ramon guardans, a long time yasminer and scientist sends us this
interesting reflection as a working scientist on the art science
questions we are raising in Mercado Central
Ramon is Scientific Advisor to the National Reference Centre on
Persistent Organic Pollutants Spanish National Implementation Plan of
the Stockholm Convention Ministry of the Environment.
He says
Next week im going to Tsokuba in Japan to work for a couple of weeks
at the labs in NIES (Nat Inst Env Studies) the people under the Min of
Env that do environmental motoring of chemical substances. Since the
1970s they have been collecting samples all overt the country in land
and in the sea, air, water, soil, sediment, invertebrates, fish,
birds, mammals and humans, (some of them kept in a mighty sample bank)
and the samples were analyzed for a number of substances including
isotopes , heavy metals, pesticides and industrial chemicals. So by
now for a number of chemicals groups (PCBs, DDTs, HCHs, PCCDFs) field
measurements of tested QA&QC are available for a number of sites over
several decades (1980/2015) in different media.
he tells us that is about to use gaming engines to explore the
scientific data, a recent example of how the arts and design have
developed approaches, orginally for entertainment , now routinely
being used by scientists
He is about to embark on an integrated study of these data is now
possible and relevant to understand pathways mass balances time lags
and interactions, at a scientific and policy level this is obviously
important, to make sense of the current state of things and think
about future developments and potential actions. For many years i have
been thinking that the competence and power in the world of games was
an optimal environment to explore such data, navigate through them ,
model past and future developments that can or could have been.
he goes on
In many senses the whole art science dichotomy is quite ridiculous,
and toxic and deserves to be subverted, one by making scientist
understand that what they do is art and artist that what they do is
mostly rational and can be very valuable for scientist.
In my view today what technically specialized groups in society[3]
such as artists, scientists, technicians, administrators, academics,
etc (and individual people can belong to or be conversant with many of
those guilds) should do is work together to face the obvious
challenges facing society. What can we do to overcome the aporia in
the simultaneous occurrence of delicate logical thought and criminal
violence across the board. Really the theatrical squabbles between
guilds and styles of work are interesting but I think should not be
the issue, I would argue that the point its not how artist talk to
scientists or viceversa it is how artist and scientists cooperate to
help in sorting out the mess and trying to avoid predictable mistakes,
crimes and disasters. Its not about epistemic or ontological
horsetrading its about enhancing critical autonomy and analytical
competence, efficacy in undoing violence against women, workers, its
on workers rights, fairness, transparency and accountability, in my
view that is what art and science are about.
Here is his full text
roger malina
Madrid 25
April 2016
To open the play let me quote from Horkheimer and Adorno 1944
Dialectic of the Enlightenment, a great text I have been working with
recently, lucid and brutal[1]. The basic point in it is : how come
such a nice "method of of thinking" (ie, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel
etc) has sprouted the kind of crap we are seeing (1944 was crappy
indeed). I think much of this puzzlement is sill pertinent today when
you see the simultaneous occurrence of delicate logical thought and
criminal violence across the board.
Homer, Plato argued, had procured neither public nor private reforms
through his much-vaunted art, had neither won a war nor made an
invention. (p13)
...
The making of images was proscribed by Plato as it was by the Jews.
Both reason and religion outlaw the principle of magic. Even in its
resigned detachment from existence, as art, it remains dishonorable;
those who practice it become vagrants, latter-day nomads, who find no
domicile among the settled. Nature is no longer to be influenced by
likeness but mastered through work.(p13)
…
According to Schelling, art begins where knowledge leaves humans in
the lurch. For him art is "the model of science, and wherever art is,
there science must go." (p14)
I would agree with the later, in fact as I see it for many millenia
and in many contemporary configurations producing beauty is an aspect
of the social production of knowledge. The construction and
reproduction of methods, ideas and objects that stimulate and enhance
the collective and individual awareness and understanding. Then of
course there is a social division of labor and different people do
different things and this division of labor is entangled with
different forms of power and agency at a given point in time.
