1. A CATALOGUE OF AN IMAGINARY SCIENCE-ART EXHIBITION by Gerald Shepherd
2. MORE THOUGHTS ON SCIENCE-ART FUSION by Gerald Shepherd
3. ESSAY by Sue Birchmore
4. ESSAY by Claire Thomas
5. CLASSIC MADONNA by John Goff
6. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ON ART AND SCIENCE by Manfred Wing
7. INDUSTRIAL MAN - A REVIEW by Gerald Shepherd

NON - ELECTRONIC

1 Designs wade with bacterial colonies en agar-agar covered panel. New colonies are constantly created  from breath of spectators.

2) Wall hanging 3D arrangement of plastic strips which move  by static electricity between  work ad spectators.

3) Designs made  by magnetizing iron filings into different alignments in slow drying resin.

4) Patterns made by the gradual seepage of coloured dyes through a transparent foam.

5) Painting made wilt materials that change colour in response to heat from spectators.

6) Parallax effects created with grid markings on clear plastic panels superimposed at varying distances.

7) Painting made with slowly evaporating paints. Different colours evaporate at different rates.

8) 3D network of springs made from materials that expand and contract at different rates.

9) Thin slice cut through radio set (or similar device) framed.

10) Painting across reeds - each of which vibrates in response to a different pitch. Music can be played in front of panel.

11) Designs made by the action of sunlight through a magnifying glass on paper.

12) Mosaic nude with sachets of chemicals which react in different ways in response to sunlight etc.

13) Mirror made from elastic material which distorts in response to speech of spectator.

14) Artwork consisting of fine powder between two pieces of clear membrane which continuously moves.

15) Patterns made by cracks formed in coloured mud.

16) Coloured stalactites and stalagmites made with circulating acrylic paint in foam structure

ELECTRONIC

1) Coloured liquids circulating through a system of transparent pipes.

2) Fragments of scientific papers kept in motion by air currents in glass case.

3) Coloured ball bearings continuously moving in electromagnetic fields.

4) Coloured wires moved by hidden electromagnets in various sequences in response to speech patterns.

5) Wave forms in mechanically agitated coloured water.

6) Painting on flimsy fabric attached to vibrating structure

7) Panel that lights up whenever it is touched.

8) Metal shapes suspended in air by electromagnets.

9) War games played using a complex array of electronic circuitry. Different components representing different forces and actions.

10) Visual art work of coloured beads on diaphragm of speaker with music playing.

11) Magnetic paint continuously moving between electric plates.

12) Patterns of heating wires embedded in  material that changes colour according to temperature.

13) Shapes made from insulatory material in front of heating panel.

14) Paintings on connected series of cogs (motorized).

15) Panel of tightly packed lamps and photo resisters (or similar). The lamps go out representing shadow of spectator.

16) Accretion of charged plastic fragments on variably charged base.

GERALD SHEPHERD

If one accepts the dictionary's definition of Art as human skill (regrettably anthropocentric) and an Artwork as a physical manifestation of this skill, it follows that the practice of science is an art and any evidence of scientific enquiry an art work.

Again, the dictionary defines science (with a few qualifications) as the pursuit of knowledge — an avowed aim of many artists (although They usually have even fewer qualifications), and the manipulation of this knowledge as technology. Artists are therefore without doubt technologists. A fact which makes those artists who adopt an anti-technology stance look rather silly.

Applied science is the pursuit of knowledge with an aim in sight (usually money) ditto applied arts (usually less money).

To summarise: all science is an art but not all art is a science. One is reminded of the mandatory opening to all books on cacti: all cacti are succulents but not all succulents are cacti (if one were inclined to be pedantic — as if one would — Pereskia and related genera are xerophytic but hardly succulent).

However, definitions are concentration camps for ideas, ("is That a quote" ?, dunno) and not really relevant. Depending on The criteria used, I am sure one could contrive to define science and art as rigidly, or as loosely as one liked. One could even contrive to transform one into the other —many a scientific axolotyl probably needs to metamorphose into an artistic salamander anyway.
 

However, does attempting to do so miss the point of science—art fusion in the first place, which is not to seek similarities between science and art but to seek differences between scientists and artists: and, once These differences are determined, to capitalise on them, getting scientists contributing to art and artists contributing to science, each bringing a fresh perspective and approach to the other discipline.

Scientists and artists do have a different perspective, partly from training, partly from inclination. OK, let's recognize This fact, let's get talking, better still, lets get working together.

In isolation one is apt to make a 'peacock's tail' of one's work (inspirations and aspirations), ill adapted to respond to the mounting pressures from without.

There are hard times ahead for both modern art and modern science. Money doesn't grow on trees even if genetically engineered pigs may fly. With apathy or antipathy from The general public — everyone is ignorant but some are more ignorant than others, ("is that a quote again" ?, dunno again). Market forces are market forcing the more dedicated/experimental to the wall.

So the onus is on us all to try to bridge the gap, not only between artist-and scientist but between modern artist/scientist and the man in the street.

After all, this newsletter reaches parts That other scientific newsletters never reach — the waste paper bin of the Arts Council!

GERALD SHEPHERD

This fusion business is getting out of hand. It's affecting my career.

I've just changed jobs, you see. I'm now a Technical Writer, which is as neat a fusion of the technical and the artistic as you could hope for. I spend my working time these days gathering information about proposed projects for making life better in the Third World, and writing them up in such a way as to appeal to the sensibilities of Government agencies and trust funds, so as to extract the maximum amount of money from them.

The third component for a Good Job is a Good Team. Possibly not essential for everyone — some I'm still in the honeymoon period, I suppose, but after a month in the new job I'm still amazed and delighted to find myself in such an ideal situation — spending all day reading and writing about issues which interest me passionately.

Appropriate technology training in Indonesia, low-tech soap-making in Malawi, emergency food aid for Laos (hands up all those who knew where Laos is, or even that it existed)

It all causes me to think Western culture has made some basic mistakes about the whole question of work. There are many things which make a job satisfying and enjoyable; money is one of them, but far from the most important. I actually took a salary drop when I left my old job, but I really don't think I'm going to regret it. So if it's not just money, what does make a Really Good Job ?

Well, for a start it should be worth doing. I heard a story about a group of unemployed labourers who were taken on by their local council and set digging a hole in the road. When they had dug it, an official came and looked in it, nodded and told them to fill it in and start digging another one. After the third hole, the workers started to get restless. They were being paid, they were off the dole, but they were unfulfilled and unhappy. They complained to their boss; why were they being made fools of ? They wanted a real job, not some stupid keep-the-workers-busy scheme.

The boss explained; the Town Hall had lost the plans for the sewer system, and they needed to find out where the pipes were. So the only thing for it was to dig holes in every street until they struck sewer. The workmen went happily back to their digging, satisfied that they were playing a vital part in the life of their town.

And my job ? Well, drought-stricken peasants in Laos need rice a whole lot more than Britain needs another power station. Just before I left my old job, I was working on a design contract for the CEGB; steam turbines for Fawley B. Only... Fawley B has been postponed indefinitely. It's most unlikely to be built. The design contract had to be fulfilled' but I worked On it oppressed by a terrible sense of futility.

Another factor in a Good Job is that it should make the fullest possible use of our capabilities. All of them. Traditional industries are not noted for this. Press-tool shops have no particular use for machinists who breed prizewinning canaries, and design offices don't know what to do with engineers who write poetry. "Outsider" skills may even be seen as a threat — you are not supposed to know anything the company has not taught you. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be like that, it's all a question of whether you start with a system and squeeze the people to fit into it, or start with the people you've got and the mission you're trying to accomplish, and evolve a system to suit both,

This carries its own risks; principally the tendency for everyone to end up rushed off their feet. You're employed as a technical writer, but I hear you know something about computers — how about helping develop our use of PCs ? Oh, so you used to work in Quality Control — you can help analyze our office systems.
 

people operate happily as lone rangers — but most of us like to be part of a community. For a description of the ideal working group, I recommend a little book called "Corporation Man" (sorry, can't remember the author's name). So long as you ignore the sexist bits, it's about the most penetrating insight into human nature as applied to work I've ever found. Basically, the idea is that a functional working group should be not more than about fifteen people — preferably about ten — and they should have complementary rather than identical skills. The group can be part of a larger organisation, along with other such groups, but the organisation as a whole shouldn't be allowed to grow beyond a thousand people — preferably more like five hundred —because that's the largest number you can actually get to know as human beings. Any more and it becomes a faceless corporation.

