I think we’re inherently creative beings, and traditional academic institutions too often deny and tear out that creativity, trying to sever it off from us so we believe we aren’t good at art or that only some people are creative or that science as you said is the more noble pursuit.
I think we need to return to a type of learning that weaves it all back together. You certainly are not daft 😊
I, too, have spent most of my life imagining art as something so separate from me and the superior factual knowledge I have . But that’s not true, I don think. Not at all.
I think about how people spoke to me when I said I wanted to do more creative pursuits for my degree/life: “but you’re so good at science and math!” It’s not an either/or, as you say.
When I was a music major at York University, each of the disciplines had a mandatory science course related to that art. For music and film it was the physics of light and sound, for dance and visual art it was anatomy. I, of course, wanted to take anatomy because it was one of my interests, but because I was a music major I had to take the physics class.
I learned so much about acoustics in that class that it influenced my music and composition practice in an intense way. This was literally science in service to the arts. And I wish there had been more of that in elementary and high school.
Being aware of what sort of sounds worked in different environments was a big one. In my composition career I ended up writing a lot of music for voice and scores for dance performances. Only certain timbres of sound carry well for outdoor performances so when writing for those environments I shifted the music. When I booked performance spaces myself, I chose spaces that would work well for what I wanted to perform. When I taught voice in the drama department at U Sask, I booked time in the anechoic chamber in the engineering department so the students could experience what a truly dead acoustic space was like to attempt to project their voices into.
It was only through working with other musicians and composers that I realized how much my knowledge of the physics of acoustics helped me. Most other people without that training seemed frustrated when performing outdoors or in acoustically dead spaces.
Great post, Bryn. This touchy subject of science and arts is on my mind a lot, because I, like you, have a foot on both pathways. I think that in some ways modern science has captured much of knowledge, putting us in a box when we want to think about knowledge, truth, meaning. I know this has been a really pressing philosophical concern for a long time. I have my students struggle through a really difficult Heidegger essay "concerning technology" that wrestles with the issue. I'm really suspicious of Heidegger just because of his dark personal history, but the essay lays out some really important points. One of the most intriguing things to me appears at the end of the essay, when he tries to find a way out of the tangle he see in modern technology (and modern science). He cites Hölderlin, and asserts -- not exactly convincingly probably -- that "fine art" can free humankind from the blinding and invisible shackles of modern technology.
I'm prepping for my seminar that starts in August, and this topic hovers over much of what ends up being discussed. I wish you could be part of that seminar. It'd be fun and wonderful to explore with you. I think you have a sense of the stakes and knowledge of the pieces of the issue.
That feels like such a deep well, Bryn! There is (or can be) beauty or art in simple structure. Yet doing a deep dive into structure or process reveals the beauty of process or function. The structure intrigues, as is a mystery in itself and also the journey of discovery or creation.
The idea of intelligent design, that the deeper you delve, you infer the element of a creator or artist. I am well amateur at both!
Such a thought-provoking post, Bryn. And a gorgeous portrait of Sinead O'Connor - such sad news. The pink outline is a beautiful touch.
I think we’re inherently creative beings, and traditional academic institutions too often deny and tear out that creativity, trying to sever it off from us so we believe we aren’t good at art or that only some people are creative or that science as you said is the more noble pursuit.
I think we need to return to a type of learning that weaves it all back together. You certainly are not daft 😊
I, too, have spent most of my life imagining art as something so separate from me and the superior factual knowledge I have . But that’s not true, I don think. Not at all.
I think about how people spoke to me when I said I wanted to do more creative pursuits for my degree/life: “but you’re so good at science and math!” It’s not an either/or, as you say.
When I was a music major at York University, each of the disciplines had a mandatory science course related to that art. For music and film it was the physics of light and sound, for dance and visual art it was anatomy. I, of course, wanted to take anatomy because it was one of my interests, but because I was a music major I had to take the physics class.
I learned so much about acoustics in that class that it influenced my music and composition practice in an intense way. This was literally science in service to the arts. And I wish there had been more of that in elementary and high school.
Being aware of what sort of sounds worked in different environments was a big one. In my composition career I ended up writing a lot of music for voice and scores for dance performances. Only certain timbres of sound carry well for outdoor performances so when writing for those environments I shifted the music. When I booked performance spaces myself, I chose spaces that would work well for what I wanted to perform. When I taught voice in the drama department at U Sask, I booked time in the anechoic chamber in the engineering department so the students could experience what a truly dead acoustic space was like to attempt to project their voices into.
It was only through working with other musicians and composers that I realized how much my knowledge of the physics of acoustics helped me. Most other people without that training seemed frustrated when performing outdoors or in acoustically dead spaces.
Great post, Bryn. This touchy subject of science and arts is on my mind a lot, because I, like you, have a foot on both pathways. I think that in some ways modern science has captured much of knowledge, putting us in a box when we want to think about knowledge, truth, meaning. I know this has been a really pressing philosophical concern for a long time. I have my students struggle through a really difficult Heidegger essay "concerning technology" that wrestles with the issue. I'm really suspicious of Heidegger just because of his dark personal history, but the essay lays out some really important points. One of the most intriguing things to me appears at the end of the essay, when he tries to find a way out of the tangle he see in modern technology (and modern science). He cites Hölderlin, and asserts -- not exactly convincingly probably -- that "fine art" can free humankind from the blinding and invisible shackles of modern technology.
I'm prepping for my seminar that starts in August, and this topic hovers over much of what ends up being discussed. I wish you could be part of that seminar. It'd be fun and wonderful to explore with you. I think you have a sense of the stakes and knowledge of the pieces of the issue.
That feels like such a deep well, Bryn! There is (or can be) beauty or art in simple structure. Yet doing a deep dive into structure or process reveals the beauty of process or function. The structure intrigues, as is a mystery in itself and also the journey of discovery or creation.
The idea of intelligent design, that the deeper you delve, you infer the element of a creator or artist. I am well amateur at both!