[spectre] Art and science: why duality is good, why (new media) theory is poor

[Jose-Carlos Mariategui]

Dear friends:

After reading a lot of different positions on this never-ending discussion
on the relation between Art and Science, I want to give an opinion on why
the dichotomy of science and art are quite useful and probably why they are
also irreconcilable in a 'unity' perspective, and also, expand it towars our
own criticism, within the new media community, of a lack of critical
theoretical analysis in some areas.
 
Whenever science becomes rationalist or mechanistic, there should be
criticism. Anna Munster mentioned that inside science there is some
criticism, but usually the most deep and open criticisms come from the
outside of a discipline, from Œthe other¹, that is excluded from the dialog
but also has the right for participation to give an opinion.  Artists in
that sense had been part of this enriching external opinion, although, to
some extend, quite ignored or taken seriously, hence, undervalued.
 
In fact, the organizing visions in art are different than the ones in
science.  Even inside communities (these happens even more in science, where
there are specialized groups, which means they are defactum isolated from
other groups or general topics inside science itself).  Nevertheless when we
are exposed to hibridity, lets say to an artistic approach of a formal
discipline, initially the people of the former community will be doubtful:
the analyses will not satisfy the formalization of thought that is
internalized in a particular group.  This will lead towards seeing art as a
Œnice thing¹ but nothing more.  The formal discourse will usually not
include into its formulation the discussion brought from the arts.  Even
more seriously, since art has a natural tendency to be seen to have an
esthetical function, it will be left aside, once more, as seen as a Œnice
thing¹.
 
In that sense public opinion is underestimated, and this is why the museum
should convert itself into a social science laboratory, should be seen as
the experimentation towards the understanding of issues that arise within
today¹s society.  Yes, if we talk about this, we immediately will think
about many interactive art pieces that had tried to develop public awareness
towards certain subjects.  Hence, duality in art and science could be seen
in a positive way: whenever a science is neutral or conservative (dogmatist)
towards a certain issue, art could bring up those issues in a critical way.
 
However, I want to address here a second critical point: art is usually not
taking into consideration the theoretical basis of the critical issues
around science from a deep perspective.  In that sense perhaps it is
important once more to mention the work in areas such as the Sociology of
Scientific Knowledge (SSK) that had build a corpus of theoretical discussion
that enriched not only the relation between Science, Technology and Society
(Knorr-Cetina 1981; Mulkay and Knorr-Cetina 1983; Latour 1987; Law 1991
among many others) in these sense, Science takes seriously or at least
discuss and criticize many of the works done around SSK.  However this does
not happen in Science with the discourse that comes from the Arts. Even
more, some of SSK¹s theories, specially the ones related to social
constructivism (Law 1999) take into consideration not only the inner core,
but also the outer core, in that sense, the diaspora of emergent situations
that are out of the centre, what we had been calling Œthe other¹ or the
Œmarginal¹.  This marginality sensitivity is fundamental for assimilating
new pattern and invigorating a theoretical discourse that has been quite
Western-oriented since its formal academic establishment.
 
This, as I mentioned before, could be also interpreted as a criticism
towards the current state of new media theory and its deepening with other
concurrent discussions.  We cannot deny that there has been quite an
important theoretical development in new media art, especially from an
historiographic and genealogic point of view.  However the deep discussion
about the future is something that though is addressed by artists (in this
respect, as Dreyfus (2001) mentions ³Artists see far ahead of their time²)
it is not worked in a much more detailed and deep manner.  This is perhaps
not only the work of the artists but of many of new media theoreticians, to
start fostering and enrich a discussion in our former community and
expanding it to address several critical issues that have a much more deeper
and wide implications in society and are multi-disciplinary (or sometimes
pertain to specific disciplines).
 
Moreover, if the take a view that does not only covers our little
theoretical world of new media and open it up, we will perhaps start to
incorporate diverse practices from other areas of the world, those Œothers¹
that in the case of new media art are neglected by the majority (if not all)
of encyclopedic approaches in what I consider today a rude exception to a
much more broad reality.  We cannot just think that media art has a history
in the West (in my opinion this tries just to link it again with the past, a
Western-envisioned-past). Media art has its own history all over the world
and we need to broaden our closed mental boundaries not only to see those
structures but also to understand them.
 
Refs:
 
Dreyfus, H. L. (2001). On the internet. London ; New York, Routledge.
            
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1981). The Manufacture of Knowledge: An essay on the
Constructivism and Contextual Nature of Science. Oxford, Pergamon.
            
Latour, B. (1987). Science in Action : how to follow Scientists and
Engineers through Society. Milton Keynes, Open University Press.
            
Law, J. (1991). A Sociology of monsters : essays on power, technology and
domination. London, Routledge.
            
Law, J. (1999). After ANT: complexity, naming and topology. Actor Network
Theory and After. J. Law and J. Hassard. Oxford, Blackwell's for
Sociological Review: 256p.
            
Mulkay, M. and K. D. Knorr-Cetina (1983). Science observed : perspectives on
the social study of science. London, Sage.