Art & Science for everyone       

 

ArtScience: what’s in it for the scientist? (One Answer)

Let's face it: our modern society deals with concepts that are difficult for the human brain to grasp. If science does not have answers yet, it doesn’t mean we should stop looking! We may already have answers: philosophical, artistic, creative ones.

Both science and art are human attempts to understand and describe the world around us and the part we play in it. Despite their different profiles, artists and scientists have a common ground: the fundamental desire to contemplate, understand and experience the world - and a creative approach to it.

The idea that this exploration and knowledge has a ranking seems absurd to me. A hierarchy based on artificial ideas of what is more "useful" restricts us to create new ways in this sense-making. Even so, today, science and art seem to be at the opposite ends of a spectrum.

Scientists and artists speak different languages. Each community has their own ways of expressing, sharing and exchanging of material. But the rules of what is what, our old assumptions, are breaking down. We are in desperate need of translators that are well-versed in many disciplines to navigate us through the landscape of any kind of creative field.

We don’t pretend a direct, cause-and-effect relationship between art and science. The arts don’t need scientific data to be legitimate. Without a scientific goal, the artist is free to approach the material with as much or little complexity as he or she wishes.

Emotions are the bread and butter for art. We respond to art individually, based on our unique experiences. Our own cultural, historical background completes the artwork.

In contrast, we deliver science in a stripped-down, sobering way. Scientific knowledge requires to be objective, independent of the human, cultural or personal background of the scholar.

Art can thus provide a slap-in-the-face, high pitched wake up call that is rarely available to science. It has the unique power to add individual value and personal meaning to scientific data and can crack open cemented opinions and it challenges the given.

Art is a necessity for science.