Grayson Cooke: Creativity Between Art & Science

Art Lovers | 5 July 2024

Written by Anna Itkonen

Grayson Cooke is an interdisciplinary scholar and media artist. His art sits somewhere between art and science, often blurring the lines so you forget where one ends and the other begins. With degrees in literature and film and an interdisciplinary PhD, the vast amount of critical and cultural theory, academic research and experience of science and technological innovation have guided his interest as a creative researcher and artist. Like he says himself, he became an artist to explore our knowledge and experience of the world through creative means. The interest in technology and its role in human life and the notion of art meeting people where they are, has led his creative path to where it is today. Technology is a tool for his art as much as it is a question.

Andamooka Drift

“People don’t always see the richness in science or its inherent creativity and potential. When an artist enters this kind of science and technology world, you can render the results of the scientific processes differently. Science can be cold, so bringing creativity and creative uses of its technologies and tools warms it up.”

Grayson Cooke

Grayson comes from a creative background and a musical family. “I think the musical background really colours everything I do now. Even if it is solely images that I work with. I like to think that I create musical images.”
Grayson works with various photo media, from traditional photography to 3D drone photogrammetry and satellite data. He uses still and moving images, including video work, audiovisual installations, and large projections to depict landscapes, environments and natural forms, including the world as it has been altered by humankind.

Darwin

“I am really interested in form and beauty, texture and colour, which we see so richly when we look at the planet and the atmosphere. Clouds, for instance, look crazy when rendered with infrared light. I love the surreal nature of this process. It really pushes the unexpected!”

Andamooka Slide

“I am driven as a creative person in all sorts of ways. I really enjoy art and creative activities that excite other people as much as they excite me. You can use art to make sense of the world, your place in it, your effect on it, and the broader questions of the human effect on it in some way.”

Lake Gilles

Grayson’s practice has evolved as technology has. Technological practices, innovation, and techniques are forever changing and progressing, creating an exciting yet living base for his art practice.

“My engagement with science and the art-science nexus has evolved as I have done more. Every art-science project is different because the issues that a scientist might address will differ from context to context, project to project. So, equally, if you are doing art-science projects, you develop new modes of expression and address different issues.”