image courtesy of enSight

oneEighty will hit the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland next week (13-15 April), running concurrent with the International Science Festival.

It's a fringe festival and yes, it's in Edinburgh, but it's not the Edinburgh Fringe. Instead, this novel three-day affair will deconstruct science and its influence on our lives in unconventional ways. oneEighty is a collaborative concept that thrives on the crosstalk between scientists, technologists, artists, musicians, authors and the mindful public at large, seeking to provide a open forum for people to explore, create and experiment with ideas about science and its larger implications.

An important arts-based element of the festival is an exhibition/competition called enSight, which aims to explore the shifting boundaries between science and art. For this exhibition, the enSight crew acted as creative matchmakers, allowing scientists and artists to pair up.

In the first phase, various scientists were approached to submit an original image of raw data, ranging from graphs to electron microscopy to infrared technology (click here to see the gallery), and in the second, interested artists selected an image and used it to create a rough sketch of their initial instinctive response to the image. Next, each scientist-artist pair put their heads together to create a piece of art in any media. Finally, the three components were compiled in a triptych work for exhibition.

The exciting results of this collaborative effort will be on view at the enSight Gallery, 51 Home Street, Edinburgh (opposite the Cameo cinema) from 12-18 April (opening hours 15:00-20:00) and a virtual exhibit will follow on the website from the end of April. There is no charge for entry!