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

[John Hopkins]

Some random comments/musings on the art:science topic...

>I think then the question remains - what would scientists want from
>artists? Paul brown speaks of mutual gain but this is clearly gain in
>terms of solving scientific research problems or innovating the scientific
>field...which scientists/sciences want the critical, interventionist
>trajectories of media artists? I think Paul has made the point that some
>postmodernist and corporate/established art is of no interest to
>scientists. however, there's certainly more to art than postmodern vs
>analystic tradition!!

well, one reason for science being interested in trends in 'new 
media' (a term which makes me cringe everytime I read or write it...) 
-- generally science is in a imagined period of transdisciplinarity 
(or at least desires for such).  In order to operate as a scientist 
in a transdisciplinary space, one needs a good understanding of 
distributive knowledge-building.  Within a strict mono-disciplinary 
space, the social space that the science operates in is largely 
pre-determined -- well-known research leaders, experts, and 
mavericks, well-accepted theories, a relatively clear idea of what 
research needs to be done, well-defined academic departments & 
governmental oversight institutions, and so on.  In a 
transdisciplinary space, many of these issues are ill-defined at 
best, and someone doing research has to have an exceptional ability 
to engage the stranger (i.e., a researcher in another discipline), 
and initiate a dialogue that proceeds with some difficulty through 
the filters of specialization that each have built up.  Hmmm, hope 
I'm being somewhat clear here -- some how there is a relation to the 
static situation (institutional structures around research) and the 
dynamic situation (un-defined outcomes, no-pre-determined pathway for 
knowledge-building to follow) -- this seems to be a parallel 
situation to proprietary software development versus open source 
development.

But anyway, some areas of 'new media' creative output is around the 
dynamics of social networks, for example, and these ideas are 
relevant in current areas of research like bio-informatiks, for 
example...  that field is a total hybrid of computer science/genetic 
engineering melded with social network theories and other fragmentary 
ideas from other spaces...

Science and Art seem to be separated by (simply) methodology -- 
science, as a socially deterministic undertaking is always internally 
clear on what methodological processes are acceptable and what are 
not.  From the outside, it is difficult to see this very absolute 
structure.  Artists often don't understand the very absolute limits 
that scientists put on their research -- what is valid and what is 
not.  Artists often see science as simply another social pursuit 
which occasionally has interesting insights into life.  Just another 
in-spiration for artistic creativity.

And to have art that is current and hip, one must assimilate the 
latest in pop-science as a validating stamp on the art.  Why not, as 
science (and digital engineering) is the dominant super-structure 
upon which contemporary society is predicated upon, it's an obvious 
art-career strategy to gain validation-by-association.

But when it comes down to it, I know plenty of scientists who are 
immensely creative individuals (musicians, artists, etc).  So what to 
say about when a single individual has both these areas of creative 
impulse in their domain?  Could it be that instead of the 
methodological difference I suggested above that the difference 
between the two pursuits is only of the materialization that results 
and the position in the social system where those results are 
manifest.  Otherwise they are fundamentally the same impulse?

Personally I've been riding both these beasts during the last years 
-- though I haven't been doing any hard-core science research for a 
couple decades -- I see many similarities in the social 
manifestations of art and science, the onerous hierarchies of power 
that operate in the reward-process are the same.  And, science, as a 
pursuit predicated on looking at the world, about the literal 
reception of electromagnetic radiation into the eyes and consequent 
operation on that in-pulse.  Seems the same as art, eh?

>The question might be - what are the epistemological issues raised by
>media and new media art? Do these challenge or speak to similar issues and
>questions in some areas of contemporary science? I think they can and do

I think it's instructive to read (auto)biographies of scientists in 
the early days of the split between art & science.  It is often hard 
to distinguish the outcomes of creative research in definitively 
artistic or scientific (or fantastic) ideas...  And often there are 
very close personal ties between artists and scientists.  What is the 
developmental significance of that?

My brother-in-law is the chief physicist for the LLNL 
http://www.llnl.gov/ -- he's visiting next weekend, any questions I 
should pose to him?

Cheers
John