Laurent Karst is a French architect and designer trained in Strasbourg and at the Domus Academy in Milan, winner of the Villa Medici Prize in 1995. The following text is inspired by his essay: Zones of Indiscernibility Between Art and Science: Interfaces for New Knowledge and Experience.

The relationship between art and science has long been framed as a separation between two distinct ways of understanding the world. Since the philosophical influence of René Descartes and the institutional development of academies and specialized disciplines in the nineteenth century, these fields have generally been treated as fundamentally different domains. Science is commonly associated with objectivity, experimentation, verification, and demonstrable truth, while art is linked to subjectivity, expression, imagination, and sensory experience. However, contemporary practices increasingly challenge this binary view. Through installations, immersive environments, and interdisciplinary collaborations, new forms of creative and intellectual work blur the traditional boundaries between artistic and scientific practices. These encounters give rise to what can be described as zones of indiscernibility—spaces where the distinction between art and science becomes difficult to define. Within these zones, new forms of dialogue, experimentation, and knowledge production emerge.

These hybrid spaces function as fertile territories where disciplines overlap and interact. Rather than being predetermined or fixed, zones of indiscernibility appear through collaboration and exchange between artists and scientists. They are created when the methods, perspectives, and questions of each discipline intersect, generating areas of contact and transposition. In these spaces, knowledge is not simply transferred from one field to another; instead, new approaches to understanding the world develop through shared exploration. These interactions stimulate curiosity, creativity, and innovation, allowing both artists and scientists to reconsider their methods and assumptions.

A crucial aspect of these encounters is the development of interfaces between art and science. Interfaces are the mechanisms that allow dialogue and mutual understanding between disciplines that traditionally rely on different languages, goals, and epistemological frameworks. They can be understood as conceptual or methodological surfaces through which ideas circulate and are translated between artistic and scientific practices. According to this perspective, interfaces are not merely technical tools but fundamental conditions for interdisciplinary collaboration. They enable new ways of perceiving, feeling, and interpreting the world by combining analytical reasoning with sensory experience.

Several major types of interfaces can be identified within these zones of indiscernibility. Each contributes differently to the development of interdisciplinary understanding and creative innovation. These include interfaces of experimentation and method, knowledge, incorporation, sensory and emotional perception, symbolism, narrative, and humanistic reflection. Although they can be described separately, in practice they often overlap and interact, forming complex layers within artistic and scientific collaborations.

The first important category involves interfaces of experimentation and method. Scientific experimentation is typically based on strict protocols designed to test hypotheses and verify results through........

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