Work is just one area of life where the Compartmentalizers have caused a lot of misery, putting up watertight bulkheads between work and leisure, management (who must be thinkers) and workers (who mustn't), technical jobs and creative jobs... the list could go on. The reductionist approach has been useful — science couldn't have got far without it — but it's also been responsible for a fair bit of mischief. I think what we could do with now is a bit of holistic thinking for a change. We've had a couple of centuries of taking the machine to bits and marvelling at its components. Now it's time to start putting it back together and experiencing the still more marvellous way it functions as an integrated design.

The attitude I have towards Art and Science fusion is of a very practical nature. I like to use Them simultaneously; to make Science more aesthetic, to make Art more useful, if I may be forgiven for making such a remark. Science and Art should help each other out in order to gain more recognition in their own right as well as exploiting their extraordinary relationship.

Special effects in films and on television is, I feel, an ideal example of creativity and technology working in harmony, but often with explosive results.

I was hoping to write an article which delved into the techniques of special effects and analysed a few examples. Unfortunately this summer I have been confined by having no substantial prior knowledge, rather lacking libraries and having a large student overdraft. This need not stop me expressing my thoughts and views though.
 

Art is my first love; yet I see Science as the vehicle for transferring artistic imagery from the mind to a realized form.

Special effects utilises the same relationship. The first idea stems from the imagination of The Director. It may be a fully grown image he perceives, or a mere seedling of an idea. In the former case, technology can be moulded to produce the desired result. in the latter case, the idea acts as a trigger for The technology to expand and digress to its limits.

Science in this instance could be regarded as a flexible tool, it can be tailored to fit or left to run wild. The role of technology in special effects is not a rigid structure which hems in our creativity. If anything, it gives us extra freedom to express ourselves in different dimensions and media; for instance the dimension of time, and The medium of fire, water or air.

I find these relationships fascinating. The way in which they feed off each other, how each one is vitally dependent on the other, how they can catalyse their own reaction.

The scope of methods and techniques is endless. Effects can range from The straight forward optical illusion created by backdrops and background paintings, to very physical effects in which movement and time are key features.

A famous example of an illusion created by a painting is from one of The last scenes of 'Raiders of The Lost Ark', directed by Steven Spielburg. The ark has been packaged in a plain wooden crate and placed in a warehouse stacked to The limit with identical crates in the hope that The ark will never be found. The warehouse used for the filming was not exceptionally large, but its length, looking into the screen, was extended by several times its length by superimposing it over a very photographic like painting of The same warehouse reaching back to infinity to give The illusion of depth, space and endlessness. This technique obviously relies heavily on good artistic skill in producing an accurate background image in terms of perspective and colour, yet it would flounder if it were not for The technology to secure that image on film.

Likewise, but on the contrary, other effects that seem to rely heavily on science, for example, explosions, landslides, intergalactic space wars, all have Their roots in Art. Science may dictate to some extent The form which The desired image will take but I feel a better name for these happenings would be 'moving sculpture rather than 'technological wizzardry'. True, often the most complex technology is used to create these phenomena, but They do not exist purely for Science's sake. They are in essence, expressing an idea, Therefore it is only right, I think, to describe it as sculpture.

The alien designed and created for The film of the same name, was praised for The effect it produced, not necessarily The technology it involved. Any creature could be designed with countless ingenuities, but that alone will not make it frightening. Similarly, a creature That looks grotesque on paper will not reach its full scare potential until it has been animated by mechanics.
Page 8
 

This may sound convoluted, but what I am trying to illustrate is their interdependence. How two concepts, treated by many as diverse entities, can be brought together and mixed to The point where They cannot be separated.

