Protocol examines different errors in scientific practice, and how these errors might be considered valuable despite their deviation from scientific protocol.

The exhibition comprises of two individual artworks, Studies of Nature and Lab Hands. Studies of Nature memorialises the scientific papers that have been retracted (withdrawn) from the journals of the Nature research group since 2014. The phenomenon of retracting papers can be stigmatised within scientific communities, where honest mistakes and quality assurance can be construed as fraudulent practice. Once retracted, a paper exists in ‘no-man’s land’, where it is unfit for scientific use, but remains as an artefact of the authors’ labour and craft. Studies of Nature commemorates these papers, valuing their labour and the small stories that exist within each artefact.

Lab Hands is a collection of calcium silicate lab mats that have been marked through years of use and repeated experimentation at the hands of student scientists. The syllabus can be found in the mats themselves, with repeated colours of oxidised copper blue, rusted brown and Bunsen scorch marks forming drawings of the different mishaps and mishandlings.

Together, Lab Hands and Studies of Nature describe different procedures (and deviations from procedures) in scientific practice. They both inhabit a tension between institutional authority and error, which is played out differently in each work. Each work, while distinct in its appearance, probes the arbitrary boundaries that are constructed around scientific facts and practices.

Ash Tower is an artist and researcher based in Adelaide, South Australia. His work examines systems of knowledge; means by which information is ordered and stored. By drawing on existing conventions that classify, consign and codify, Ash’s work interrupts these systems, revealing the internal architecture of an otherwise closed, unseen system. He is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of South Australia in the sociology of scientific knowledge. His doctoral research focuses on laboratories in art/science work, particularly how the cultural practices of artistic and scientific communities are performed within laboratory space.