Crossroads of Art and Science
Thursday, 21 August 2014, 17:00-19:00
Room, V1.01, Reykjavik University, Menntavegur 1
Organizers: Icelandic Centre of Excellence in Theoretical Computer Science (ICE-TCS), School of Computer Science at Reykjavik University and Vísindafélag Íslendinga (the Icelandic Academy of Sciences).
Event description
At the time I was attracted to pure science - physics - where you
could speculate and be creative. It's equivalent to being an
artist. If you get the chance, and the cards fall right, there's no
difference. The intellectual play and spirit are the same.
- David
Byrne (interviewed by Timothy Leary), 2000
Art and science are often viewed as very different, and somewhat
antithetic, human endeavours, so much so that some artists happily
profess ignorance of the basic methods and results of science and some
scientists sneer at art. In 1959, this prompted British scientist and
novelist C. P. Snow to express his view that "the intellectual life of
the whole of western society" was split into two separate
cultures---namely the sciences and the humanities---and that this was
a major hindrance to solving the world's problems.
However, we can all mention key figures from the Renaissance and
earlier times who were both artists and scientists. Is the breed of
the Renaissance man a thing from a long gone past? The aim of this
event is to provide resounding evidence that the distinction between
art and science in modern society is fictitious. We will do so by
showcasing three figures of polymaths whose work, be it artistic or
scientific, benefits from the interplay of art and science.
Erik Demaine is a world-known
computer science professor at MIT who, amongst other things, helped
start the field of Computational Origami, but he is also an artist,
some of whose work has been exhibited at the MoMA. He uses art to
explore the feasibility of some of his mathematical ideas and
mathematics to suggest artistic ideas, leading, for instance, to paper
or glass sculptures.
Anna Hrund Másdóttir is
an artist and a mathematics teacher who teaches mathematics to support
her art practice.
Kjartan
Emilsson, who is a mathematical physicist by training, uses
artistic methods of working and thinking in his work as Principal Game
Designer and Studio Managing Director at CCP in Shanghai, where he
directs the innovation and implementation of core virtual world game
designs for CCP Games.
The thesis underlying this event is that art and science are not
antithetic, and that their cooperation can lead to powerful ways for
solving scientific problems and to creating new art forms. As Nicholas
of Cusa put it in his philosophy, and as Anna Hrund says in the title
of her presentation, we are in the presence of a "coincidence of
opposites". To quote Erik Demaine:
"One of our growing realizations over the years is that mathematics
itself is an art form, and I think that's what attracted both of us to
this area in the first place. [I]t has the same kind of creativity,
the same kinds of aesthetics, that you get in art: You want a clean
problem to solve, and you want an elegant solution to that
problem. Both art and mathematics are about having the right ideas
[and] executing those ideas in some convincing way, so in that sense
they're indistinguishable."
(See here)
Programme
- SESSION 1 (Chair: Magnus M. Halldorsson, director of ICE-TCS)
- Break with refreshments
- SESSION 2 (Chair: Þórarinn Guðjónsson, chairman Icelandic Academy of Sciences)
- Refreshments
Media coverage
A radio interview with Magnus M. Halldorsson related to this event is
available here
(in Icelandic).
Please send comments and bug reports to
Luca Aceto.
