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

Sorry, we cannot collaborate with you if you come to us with closed minds!

On an on line science, art collaboration group, a discussion was started on scientific and artistic thought processes. It was started with an intention to find out each others’ view points on each field which might help lead into collaborative projects. The artist – scientist ratio was 95:5. Only a few scientists came forward to participate in the discussion. I went there as I was interested in knowing what artists think about science and scientists and how they deal with their work. In fact scientists went there to help artists in dealing with science while creating sci-art. But after some period, I and other scientists were deeply disappointed.

All that we said was – in our experience art was easy to create than doing scientific research. And all hell broke loose. Artists started attacking us because one artist felt this statement insulting and instigated others. He said religion was the only truth. Science is all humbug and nonsense. He also said (“the species”_ the actual word used ) scientists' thought process was no better than any ordinary person's thinking on the road! Another one supported it. One artist said only art could have success and science could never succeed anywhere! When I presented a few research theories based on facts on science and art, they not only out rightly rejected them, but also refused to even consider them. Some artists who wanted to go along with us were attacked and made to follow the colleagues in their field. All that scientists could do was shut up and maintain silence. We were really shocked.

My artist friends on my network are not like these artists. They are really good. They know how to deal with us.

Scientists are mostly introverts although now they are venturing out a little bit and interacting with the outside world. They are not used to emotionally charged atmospheres. They do their work in isolation in their labs in calm surroundings. Some of my colleagues even get surprised when I tell them I interact with the artists on a regular basis. It is really difficult to deal with things in an emotionally charged atmosphere. But the day I entered the art world I accepted this challenge. Some scientists might try to work with artists by coming down to their emotional levels to create harmony but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any difference between the working patterns in the fields of science and art.

If somebody refuses to accept the facts and closes his/her mind and is not willing to even consider them, scientists don’t waste their time on such people. Because they know facts and truth are like fire. Nobody can refuse to ignore them and sweep them under the carpet. They will burn the carpet, come out and get noticed. Science is based on facts.

What happened to people who refused scientific theories and punished scientists in the medieval period? They were proved wrong in the subsequent centuries. Could they stop science and technology from proceeding further and bring progress? Scientists knew this and they refuse to get dragged into unnecessary arguments. They hit ignore button and leave the place if they are brought under such situations. Just because some people refuse to accept the facts, science doesn’t vanish. Just because you shout, argue and silence others as you are in greater numbers, truth doesn’t disappear. The few scientists who wanted to interact with artists left the forum of the group. Is this what the artists wanted? Is this how collaborative projects proceed? Now they are wondering why we all left without having a fruitful dialogue!

But what amuses the scientists the most is even the most dedicated science critics cannot live even for a single day without utilizing the fruits of science and technology. Can s/he live without using cell phones, internet, medicines, cars, planes, houses that use latest tech. food that use scientific processing methods to take the form in which they eat, clothes, roads to name a few. They forget that all these are products of the field they batter so much!

The moment an artist mixes the colours on a pallet, s/he starts dealing with chemistry. The moment s/he starts viewing an art work, s/he starts dealing with Biology! Ignore this if you want to but can the truth fade away?

Everybody is entitled to have his or her own opinions and beliefs but not to his or her own facts. If you bring your opinions and beliefs into scientific world, they will be dissected and the truth will be bared before you. Only if you have the courage and ability to face it, venture into the world of science and think about collaborative work. Don’t come to the scientific world with pre-conceived notions. You will be left to deal with naked truths here! Before jumping 0n the bandwagon of sci-art, first learn how to deal with science and the world of science in collaborative projects!

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Comment by Anand G.V. on July 23, 2012 at 9:13am: Ah, well said! Truth at its best! Now you know why I am againt these collaborations, Krishna.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 6, 2012 at 7:19am: Minnie, this person is organizing lectures and studies on dialogue between art and science. He says he studied the mental conditions of artists and scientists while working in their respective fields. He is from the art field too - validation in art need not be as perfect as in science. He gave this reply when one artist said.... well read all about it here: http://kkartlab.in/profiles/blogs/can-one-swallow-make-a-summer

Comment by Minnie W Shuler on March 6, 2012 at 1:50am: This appears to have some substantive research or at least some organized study. Have any of the theories been validated?

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 5, 2012 at 7:16am: 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.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 26, 2012 at 12:32pm: Minnie, Your words can find an echo in mine! Your work is hard to replicate. "A scientist's path into the art world is not a welcome one" - Several artists helped in several ways. Some are not so helpful. In this world we have to deal with all sorts of people. Artists here on Art Lab are really good to work with.

How about reading other blogs of mine which are related to this subject? They are still in the writing stages and I will have to add more material to them but I posted them here anyway. you can find them here:

http://kkartlab.in/profiles/blogs/differences-between-art-and-science

http://kkartlab.in/profiles/blogs/science-and-art-complexity-vs-sim...

http://kkartlab.in/forum/topics/pray-tell-me-why-is-creating-art-so...

Comment by Minnie W Shuler on February 25, 2012 at 7:51pm: The art I posted is made of fractals. Fractals are sets of numbers that when graphed show a repeating pattern. This is several fractals, they have been manipulated and composed into a piece of abstract art. Odd, isn't it that a mathematical construct based on abstract ideas formuated abstract art...a truly abstract painting. I worked many hours on it, in many stages on several pieces of software. I call it 'Picaso's Eye' maybe I should call it 'Mandlebrot's Eye' instead. You know each year I submit one of my pieces of fractal art to a show I enter and it is never chosen. No fractal is. The artists don't consider a fractal art. I would challenge anyone, anywhere to recreate this piece of art from scratch. They wouldn't be able to...too many steps of artist decisions. A scientist's path into the art world is not a welcome one.

Comment by Minnie W Shuler on February 25, 2012 at 7:45pm

Comment by Minnie W Shuler on February 25, 2012 at 7:32pm: It is unfortunate that we seek to divide people as such. I am a mathematician/artist. I have been tested and think dominately from the right side of the brain but perhaps more center brain than most. While you look at emotion as a right brain function, so is spatial visualization and problem solving two vital resources for mathematics as well as artists. They are not as different as some of you might think, perhaps your inexperience in one of the fields has led to this lack of connectivity. There is little difference in the skills I use in visualizing a graph or proof or visualizing an idea to paint or a song to cmpose. The most creative field in all the world is mathematics...man has taken the counting of things and created number systems and dicovered orderly rules, ways to explain nature and used it to discover natural laws. Mathematics is the queen of the sciences as the saying goes and for good reason. I communicate with you now with 0 and 1 s that someone figured out how to manipulate a pulse of on or off. I think that is pretty creative. Left brain only...not really. All of us have a whole brain, we should try to use both sides of it.

Comment by Milivoj Šegan on February 25, 2012 at 7:08pm: Everything, everything is polemic = Art

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 25, 2012 at 11:08am: Oh, thank you so much for your support. I never expected this. I am really proud of my artist friends here whose unbiased comments make me think there is still hope and scope for collaborations between artists and scientists.