Tuesday, October 14, 2014

[Yasmin_discussions] "The Plight of the Supernatural in an Art-Science World."

Yasminers

we are pleased to open the YASMIN discussion "The Plight of the
Supernatural in an Art-Science World."

http://malina.diatrope.com/2014/09/29/the-plight-of-the-supernatural-in-an-art-science-world/

This will be a difficult discussion to engage in on line since we will
be talking about sensitive
questions of values and belief so we hope YASMINERS will respect each
other in a vigorous
discussion.

Stephen Nowlin who proposed the discussion will serve as moderator.
He invited the following respondents :

Discussants will include:


Nancy Lowe, artist, catalyst for art-science collaborations

Director of Symbiosis Art+Science Alliance (symbASA)

http://symbasa.org .


Margaret Wertheim

Author, "Physics on the Fringe," co-curator, "Crochet Coral Reef"

Director, The Institute For Figuring, Los Angeles

http://theiff.org

Andres Collazo, PhD

Biologist

Director, Beckman Institute Biological Imaging Center

California Institute of Technology

http://bioimaging.caltech.edu

Daniel Lewis, PhD

Author, Curator

Chief Curator of Manuscripts (History of Science, Medicine, and Technology)

Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens

http://huntington.org

Joseph Klein, DMus

Distinguished Teaching Professor

Chair, Division of Composition Studies

University of North Texas College of Music

http://music.unt.edu/comp/josephklein/

Martha Blassnigg, PhD

Reader in the Anthropology of Media | Transtechnology Research |
Editor, Transtechnology Research Open Access Papers | Associate
Editor, Leonardo Reviews and L|R|Q * Plymouth University

http://www5.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/martha-blassnigg


Here is Stephen's opening statement:

Roger Malina

Dear Yasminers --

I have been invited by YASMIN to begin the topic of the next Yasmin
discussion, "The Plight of the Supernatural in an Art-Science World."

I'm Stephen Nowlin, an artist and curator, and director of the
Williamson Gallery at Art Center College of Design which is located in
Pasadena, California. I make stuff, curate, write, and think a lot
about the intersection of art and science. Some of my activities may
be glimpsed athttp://williamsongallery.net/google .

I consider the "supernatural" to be a simple subject that's rather
complicated to discuss -- a tricky navigation around the shoals of
mythology, science fact, religious faith, empirical reason, academic
scholarship, gut feeling. I hope this iteration of an age-old topic
will ensue candidly, thoughtfully, and respectfully. I also think it's
a new discussion now -- not the same one that took place thousands of
years ago or six-hundred years ago, or in the eighteenth century. It's
not a tired one, it's a critically relevant one for our moment and for
the art-science enterprise.

Of many definitions and sensations of the supernatural, two general
ones interest me in particular -- first, the magical supernatural that
forms the commonplace definition of the term, the supernatural that
informs religion and a general belief that something not-natural,
mystical, and typically considered to be more "meaningful" than
physics rules the universe. And second, the definition that allows the
term supernatural to be used in a secular manner to describe a cosmos
that is complex in ways we don't yet fully understand or might never
-- a "beyond-nature" notion derived from the recognition that there
may be epistemological limits to what science can tell us about the
cosmos.

I'd like to start out with a statement about the first definition.
This notion of the supernatural assumes there is a material cosmos
that science can approach and know, but that this material cosmos is
administered by a higher-order magical component that science cannot
know and which controls the true ultimate nature of things. In this
difinition, the natural world is a stage-set which veils the magic. I
regard the assumption of this supernatural to be a stubborn inherited
meme, a pervasive fiction interwoven throughout many global cultures,
that has and continues to send human reason careening in wrong and
often destructive directions regarding both religious and
non-religious subjects, politics, militarism, human rights, ethical
and moral behavior, coincidence, fate, many others. It is time for the
academic community to proactively repudiate this ubiquitous concept of
a magical supernatural universe as an intellectual fraud.

My position and description are not unique -- a familiar skeptical
view. But what may be unique is that I suggest the called-for
repudiation should not be undertaken as an attack on religion, but
rather as an attack on the concept of the supernatural itself.

Stephen Nowlin

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