Blume, E. und E. Gillen, in: G. Leidloff: "l o g - i n / l o c k e d  o u t", in: O. Breidbach, K. Clausberg und K.P. Dencker (Hg.): Video, ergo sum, Hamburg 1999

What is expected of art today is not a certainty toward the future, but a sense of opportunity (Robert Musil), the providing of scenarios and "thought images" (Walter Benjamin) for solving the problems at hand. Artists and academic scientists could once again open up mutual fields of visualizing things, provide experimental formations (the title of many works of art in recent years) and thereby contribute toward society understanding itself.

While the scientist ascertains functional correlations, the artist addresses impressions in their own aesthetic formulations, which reach out beyond thew analysis of functions into the infinity of cosmic contexts. Each science is enveloped by a shadow of the irrational infinity which art addresses. By being conscious of this shadow, the roles of art and science alter themselves.

The National Gallery at Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof and the Berlin Museum Educational Service are planning an exhibition with the preliminary working title "Art as Science - Science as Art", which will be accompanied by discussions, symposia and series of lectures. This has created a great deal of interest on our part for the initiatives proposed by the artist Gabriele Leidloff, who is planning a series of presentations linked with exhibits on her theme  l o g - i n / l o c k e d o u t .

Cooperative efforts could begin in 1999 with non-public discussion forums (possibly within the action radius of the Hamburger Bahnhof or in one of Berlin's scientific research centers), giving both scientists and artists the opportunity to evolve an understanding of the principles behind a dialogue between scientists and artists.

Eugen Blume, Eckhart Gillen
National Gallery at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin