Art & Nature and Technology

Nature and technology, at least to me, are both synonymous with science. I have been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between art and science. Perhaps this because I don't want to think that I have wasted a good portion of my life. People are constantly surprised by a move from science to fine arts, which I've always found strange because to me the two are not exactly irreconcilable. The artist-scientist is even a Jungian archetype, though I've never gotten that into Jung. I think that both fields require a curiosity, patience and creative thinking, and it helps for both if you're not a total idiot. Science is logical and I find that art that I admire always has a logic to it. Even a work like Chris Burden's Velvet Water has some kind of inherent logic to it. It's disturbing, but it makes sense in a way that's hard to explain.

I remember reading something a while ago. I don't remember the writer but they were talking about Cremaster Cycle and basically what they said was that you can pick up any copy of Nature or DNA and find more "art about biology" than in any of Barney's blockbuster productions. I guess you can tell I'm no Barney fan (though I do admire some of his drawing restraint stuff). Theo Jansen (who Rosie wrote about) is to me an artist who works within the spirit of science. Or Matta-Clarke, who I was talking about the other day, or Yves Klein. Because, science, as a discipline, isn't self indulgent. (Though its applications can be devastatingly, monumentally destructive). Science, whether it's to do with thermobacteria, or geology, or astrophysics (to use the cliched example) is something beyond ourselves, something bigger. And art can be the same.

And Back to my essay..