Rasheed:
You make some really good points and I wonder if we can use your post
as a point of departure to see where it leads? See below...
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 6:56 AM, Rasheed Areen <rasheedaraeen@googlemail.com
> wrote:
> 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.
Yes.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
Let's use this is a base: climate change. We can pick receding glaciers or
melting of part of the polar caps in our discussion. You say "...scientists
do not
generally understand what art can do in this respect beyond some artists
adopting
scientific or engineering methods ...." So my question to you is: what can
artists
do? I ask this purely as a way to obtain more information on your concern
as I
recognize that artists can do a lot. While I could point to other examples
of
successful collaborations, knowing more precisely what you feel artists can
do
for climate change would be a great start to a conversation. We can only
then
begin to more carefully study what each person brings to the table.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
Can you clarify what you mean by "for the change which is now needed within
both the academia and the real life" ? Are you referring to the change
needed
to foster better sci/eng/artist collaborations?
-paul
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----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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> --
>
> Roger Malina
>
> I am in France at the moment
>
> 33(0)6 80 45 94 47
>
>
>
> Announcing new version with videos of
>
> Leonardo EBOOK on Arts Humanities and Complex Networks
>
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007S0UA9Q
>
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>
> Announcing Leonardo Party in Los Angeles during Siggraph.
>
> Aug 5-9 If you would like to be invited contact me.
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