So for instance in the late 1600 the power structures in the European
area where moored, and enforced in a world of certitudes and dogmas
(aristocracy, church, nation etc), many of these came to be challenged
in theoretical terms and this had political consequences about forms
of hegemony and power in society. A set of very powerful tools,
mechanical engines and calculations proved to be effective and quite
detached of the philosophical principles on which the structures of
domination were articulated. So railroads, arithmetics and guns had
more power than kings and bishops, consequently a political fight was
on, and is on, to harness the potential subversive power of straight
thinking.
That s how this whole parody of art-science was enacted by the 1700,
on one hand you had obedient and disciplined "scientists" (a social
division of labor enshrined in hegemonic academic institutions such as
the Royal Society) mastering and confining the power of rationality in
a politically safe structure where "humanists/artist" can play as free
individuals disobedient, undisciplined and powerless, quite on line
with the Platonic ideas above.
In most places through history (think of Mesopotamia, the Vedas,
Mayas, Yoruba, Inuit, Japan, China ….) there is no distinction or
conflict in the practicalities of working through life between art
(critical beauty, personal satisfaction in perception) and science
(practical efficacy, material satisfaction in action), the distinction
invented in the 17h century in Europe is a result of the political use
of the distribution of labor to maintain forms of domination, and
that is where the art science dichotomy appears as meaningful. It is
not a description of facts its a political project, an ongoing
project.
One interesting subplot here is the role of uncertainty. In the
"standard model" science is all about decreasing , confining, erasing,
uncertainty and consequently deterministic, predictable outcomes are
good and unpredictability is bad. I have been searching over decades
for environments were uncertainty is seen as constructive, positive,
enjoyable. There are a number of environments such as games, sports,
music, poetry and other arts where uncertainty is not only valued but
a the core of the process. This is of some consequence in terms of
the ambition of the cognitive process , individually and socially. Do
we want to dominate in certitude and fear[2] or enjoy subtle
perception of uncertainty and the challenges and beauty of navigating
in it.
In many senses the whole art science dichotomy is quite ridiculous,
and toxic and deserves to be subverted, one by making scientist
understand that what they do is art and artist that what they do is
mostly rational and can be very valuable for scientist.
Obviously a scientifically trained worker does some things in rational
ways such as designing experiments , analyzing data or writing a
paper, but then much of the in between time is not rational is
intuitive, personal and based on feelings, the choice of subjects,
dealings with colleagues, method and location of work are certainly
not only the result of a logical sequence of postulates, they are a
form of art. A worker in art, in the narrow meaning this has in
current academic , curatorial and art production and marketing
environment, needs much science to work out technical competence in
producing her work and getting accreditation as a professional an
making a meaningful trajectory.
So the gradient is more in terms of attitude than in terms of competences.
In my view today what technically specialized groups in society[3]
such as artists, scientists, technicians, administrators, academics,
etc (and individual people can belong to or be conversant with many of
those guilds) should do is work together to face the obvious
challenges facing society. What can we do to overcome the aporia in
the simultaneous occurrence of delicate logical thought and criminal
violence across the board. Really the theatrical squabbles between
guilds and styles of work are interesting but I think should not be
the issue, I would argue that the point its not how artist talk to
scientists or viceversa it is how artist and scientists cooperate to
help in sorting out the mess and trying to avoid predictable mistakes,
crimes and disasters. Its not about epistemic or ontological
horsetrading its about enhancing critical autonomy and analytical
competence, efficacy in undoing violence against women, workers, its
on workers rights, fairness, transparency and accountability, in my
view that is what art and science are about.
________________________________
[1] Max Horkheimer and Theodor W.Adorno. 2002 Dialectic of
Enlightment, Philosophical Fragments. Ed Gunzelin Schmid Noerr,
Translated Edmund Jephcott Stanford University Press, Stanford,
California. 2002.282pp.
[2] Enlightenment is mythical fear radicalized. The pure immanence
of positivism, its ultimate product, is nothing other than a form of
universal taboo. Nothing is allowed to remain outside, since the mere
idea of the "outside" is the real source of fear. (Horkeimer, Adorno
1944 p11)
[3] On division of linguistic labor see for instance the beautiful
Hilary Putnam 1973 Meaning and Reference. The Journal of Philosophy,
Vol. 70, No. 19, Seventieth Annual Meeting of the American
Philosophical Association Eastern Division. (Nov. 8, 1973), pp.
699-711.
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