Art, Science, and the fusion thereof, Part II

I realize that my last post on this topic was not some of my best writing.  I probably should have edited it a bit before posting.  So here is a summary of what I think was the point I was trying to make (in oh, so many poorly written words):

There is a place for art inspired by science.  In fact, that art is usually some of my favorite.  But there is an important difference between science art and art/science fusion.  Macro pictures, realistic sculptures, paintings inspired by DNA sequencing are all science art.  Judit(the artist from the talk)'s installment of calcite heart and lungs disintegrating in increasingly acidic water is art/science fusion because there is a a science-y message behind it.  Her talk, however, was more a historical fiction that mentioned science.

In other words, art and science can both be great in their own right, or together, but I like it better when there's a point.

And in conclusion, here's a picture of rum and coke viewed under a microscope (thanks FSU chemistry):

Art, Science, and the fusion thereof

My mom and I went to a talk sponsored by the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion program as part of their "the Consilience of art and science speaker series."  The talk was entitled "Pages from the Book of the Unknown Explorer" by a self-described "process-based visual artist," Judit Hersko.  It was more a story and slideshow than a talk, really.  The overall story was one of using art and the humanities to investigate antarctic ecology.  I don't think I can remotely do the presentation justice by trying to summarize it here, so I'm not going to try.  After this story, Judit went on to talk about her efforts in bringing science, in the form of art projects, to students who were otherwise difficult or just plain didn't want to learn about science.

The audience was clearly moved and enamored of her presentation and ideas.  And to some degree I agree with all of the feedback from the audience.  By using a multi-disciplinary approach to education, I think kids, as well as adults, can get a lot more out of the subjects they're learning.  The real world doesn't separate subjects in neat little boxes; everything is connected.

An example of art/science fusion in the oak grove in the UCD arboretum- I made the bird!

Ok, so now I'm going to ramble tangentally on and on about art, science, and ocean acidification, so continue after the jump and read at your own risk.