Madonna's voice: The depth of cultural reference is incredible, in it's simplicity — practically no music at all — melody and beat become pure reference, pure image. The Space underlying the production of sound in silence as non— explicit structuring. In Kraftwerk Silence is explicit! minimal structuring.

GET INTO THE GROOVE is perhaps the ultimate pop-song — Madonna produces a set of foci whereby Desire and Repetition meet in the explicit exposition of song as structure. The song is a celebration, a fusion of techno-joy of the highest order, registers of sociality in the heterosexual dyadic coupling fill-out the melody in empty effusion — the complex critique of dyadic coupling implied in the repetitive backbeat —rhythm and melody in a tension of counter-critique — the joy of Madonna is the discipline of Study and Gesture... about to be abandoned.

If Madonna knows one iota of the cultural profundity of her work — and her latest video "LIKE A PRAYER" suggests she may well know what she is doing in a Film-Noirish-Heroine type fashion — then we may well consider her a major ("fine") artist — way beyond the confines of the structures of Pop Music — and see her work as culturally critical and subversive in a way analogous to the way in which Kraftwerk's is of the dichotomy between Techno-Pop and "serious" contemporary "classical" music.

It is interesting that Madonna — excellent in her videos —failed so decisively when she decided to be a star in the movies, especially after her success in "DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN" — Madonna is perhaps the first major exponent of the new MUSIC-AS-IMAGE school — in which musical content is minimal — this minimality of content is the musical structure (so many Pop musicians don't understand this) — in Kraftwerk the "minimality" of musical content is a device for a set of cultural modelling and interventions — Madonna's music is shaped round Image and Beat — melody/word/timbre serves image — Beat serves the social reciprocity of these images — but a new image, that of female sexual initiative and awareness is being tried-out almost as a mathematical abstraction — yet the set of references to Catholic iconography set-up an interesting dualism between the Cartesian quality of the music and the acted provocative sensuality of Madonna the "Woman Image".
 

There is a quality of enticement, fascination in the voice of Madonna, some sense of ultimate femininity, Chinese in style, of emptiness — Yin — yet Madonna transforms her Yin into Yang by assertion, work-rate and energy.. .again duality, paradox. . . the set of analogies between Chinese landscape painting and the musical interiority of Madonna's voice and songs initiate a series of questions about the relation of western technological form to eastern aesthetics.. .the rigour of Techno-Pop contrasted with the space of Chinese landscape painting — yet these Chinese landscapes describe the interiority of western Techno-Pop in simulation mode.

Perhaps the deepest connection between ancient Chinese culture (in particular landscape painting and it's Japanese equivalents of the Koto or Shakuhachi music) and western technology lies in the light bulb — the only pure medium according to Marshall McLuhan — we cannot use the Laser as a metaphor, it's religious-missionary connotations are too severe... .the obliqueness of Madonna's project can perhaps be understood in the context of the great debate between the Analog and Digital modes of communication and perception —Sex is perhaps the most Analog form of communication outside that of unregenerate Nature — Madonna ranges this Analog set of sexual references in the Techno-Digital world of contemporary sound-recording and corporate marketing — and in the process inverts this sexuality (and catholic religion) and it's references to the heterosexual-obsessional dyad into a series of optional images she then explores in her videos as a narcissistic sequence.

That hugely popular Stars may yet be subversive of dominant cultural mores at deep and unperceived levels, is a paradox that is ultimately a question about the meta-levels of Human Intelligence and implies a set of debates around Teleology and Epistemology — perhaps we might begin to understand Madonna within the parameters of logical paradox rather than of modern marketing technique — and, by extension, to understand marketing within the parameters of Epistemology and logical paradox.

To Science: Art, To Art: Science.
 

This is a hotchpotch of ideas scribbled down at various times (Mostly rubbish ....ROSEMARY HEALING!)
Artists are most interested in the world on a superficial level, in form, colour and visible interactions. They are especially sensitive to changes in this superficial world, less sensitive to the permanent infrastructure of the world.

Scientists are more interested in the world on a fundamental level, in meaning, basic principles and invisible interactions. They are especially sensitive to systems and order in the world, less sensitive to the ephemeral aspects of the world.

