MRS
"Artists
in the maelstrom of science," said the strapline. This idea was all
up in the air, but artists and scientists needed to come down to earth
to communicate. The Royal Institution became the place to do so on 19
and 20 February thanks to The Arts Catalyst. A panel of artists and scientists were invited to speak about subjects ranging from genetics in the 21st century, space, the evolution of form and artificial consciousness to sex. It was clearly a conference for artists to express their views about science. But it gave scientists in the maelstrom of art an opportunity to express themselves too.
The opening of the conference sparked off a few strong comments from both sides. It showed that this discussion was long due. Some artists complained that they were seen as mere illustrators of scientific discoveries. Well-known scientist Lewis Wolpert denounced the abuse of so-called ‘genetic pornography’ where ‘each new discovery is used to titillate people’s imagination’, thus misleading people from outside science. Graham Bulfield (Roslin Institute) felt that ‘scientists see science as unknown, people see it as facts’. This prompted an artist in the audience to declare: ‘it shows that science has an image problem’.
Why then, does each side have a feeling of being misused? There is a chronic lack of communication due to differences of language. Both scientists and artists have a jargon of their own. The challenge lies in adopting a common language.
But artists and scientists may already have more in common than they realise. Both flirt with the unknown. Artists use the unknown as a resource to trigger their creativity while scientists explore it using their creativity. However, before scientists reach the creative side of science they have to digest a large amount of information. What is more, art and science often depend on global consumerism.
The initial unease between science and art was replaced by a real dialogue during the course of the conference. It emerged that one of the roles of the arts was to question science. Making sense of our data-rich and meaning-poor world would in the future require artistic skills more than ever. Jack Cohen said: “we need to rely on artists putting ideas in a different way into peoples’ minds.”
The mathematician Roger Penrose echoed the physicist Paul Dirac, who showed that science, in order to progress, can benefit from artistic concepts. ‘Aesthetic values are vital while doing science. If you want to judge the truth you have to look at the beauty’, said Penrose. Conversely, the Australian artist Stelarc uses technology to support his art. His inspiration lies in the human-computer interaction, by creating a third ‘artificial’ arm.
In the end, the differences between subjective art and objective science seem to be blurred. Science meets art at the interface between objectivity and subjectivity. But the main difference remains that art has the freedom of irresponsibility that science lacks.
More information on The Arts Catalysts’ activities can be found on their website:http://www.artscat.demon.co.uk