STEAM

I am obsessed with the conflation of art and science.  For a quick background update, see the pages PARADIGM and PUZZLES AND PROBLEMS.

John Maeda, in his Scientific American article, Artists and Scientists, More Alike Than Different, provides an interesting look into the similarities.

Mr. Maeda writes,

“What is true? Why does it matter? How can we move society forward?” Both search deeply, and often wanderingly, for these answers. We know that the scientist’s laboratory and the artist’s studio are two of the last places reserved for open-ended inquiry…”  1

He proposes to integrate art with sciences, and he has coined the term STEAM, which of course is an expansion upon STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathmatics).  He conducted a workshop in which practitioners and educators explored ways in which the arts can gain equality with science.

In his telling, artists and scientists make natural partners.  He cites the power of collaboration between artists and scientists, and lists advancement in computer graphics and scientific results from the Large Hadron Collidor as evidence of this collaborative power.

While reading his article, I cannot help but observe that there seems to be the tendency to add art to science.  That somehow the science will be more human if there is an artist involved.  That somehow science remains superior.

In these pages, we want design and science to be equal.  We want design and science to be given equal cultural weight.  We want them to be taught equally.  We are saying that the value to humanity and the search for truth is increased equally by either a good scientific experiment or a good design.

There is no doubt that this equality of design and science is counter intuitive in the context of our culture.  Mr Maeda acknowledges the same by saying that the pursuit “of scientific questions in tandem with artists and designers may not seem like conventional wisdom.”

DaVinci gets the last word,

“Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.”

1.Madea, John.  “Artists and Scientists:  More Alike Than Different.”  Scientific American.  11 July 2013.  Online.