Throughout today, June 5, and tomorrow, June 6, the School of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona and the Hangar (Can Ricart) will host the international symposium "Expanded Impression" , which aims to open a space for reflexion and debate to analyse the current cultural paradigm. The event includes conferences, debates, an audiovisual session and an exhibition of posters of the research group that offers, amongst other things, an artistic look at the research activity that is carried out at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB).

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The work that involves the PCB, titled “Laboratory Diaries of Dr. A and Dr.G”, is a photographic archive that shows the working space using the laboratory diaries employed by the researchers from two research groups of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), led by Fernando Albericio and Ernest Giralt. It is framed within a larger project called “Observations in a laboratory”, which has been carried out since 2008 by researcher Luz Broto, grant holder of the research group “Binary Prospections” of the School of Fine Arts. Her work stems from the desire to bridge the gap between the different languages used in art and science and aims to establish similarities and differences between the scientific method and the artistic method by observing, as a non-interfering external observer, the space and context where scientific knowledge is generated.

Hence, the task that she has been carrying out for over a year within the laboratory is limited to observing, taking notes and taking small photographs as notes. This material is used to develop a “Laboratory Diary” , where she transcribes her impressions on the matter.

Luz Broto’s projects are generally considered “experiments” and stem from the exploration of different spaces where she proposes introducing elements that subtly alter all that is normal, in order to trigger reactions that are initially new and unknown. The interventions consist of initiating a working process that usually generates a certain type of event, and observe this process, writing down the results in a diary. This diary narrates all the steps observed, more or less objectively, and includes a final synthesis or final report that enables the analysis of what has occurred. This working method, therefore, is somewhat similar to scientific methodology.

The work exhibited at the symposium, “Laboratory Diaries of Dr. A and Dr.G” reflects the similarities that exist between the diaries used by researchers. According to Luz Broto, this demonstrates, on the one hand, the “homogeneity” that exists amongst scientific methodology, and, on the other hand, the particularities of the subjects who carry out objective observation, given that certain differences are observed, differences that perhaps reveal different approaches. Blank spaces correspond to the scientists who do not use the diary as a working tool, or who were absent that day and thus, their absence is respected since they occupy a space within the laboratory.

Luz Broto has a degree in Fine Arts by the University of Barcelona and has completed the PhD programme Art in the digital era. Intermediate creation, at the same university. After being granted the predoctoral grant for the Training of Researchers (FI), she begins a research line on the study and experimentation of events inside and out the exhibition space, developing a series of specific projects in different contexts. These productions can be found at www.luzbroto.net, where the research methodology employed and her field of interest are described.