[spectre] Arts and Sciences

[Zev Robinson]

Hi,

I've just joined this list, and would like to make a couple of comments on 
the art/science relationship.

the sci/art divide is that it is a fairly recent phenomena, and not 
something that would have been understood in leonardo's or Rubens' time.

Digital technology, the internet, etc, is breaking down all sorts of 
divisions and barriers, making expression and communication possible in ways 
that weren't possible even a decade ago and for a lot of people who wouldn't 
have even contemplated attempting it. This means that scientists can 
communicate issues of concern to a wider public, and using means outside of 
science magazines and reviews.

We are working on Randomness and Certainty 
http://www.artafterscience.com/randomness/index.htm interviewing scientists 
on how there professional experience has affected their personal 
understanding of life. It is an sci/art project in itself, but scientists 
have also commented on the relationship, and how the specialization of 
scientist to the degree of spending years studying, for example, one 
molecule has affected their need for a broader view which in some cases art 
has provided.

Science, art, creativity, and looking at the world in various ways don't 
have to be, and in my view shouldn't be, mutually exclusive.

Zev

Zev Robinson
www.artafterscience.com
www.zrdesign.co.uk


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andreas Broeckmann" <abroeck at transmediale.de>
To: <spectre at mikrolisten.de>
Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2006 9:21 PM
Subject: Re: [spectre] Arts and Sciences


> dear friends,
>
> like others, i am aware that there is an ongoing debate about the 
> arts/sciences relationship, and i guess there is a lot of truth in 
> trebor's analysis of 'science' as camouflage for arts in a unfavourable 
> funding environment.
>
> however - and please ignore this if the question is foolish - i would like 
> to come back to the question that i originally asked, i.e. whether anybody 
> has any evidence for an actual *increase* in art/science collaborations.
>
> the question was not meant as a form of polemics, nor did i want to put 
> down the (critical and affirmative) examples that there are. (with regard 
> to bio-art or space-art, for instance, the same handfull of names crop up 
> everywhere. and with regard to the 'status' of those endeavours, i liked 
> andrew's throught-provoking suggestion: 'I see researchers using creative 
> means to express their work, and we may not consider this art under a 
> limited view (could we consider bioart a science?), but culturally I think 
> it would be important to consider a broader definition of what artistic or 
> creative practice could involve ethnographically.'
>
> regards,
> -a
>
>
>
>>>  on 2/17/06 9:48 AM, Andreas Broeckmann wrote:
>>>
>>>  out of curiosity: is there any evidence that the relation between art
>>>  and science is in fact intensifying (as blurbs like these always
>>>  suggest), and that what we see is more than a (statistically
>>>  horizontal) decade-spanning string of incidental projects and
>>>  cooperations? there has been talk about this intensification for at
>>>  least 50 or even 80 years, if you take the original Bauhaus or the
>>>  post-revolutionary Russian Avantgarde into account. but there also
>>>  seems to be an insistence of much of art to stay away from science,
>>>  and vice versa. luckily.
>>>
>>>  (most of the 'gravitation' mentioned here might be coupled with a
>>>  centrifugal force, in which case it would be interesting to understand
>>>  who or what is keeping the two, art and science, in each other's 
>>> orbit.)
>>>
>>>  regards,
>>>  -a
>>>
>>>
>>>>  New Constellations: Art, Science and Society
>>>>  An international conference charting the ways in which art and
>>>>  science are
>>>>  gravitating towards one another within contemporary culture. The
>>>>  Conference
>>>>  will present the latest thinking about collaboration between artists 
>>>> and
>>>>  scientists and examine how the worldwide trend towards 
>>>> interdisciplinary
>>>>  engagement is changing the definitions, methodologies and practices
>>>>  they use
>>>>  and how they view the social implications of their work.
>
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