Art could be considered a stage towards science — a juvenile science.

Artists perceive the world from a completely different viewpoint, they formulate questions to be solved in an entirely different way from scientists, even though the problem solving mechanism might be similar.

These various artistic and scientific perspectives may or may not be complementary.

Artists are more likely to work in isolation. Although obviously communication is important in both art and science, the audiences are radically different.

Scientists have an erudite audience not given to expressing opinions without adequate background knowledge (in fact, the exact opposite of an artist's audience)

Artists make subjective statements about the world while scientists attempt to make objective ones.

Art is about expressing one's personal feelings, something alien to science, where the nature of the information is not determined by the character of the person discovering it, although obviously, the time and method of discovering it may be.

In science altering the means of expression doesn't alter the nature of the information.

Artists do not require any preliminary training to produce a 'legitimate' art work while a scientist, to a certain extent, is his training.

The evolution of an artist's work is determined, partly at least, by his audience or the perception of this audience. The development of an individual scientist's work is determined, again in part, by his peers and the perceived interrelationship with them (Utter rubbish.... ROSEMARY HEALING)

An artist's existence is the reference point for his work while a scientist's reference point is outside of, and independent of, his own self. Mathematics can in fact extend beyond all human conception.

A scientist requires answers but the actual process of asking questions satisfies an artist. In essence art is all about perceiving (a step in science) while science is about knowing.

Both science and art are umbrella terms: many disciplines in both fields do not have any close connections. Indeed, music has a greater affinity with mathematics than with painting (Rot!    ROSEMARY HEALING)

In general terms, I feel it is better to look for major differences and then look for similarities between the smaller groupings.

Taxonomists are divided into two camps: viz. 'Lumpers' and Splitters These two approaches are manifestations of two different ways of perceiving the world. The 'lumpers' look for similarities between things and the 'Splitters' look for differences.

In the context of creativity I feel people can be divided into two types:

PEOPLE WHO THINK BEST BY VISUALISING IDEAS (EITHER IN AN ABSTRACT OR REAL
SPACE)

PEOPLE WHO THINK BEST BY VERBALISING IDEAS (AGAIN EITHER IN AN ABSTRACT OR REAL SPACE)

Type one people tend to rely on intuition more than logical or linear modes of thought.
They tend to see problems in the round and have an enhanced kind of 'three dimensional' problem solving ability.
They are also adept at using a 'tip of the iceberg' way of thinking: a manipulation of ideas where only part of a specific concept is grasped by the conscious brain, while being examined and modified on a subconscious level.

Visualisers are good at moving out of sequence and skipping parts of a sequence. While verbalisers tend to be constrained by a linear thinking process.

Visualisers are obviously more visually sophisticated than verbalisers, even when manipulating abstract ideas in an abstract space.

It is quicker to think by organising blocks of ideas rather than arranging sequences of individual ones. However the end result can never be as precise as the product of ordered logical thinking.

It is easier to obtain an overall perspective when one thinks in pictures (Who sez ...    ROSEMARY HEALING).

Is creativity a short circuitry of normal mental processes ? The short circuiting being multi-directional.

FANCY = Undisciplined creativity where the 'dreamer' is central participant or utilises characters to fulfil his wishes or desires.

FANTASY = Undisciplined creativity where the 'dreamer' is not part of the action (Not true ....ROSEMARY HEALING).

IMAGINATION = Disciplined creativity without predetermined goal

INVENTION = Disciplined creativity with predetermined goal.

RICHARD DANIEL, who has recently had a successful exhibition at The Crispin Hall Gallery in Street, Somerset, is a sculptor with a profound interest in the mix of mechanical movement and human form. He is the creator of exotic 20th Century chimeras; majestic amalgamations of man and machine: a human arm ends in a JCB shovel or power tool (The Editor found The latter especially fascinating with its fanciful bird form associations), a human torso merges with a gigantic drill bit to form an impressive hybrid caryatid — appropriately, holding up girders — or man, machine and power cable combine to form a fierce metaphor for This high mass communication age.

GERALD SHEPHERD