Abstract

One cell at a time: Bringing together communities, patients, and researchers to build the Human Cell Atlas’ (OCAAT) is a national public engagement project delivered as part of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) during the Covid-19 pandemic (2020 – 2021). This chapter presents the approach taken to reposition artmaking and curatorship as active 'art hacking’ agents within OCAAT, to interrogate the assumptions, methods, and goals of the HCA. Four art-science commissions will be introduced: Ways of doing things by Anna Macdonald, Sensory Cellumonials by Baum & Leahy, Donate Yourself by Stacey Pitsillides with body>data>space, and The Call of the Silent Cell by boredomresearch. (One Cell at a Time, 2021) Projects are participatory in nature, a form of art that ‘directly engages the audience in the creative process so that they become participants in the event’ (Bishop, 2012, p.18). Each project employed innovative digital technologies (including Augmented Reality, 3D visuals, screen based and interactive performance, 3D simulations, experimental film, immersive meditation, and generative mapping techniques) resulting in the emergence of a hybridized art-science visual culture within the HCA that was created in collaboration with the communities upon whom science at this scale depend.