality. Diphofa writes that, “By subverting historical western notions linked to power and control, bioart can serve as a means of reclaiming agency and challenging the hegemonic forces that have shaped colonial relationships with living and non/living matter… and foster a more inclusive and equitable society.”
The second part of the catalogue is dedicated to the artists on exhibition, and provides edited excerpts of interviews with, and depictions of artworks, by Tobias Barnard, Nadine Botha, Xylan de Jager, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Leora Farber, Brenton Maart, Miliswa Ndziba, Nathaniel Stern and Nelisiwe Xaba. These pages, along with the text, help in constructing a vibrant and vivid view of the contribution of contemporary art to the evolution of a new practice based on new methodologies, new materialities and new forms of knowledge, new insights and perspectives, and how these may come together to redress some of the insidious effects of colonialism and other forms of human rights abuse.
download the full catalog
See on UJ site
Related artworks:
Other related texts: