What happens when art and science come together?
February 23rd, 2008Can there be a relationship between art and science? Do they have anything in common and if so, what? Have they got anything to contribute to each other? What do artists have to say about science? What do scientists have to say about art?
What happens when art and science come together?
I often disagree with what is passed off as Art/Science. Certainly it will be a combination of art and science with the goal of telling us something about a world beyond our perceptions. Has this not always been the goal of artists and scientists such as Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Galileo and Einstein? The bringing together of art and science will have to be accomplished by artists with more than a passing knowledge of science - and vice versa. In the end, I think it will combine incredible advances in computer technology with science, and artistic concepts such as beauty - so that artists might be able to manipulate visual images as if they were … equations! Surely all this touches on fundamental issues in art, science, technology and education in the 21st century.
Is Art is the science of human expression? There is certainly a kind of “standing on the shoulders of giants” methodology to it; it does not stand for repetition, and there is often a well constructed argument behind the creation. Is Science the art of systematically consolidating information? Both have elements of consensus building, and creativity, and methodological constraint, and both can be subject to leaps of imagination. Perhaps you are correct and in the end artists might be able to manipulate visual images as if they were equations. The mathematical language we have constructed to allow us to conduct science is often seen as inaccessible. If computers can allow us to transcend the mathematics and work with accessible forms that anyone can manipulate, but that are constrained by the computer to maintain all that is already known about physical laws, then more people might be involved in the creative process. But will they understand their creations? Does that matter? Does this situation illustrate the distinction between the essence of Art and Science?