Science Art Relationalities
Symposium:
- ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art
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More presentations from ISEA2011:
Session Title:
- Art – Science Relations
Presentation Title:
- Science Art Relationalities
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
Science has historically divided itself into disciplines. Some scientific disciplines have a hierarchy of knowledge acquisition e.g. mathematics, physics, and biology. The study of art also has esoteric topics, although it is less easy to articulate the study of art in a fixed hierarchy, given the multiplicity of approaches that make up its “family resemblences” in the sense of Wittgenstein. As science moves away from single disciplines into research that combines multiple scientific fields, it is less easy to define one fixed hierarchy. Here we have jumps and bridges between different hierarchies, suggesting dynamic heterarchy born in the intersticies that exist between these multiple hierarchies. Yet, we seek to suggest a multi-perspective approach that also explores extra-scientific knowledge. Thus scienceand the artsprovide differing perspectives that can be brought into dynamic relationality. Here truth does not belong to one discipline but becomes illuminating through dynamic relation. Building a cross-disciplinary dynamic heterarchy out of the traditional hierarchies raises concrete problems of language (and categorization) that anyone who is used to transdisciplinary approaches has already experienced. The «babelization» of knowledge, when it comes to (collective or individual) awareness, reveals how critical the situation of hierarchies is, if no effort is made to fertilize the disciplines by criss-crossing their knowledge and – we emphasize – their language. The genetic metaphor speaks for itself: when species have diverged too much, no mating is even possible.?The notion of a bridging or symbiotic metaphore may make more sense here. Yet we also point to the limits of metaphor in reflecting the complexity of the thoughts we are discussing. A crisis in the sciences has been often claimed in the last decade, where mutual disregard between disciplines having an underlying hierarchical knowledge acquisition structure, namely here «hard»-sciences such as mathematics or physics and post-modern philosophy are contrasted with the heterarchical nature of the arts. We will present a series of ideas related to contemporary and historical art?science relationality. We will discuss a taxomonomy of Art Science relations.
