Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

Can one swallow make a summer?

Can it really? Well it depends on the power of the swallow!

I recently heard somebody saying in a forum discussion, "I repeatedly find scientists who can do art, its like saying because someone can boil a kettle they can do science" . According to this person scientists can only become "picture makers" and never "true artists" as they don't understand what true art is all about! What a dumb statement?! And what dumb assumptions!? Isn't this opinion loaded with prejudice? I am more appalled when all most all the artists present there supported this statement. And this is intended at scientists who are creating art!

My reply to this person and others who think scientists can't create art:

Hello, haven't you heard about Polymaths - the people whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas? They can excel in a wide variety of subjects or fields and with ease. I have seen several scientists who can do this. Science is the process of making complex things simple. Once you are trained in it, you will be able to use this knowledge of simplifying things and can do art and other things with ease. If you spend several years doing anything, you will learn all about it with experience and can become an expert in it. So why can't scientists understand art and create it?

I am into photography, video making, installations, designing and writing ( which include stories and poems in English - which is my third language) also not just "picture-making". I don't find them too complex to understand. The video I made on the life of a scientist got rave reviews here. I am sure these also come under the category of "art". By the way my artist friends on my network don't agree painting is just "picture making". I am surprised to see a part of creativity being talked about in low esteem by artists themselves.
And to my surprise I am getting messages from all over the world from galleries saying that they want to represent my work without any effort on my part (several of my Post Graduate artist friends complain that they couldn't get acceptance despite trying for several years.) . If my work is "not art" and "just pictures", how come art curators, art gallery people and art collectors want it? I even got an invitation to curate an art show! I am still considering it. This success of mine in the art world is beyond my imagination. Without any training in art how could I achieve all this in such a short period of time if it is so complex that we don't understand it like my artist friends here want me to believe?
Different people will see different aspects of a problem in different angles depending on their understanding of the world around them. Understanding something depends on the intellectual abilities of a person. I don't think scientists are so dumb as not to understand the complexities of art. In the directories we are compiling on sci-art websites and sci-artists on my network, there are names of several scientists who are creating art. I have seen their art works myself. And I am pretty sure and the directories are proof enough that scientists can create art as well as artists can do. I am trained in science that makes complex things simple. You are trained in art which makes simple things complex. That is why you feel art is complex. Moreover, you have not experienced scientific research so deeply like some of us did. I can understand that. I didn't have the academic experience of art. But I have several years of practical experience in several branches of art. Several of my artist friends told me they had learned more through experience than in classes run by the universities ! If artists here think I don't know anything about art except "picture making" I can only smile. I am definitely not suffering from partial picture paralysis like some of you here think. Although I am not an expert in art, still learning things, this is true for you too! Your experience is yours and mine is mine. Sorry, my experiences based on what several worlds could offer is different from yours and my opinion that art is not very complex and can be learnt by scientists is based on my experience. I don't understand why artists here find it hard to believe. I don't understand why they can't see there could be other experiences beyond their world of understanding.

Leonardo da Vinci created just 12-15 major art works ( made pictures?!) in his entire life! According to the present day art standards this sounds just like a boiling kettle claim to the scientific world! But the world treats him as one of the greatest artists of all times! It is the quality not the quantity that counts in the eyes of the world. One Mona Lisa is enough to make you a great artist! One boiling kettle is enough, if you are a genius, to invent a rail engine!
Again da Vinci left several of his scientific inventions incomplete. Yet he is considered as a genius! Because several of his ideas were well ahead of his time! The world has a different set of standards from the people here to decide about the three "g" s - good, great and genius! It will decide who will become what!
There are people here who understood the essence of collaborative forums, caught hold of opportunities, contacted me (and also others) and are discussing their science-art projects in private with me. There are people who contacted me, got enrolled in science-art directories for promotions, and are very happy with the outcome. They have correctly identified we are here to help people.
I wrote ten articles based on this discussion thread!
And there are people who got entangled in arguments ( by saying scientists are dumb and don't understand art) losing their way and wasting everything. Time will decide about the two "W" s, who is wise and who is "other" wise. Who are we to say anything about anybody? Who are we to judge people?

(One swallow doesn't make a summer - which means because one good thing has happened, you cannot therefore be certain that more good things will happen and the whole situation will improve.)

Don't underestimate the power of scientists who are now in the driving seat of progress. One swallow can be so powerful that it can draw several others with it's entry and make the summer come in!

Don't worry about the Swallow, try to face the heat of the summer - the scientists' rebuts in the form of art - now you have to deal with it! Art world, get ready to face the onslaught of a polymath's power!

1 member likes this

Comment

You need to be a member of SCI-ART LAB to add comments!

Join SCI-ART LAB

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 5, 2012 at 7:19am: This is posted by an artist friend of mine on another network and it explains things. So I am posting it here again:

When Art Meets Science
By Michal Giboda
The doubling raises suspicion regarding the two different fields of thinking such as art and
science. Doubly-gifted men and women are found strange, incompatible transplants by the
members of both communities. Regardless of the fact that literature is also an artistic discipline, it is noteworthy that writers usually accept this type of such endowed persons. Visual artists are particularly jealous of their exceptionality. They are unable to admit that the ability to express something through “non-conceptual language”, could be cultivated outside the sphere of art school as the role of intuition thanks to which a scientific discovery could
be similar to an experience of art. It is the role of the subconscious that makes the difference:
while the subconscious turns undesirable in the case of science, it embodies the materialized irrationality in the case of art. This understanding of the difference between art and science results often in the artist’s self-importance, a “self-identification with a creator, endowed with a great exceptionality and uniqueness”. This is the cause of the empty vessel of the bohemian that is found so disgusting by the sober scientist.
Let us focus on explaining why the multi-professional capacities of gifted persons are
generally accepted by writers, but not by the community of visual artists. What is crucial is
how pupils and students are trained in writing, visual arts and the interpretation of symbols in
arts. How many essays must by written by a student prior to being able to pass a schoolleaving exam? And how many times is he/she asked to depict his/her feelings evoked by music, or visualize the root as either a biological structure, or as anchor in the tradition of
nation or kinship, or as a pump absorbing the nutrients from the soil and mediating it into a
tree or even into a society. Ask your children and children of your colleagues. The result of
you inquiry is either expressed by a one-digit number, or nothing at all. Therefore it is not
surprising that a gifted individual, who is trained at an art school to express their emotions,
feelings, experiences and facts in the forms of shapes, colours and structures, finds themselves exceptional. Talented children, who are not trained, will never fully discover their abilities, if only the left hemisphere of brain is being trained, so that only one type of the student’s talents can develop properly.
On the premise that scientists´ prognosis is right, the gradual convergence of art and science will result in the asking of non-traditional questions which will naturally bring about nontraditional answers and the discovery of new horizons. This type of relationship between art and science, resulting in creativity, has its importance also in the field of natural sciences as a phenomenon that emerges in periodical cycles in mediating incidentally the information about moral values.

Our Civic Action Group “Dialogue between Science and Art” has been organizing workshops for two years. Leading scholars gave the lecture on biological structures and their related functions, the aesthetics of natural structures, and the poetry of scientific information. The consequent transformation of new pieces of knowledge into a visual form at the artist’s studio fosters the creative imagination of students. Participating artists showed diverse approaches to the theme stimulating the students to art making.
There is something extra – creation, crossing the Rubicon, the penetration into other spheres of thinking, imagination and understanding the visible, and the fulfilment of one’s emotive and intellectual ambitions through accomplishing an artwork. To this effect a build-in link with facts and structures is being created, and a new paradigm – termed as creativeness - is being formed.