[spectre] art and science......

[Simon Biggs]

I think we are getting processes and roles mixed up here. Art and science
both exist as social functions and their value is accrued due to this. Art
and science also exist as processes. It is theoretically possible, although
in practice probably impossible, to separate these two aspects of each
discipline. The artist can go off and be a hermit and not engage with any of
the social aspects of what they are doing, refining their "vision" within
their ivory tower. The scientist can similarly go off and become a "mad
individualist" in their laboratory deep in a cave or on top of a mountain
somewhere (visions of Dr's Moreau or Frankenstein).

However, I am unaware of any artist or scientist that does manage to work
without a social context and thus I cannot see how either of these practices
can be pursued without engaging with the ethical conundrums that inevitably
emerge when more than one person is involved in doing something.

The problem for science is that as a process it is so obviously tangled up
with the instrumentality of power that underpins our (often morally
ambiguous) societies. When a scientist chooses to work at MIT they must take
on board the fact that many of the resources they will be accessing to do
their work, whether financial, human, technical or informational, are
associated with noxious origins (the NSF, Pentagon, CIA, etc). This is also
true if they choose to work in the rather less "military-industrial" climes
of Europe.

However, artists should be extremely careful when they accuse scientists of
being necessarily evil by association. Looking around I see little that is
different for artists. They take money and opportunities as they arise. Few
have the luxury of refusing the minimal patronage they receive, whether in
the form of an invitation to participate in an exhibition, receipt of an
arts council grant or the offer of employment in an art school. These forms
of patronage can be traced back to not dissimilar origins as those that
underpin the economy of science.

Some artists, of course, will argue that they lift themselves above this
morass of ethical muck by not selling out. I would ask these artists whether
they can really make that case. How do they eat? How do they resource their
practice? Is the money they use somehow washed clean by being assigned to
cultural use? Is it possible to argue that by appropriating such resources
they are able to make their whites whiter?

Let's not get into an argument about the differences between art and science
predicated on good or bad. That is such a naïve and simplistic argument. One
role of the artist is to reveal the dark and ambivalent nature of things. If
they are to do this effectively they have to recognise this in themselves
first. I seem to remember a story about casting stones...

Best

Simon



On 13.03.06 08:25, hight at 34n118w.net wrote:

> not sure what you mean.......
> I don't see it in values.....
> 
> I just see the processes............the
> curiosity.......exploration..............result................art and
> science to me in that context set  are similar.........america has long
> bemoaned a shortage of students studying the sciences and it apparently is
> worse now.............when I was younger it was taught as quite dry and we
> never got any mention of the creative, explorative, more individual
> result..........



Simon Biggs

simon at littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

Professor of Digital Art, Sheffield Hallam University
http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/