Art versus Science

A great Aussie band, but also a new approach to science communication?

Artists and scientists seem world apart. Artists wear their personalities on their sleeves, or perhaps as their sleeves; the funky alternative attire that defines an artist is displayed for all to see. But for many scientists, clothing and fashion are mere necessities in life, with the stereotypical 'crazy old professor' commonly turning up to work with odd shoes and a checkered, inside-out vest.

But external appearances aside, perhaps the artist-scientist divide is not the gulf that we might think. Two professions at opposite ends of the paintbrush-to-pipette spectrum, at least they both have their eccentricities in common. For everyone else in between, perhaps it's hard to tell the difference. Both require a certain level of introversion, arrogance, and of course, creativity.

In my opinion, many great scientists who have passed through this world were successful because they possessed creative skills that allowed them to think differently to others. Take Einstein for example: consider the kind of imagination required to come up with the concept of relativity. Ticking clocks and warped worlds... Maybe he was on drugs; but maybe, far more likely, he possessed a youthful and scientific creativity commonly attributed to artists.

I recently participated in a 'making art out of science' project, obviously as the 'science' component. The artist assigned to me listened to all I had to say and then used her perception of my research to make a piece of art. Enthralled by her perception of my 'crazy science project' I have to admire the fact that her final product was a thousand times removed from what I expected it to be.

I imagine (as I know it to be true) that it's easy for scientists to get bogged down in the details of their project after months and years thinking about the same thing. Conferences and peer reviews provide a means for other scientists to challenge your way of thinking. But perhaps something a little more abstract, such as converting science into art, would actually help scientists to view their project and their careers from a different perspective, and access the creativity that they thought they'd left in childhood.

As for the rest of the community, 'scientific art' is science communication with all the fun bits thrown in. Both art and science are the expression of thoughts inside the mind. Science is important for everyone, whereas perhaps the thoughts of a single artist may not matter in the universal scheme of things; however, science is wholly inaccessible to most people, where art is made to be accessible. Surely then, a combination of the two is the art-science communication ideal.

Leonardo Da Vinci: scientist and artist. I'm envious of the man who lived in a time when the distinction between the two wasn't so great. Today, philosophy is art, but in Da Vinci's time, science was 'natural philosophy' and art wasn't alternative but just.. natural?