Dear Roger
I have been reading with great interest the exchanges about the
collaboration between art, science and engineering, and it seems there is
not enough explanation or understanding why we should need this
collaboration beyond the old debate in the academia about bringing different
disciplines together, now through the networking of digital or information
media. I do recognize the facilities provided by the new media, but the
networking of the media itself cannot give rise to an inter-disciplinary or
trans-disciplinary practice; nor can this practice in itself create any
value unless we are able to define its content. In my view, this content
cannot emerge from or defined only by the academia. It has to emerge from a
common and integrated pursuit in which practicing artists, scientists and
engineers are involved together, based on the trans-disciplinary mutual
understanding of the aims and objectives of this collaboration. And here
lies the problem.
I say all this because I have been involved as an artist in a project with
some eminent scientists (including a Nobel Laureate, if I may mention) who
are concerned with the problems of climate change, and who know what should
be done in this respect. I fully understand all their proposals or
propositions, and that without science and technology these problems cannot
be resolved. But scientists do not generally understand what art can do in
this respect beyond some artists adopting scientific or engineering methods
and producing objects that reflect and deal with environmental problems.
This is neither integration nor collaboration between art, science and
engineering.
I have mentioned the above as an example of the problem. This problem is
about the way artists, scientists and engineers work within the prevailing
culture. While most artists are trapped in the idea of art as what can be
institutionally recognized, with their shows in galleries and museums,
scientists cannot think outside their academic practices at a level where
their work can be comprehended and turned into a tool for the change which
is now needed within both the academia and the real life.
Rasheed Araeen
THIRD TEXT
, cts bothnot only about the difficulty of finding in practice a mutually,
comprehensible common ground for the integrated work by artists, scientists
and engineers, but it is also about the nature of what they do when they
find themselves together. They may satisfy themselves in producing something
collaboratively, but it often, if not always, not only comprises top-down
models incomprehensible to most people but is imposed upon them with an
assumption that it should be accepted without questioning, which raises the
issues of philosophical and ideological nature, without the resolution of
which I don't see any value in trans-disciplinary work. My point is that
these issues can be resolved if art is allowed to go beyond the making of
art objects and is recognized as a conceptual framework in which people
become trans-disciplinary bridges with their own productive work, which then
also provide a framework for science and engineering to make their
contribution.
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-----Original Message-----
From: yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr
[mailto:yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr] On Behalf Of roger
malina
Sent: 11 July 2012 14:26
To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS
Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] consilience and trans-disciplinary bridges
asenablors
Pau
let me pick on your topic of 'bridges' and consilience
like you i think E O Wilson's concept of consilience turned out
not to be very productive and rather totalising - am not very familiar
with Gould's " conscilience of
equal attention"
but yes- one of the way to enable science/engineering to
arts/design/humanities
is to find these bridging concepts
i have been reading recently in the field of translation studies and have
found some interesting ideas- for instance of 'travelling concepts=
but also the idea that un-translatability exists and one needs methods that
are well established in cross cultural translation and now interdisciplinary
translation ( or inter-media)
there are bridges that are technological- when artists and scientists use
the same tools then they start have overlapping epistemologies etc
paul fishwick in his white paper looks at how gaming technologies are such a
collaboration enabling tool
http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com/white-paper-abstracts/abstracts/learning-co
mputing-through-game-experiences/
one area that is fertile right now is the science of complex networks which
has been found to be productive across the science and humanities
I do think that we need to start being more rigorous in discussing
collaboration - as depending on the context ( interdisciplinary, multi
disciplinary
and trans-disciplinary) there need to be differing approaches- but certainly
collaboration as a learned skill is a bridging problem also
it would perhaps be interesting to inventory these bridge areas that are
currently enabling collaboration between science/engineering with
arts/design
here in marseille the area of history and philosophy of science is rather
strong and i have found some of the discussions interesting especially
since history and philosophy of science is very disconnected from the doing
of science in general - at lunch today we were discussing meta-mathematics
and meta-philosophy !
Roger
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pau Alsina <palsinag@uoc.edu>
Roger,
> In the book by allen repko on interdisciplinary theory and practice
> one of the things he does is discuss how different kinds of scientists
> have different cultures
> eg observational sciences like astronomy
> vs experimental sciences like chemistry
> vs field sciences like ecology
> vs mathematical sciences like complex networks
>
> they are all sciences but in fact the scientists have different practices.
> does it make sense to combine them all or should we create
> translation methods between culturs of practice ?
>
> in arts and humanities we also find similar variations on how
> the discipline deals with information about the world
> and intervening in the world= time based arts differ
> from architecture etc
>
You mean creating "bridges"? I believe, as Loius Bec says, that art itself
is a rare transformational agent that would do that function.
Those other "methodological" or "epistemological" bridges are really hard
to imagine as a universal set of tools. But of course there are
"practice-based-theories" that migth prove better bridges than others. This
would lead into another deep philosophical debate....(that I also enjoy a
lot, but migth be a whole new focus of discussion)
You migth not agree with Edgar O. Wilson's concept of consilience as it has
proved to be reductionist, and at the end not taking seriously all fields
of knowledge equally. But do you think that something not just theoretical
could came out from what Stephen Jay Gould says about "conscilience of
equal attention"? Are there already methodology or epistemology tools
coming out from that? Some techniques or strategies for "jumping together"
as Gould says?
Just wondering...
>
> Anway i know that the FECYT report and the process that led to
> it was very useful in spain= as are other efforts internationally
>
> for instance in the USA the mellon foundation has just funded a major
> project to promote integrating arts practice into the research university
>
> http://artsengine.umich.edu/
>
> ArtsEngine National has been awarded a $500,000, 3.5 year grant from
> the Andrew W. Mellon
> Foundation to create the first comprehensive guide to best practices
> in the integration of arts
> practice in U.S. research universities. To be published in Fall 2015,
> the guide is to identify models,
> obstacles, implementation strategies, costs, and impact on students
> and faculty as well as on
> research, practice, and teaching in other knowledge areas.
>
> With this award, the Mellon Foundation has enabled the national
> network to make major progress
> toward our mission of integrating arts practice into the research
> university.
>
> This activity of course is a heads on collision between the "studio
> based" artists practice
> versus the research model for the arts ( and all the debate on to PhD
> or not to PhD )
>
As you already know In Europe there is the Studiolabs innitaitive
http://www.studiolabproject.eu/ that migth work quite in the same way, am i
right?
Pau
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I am in France at the moment
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http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007S0UA9Q
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Aug 5-9 If you would like to be invited contact me.
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