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The Art of Science

"The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion."
Walter Benjamin [1]

Analytical Science and intuitive Art have long been considered by many to be opposites; from the warring kingdoms of Digitopolis and Dictionopolis in the children's book The Phantom Tollbooth[2], to psychology's left-brain/right-brain theory, we have been taught that Science and Art are two separate and distinct areas of thought. In fact, the original argument against the artistic status of photography was that it was a scientific process, not an artistic one; since we know the former to be true, and since it was believed that Science and Art cannot coexist, the latter seemed an appropriate contention. Slowly but surely, though, the right-brained artists began to accept photography for its aesthetic content, despite its "technological" process.

In this age of highly differentiated schools of knowledge, the opposition of science and art seems both natural and traditional. But historically there is no basis for such a polarization of the two great spheres of human culture. ... science is united with art, truth with beauty. This premise finds its symbolic manifestation in the Ancient Chinese symbol of yang...[3]

Just as some artists continue to debate over the initiation of photography into the world of Fine Art[4], the newer medium of computer graphics recently found itself facing this same opposition; that "it's science, not art." But computer graphics is not only proving that art can be created by a "scientific" medium, but that Art and Science have a great deal more in common than previously realized. Furthermore, now that we are becoming aware of the potential for cross-over between the two, we are learning that each entity can be made more full by the other.

Science and art: two complementary ways of relating to natural reality, the first analytical, the second intuitive. Considered poles apart, and sometimes incompatible, they are intimately connected...[5]

[IMAGE 2 UNAVAILABLE -- "IMAGE OF THE UNIVERSE I," TRINA ROY WITH JON GOLDMAN]

CAPTION:
Image of the Universe I, Trina Roy with Jon Goldman, EVL, 1995.
Scientists used a theoretical simulation process to create this visual estimation of the density of the universe, shown here in the CAVE(TM).

As science unfolds the mysteries of the universe before us, it becomes increasingly apparent that the laws and patterns of nature are truly magnificent, and may even be described as artistic by virtue of their sheer beauty. Physics, mathematics, biology and the like all represent the fabric of our endless and wondrous universe, as well as the minuscule and magical details of our own fragile world. The profound beauty of such a rich tapestry of intricately-woven patterns can be nothing less than artistic; "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science[6]." And even though some may argue that science picks apart reality in a way that is so clinical and dry as to remove all art from the world, others feel that "Science, far from destroying the beauty and romance of the world as seen by artists...enhances it by revealing the underlying reasons and purposes[7]."

Image

IMAGE 3 (44k):

"Wiggler," Milana Huang, EVL, with Michael E. Papka, David Levine, and Larry Turner of Argonne National Laboratory, 1995.

This CAVE(TM) simulation depicts the electromagnetic fields of an elliptical multipole wiggler magnet, used to control the path of charged particles in the Advanced Photon Source[8].

Milana Huang's home page: http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~mhuang

"Few fields can claim to embrace both artistic and scientific practice more legitimately than scientific visualization[9]." The electronic visualization of scientific data made possible by computers has enabled scientists to share the implicit beauty of the universe with those that were previously unable to see it for the tangle of numbers and formulae. Through their eyes we witness gravity, magnetic fields, electricity, the generation of cells, creation and destruction; the noble truths of our existence. We see now the poetry of the mathematical patterns that govern such phenomena as plant growth, the generation of sea shells, the flow of water over a stone, and the formation of clouds.

[IMAGE 4 UNAVAILABLE - "CHOLERA TOXIN MOLECULE," CHRISTINA VASILAKIS]

CAPTION:
Cholera Toxin Molecule, Christina Vasilakis, EVL, with Ed Westbrook, Argonne National Laboratory, 1995.
A cholera toxin (top) is shown docking with a membrane (bottom).

The mere plotting of scientific data in a visual way is not an art form in and of itself. It is here the effective symbiosis of science and art comes into play. Just as one painting can lack the aesthetic strength of another, so too can one visualization be inferior to another. When graduate students here at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) first began producing visualizations, it was evident from the start that their craftsmanship offered something more than the mere presentation of data; in the words of one EVL spokesperson: "The National Science Foundation went ga-ga over our stuff." The "oldest formal collaboration between engineering and art in the United States," EVL has, since 1973, been maintaining "a rich connection between art and science[10]." Here we strive every day to share the beauty of science with the non-scientific world, just as sculptors and painters in the Renaissance used their exquisite craft to express the concepts of their religion to those that could not read the Bible.

"The Devil whispered behind the leaves, 'It's pretty, but is it Art?'[11]" This question has been under debate for as long as man has been creating art, and has no foreseeable answer; far be it from me to attempt one. I can only offer my humble opinion that art and beauty are intricately intertwined; and that even art which claims to forsake beauty is perhaps an instrument of mourning its absence.

Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of the true, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.[12]

Although beauty, truth, and goodness are not the only quantifiers of art, I believe that any entity which so intrinsically unifies these three facets cannot be denied artistic status.



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Endnotes
     

Endnotes for Section 2

In most cases, you can click on the endnote's number to return to its reference point in the text. Otherwise, please use the "Back" button on your web browser.



1. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," by Walter Benjamin.

2. The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster; New York: Random House, 1961.

3. "Mathematics and Art," book review by Bulat M. Galeyev, Leonardo, Vol. ?, No. ?, 1994, page 448. Book Mathematics and Art by A. Voloshinoff. Prosveshenie, Moscow, 1992.

4. "The minute [photography] appeared, it greatly modified both the attitude and the work of the painter. And yet the question of its impact and its status (is it really art?) has not been settled and continues to this day to be the subject of animated debates [p 212]." "Brief Encounters: A Physicist Meets Contemporary Art" by Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond; Leonardo, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 211-217, 1994.

5. Quote from Roger Penrose in "Art and Visual Mathematics" by Michele Emmer; Leonardo, Vol. 27, No 3, pp. 237-240, 1994. Page 237.

6. Albert Einstein, from What I Believe: 13 Eminent People of Our Time Argue for Their Philosophy of Life, New York: Crossroad Publication Company, c1984.

7. Art, Science and Human Progress: the Richard Bradford Trust Lectures edited by R.B. McConnell, London: John Murray, 1983.
http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~tpl/texts/science.html

8. Virtual-Reality Visualization of Accelerator Magnets, by Milana Huang, David Levine, Michael E. Papka, Larry Turner, and Lauri Kettunen.
http://www.mcs.anl.gov:80/FUTURES_LAB/VR/APPS/MAGNET
Milana Huang's home page: http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~mhuang

9. "Science Icons: The Visualization of Scientific Truths," by Ingrid Kallick-Wakker; Leonardo, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 309-315, 1994. Page 309.

10. "UIC at the Forefront of Computer Technology: Artists and Engineers Collaborate to Produce Cutting-Edge Laboratory" by Rick Asa, UIC in Touch, pp. 12-13, Spring 1995. Page 12.

11. Rudyard Kipling, "The Conundrum of the Workshops;" Rudyard Kipling's Verse, New York: Doubleday Doran and Company, Inc., 1940.

12. George Sand, in a letter to Alexandre Saint-Jean.




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Last modified 14 February 1996