The Art/Science Split?

by Lauren Rubenzahl ‘03

Einstein: Yes, and like you, the theories must be beautiful. You know why the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth? Because the idea is not beautiful enough. If you’re trying to prove that the sun revolves around the earth, in order to make the theory fit the facts, you have to have the planets moving backwards, and the sun doing loop-the-loops. Too ugly. Way ugly.
Picasso: So you’re saying you bring a beautiful idea into being?
Einstein: Yes. We create a system and see if the facts fit it.
Picasso: So you’re not just describing the world?
Einstein: No! We are creating a new way of looking at the world!

                                    ~From “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” by Steve Martin

A few days ago, I stumbled upon a New York Times article reviewing “String Fever,” a newly-opened play in which the main character uses string theory to describe her love life. As the article points out within the first three lines, we have here yet another example of art taking science for its subject—and succeeding. Can you feel the sighs of amazement enveloping you? Look at this, guys! Art and science are not mortal enemies! Who’d’a thunk it?

I watch this happen again and again, this discovery by the press—indeed, by a large percentage of us—that we are not dealing in matter and anti-matter when it comes to art and science. It happens every time something of this sort hits it big on the art/theater/film scene. Recently, this “every time” has been coming every month or so—what with an opera about Galileo, a movie about a math genius, a play about Bohr and Heisenberg, a book called The Botany of Desire, talk of Jackson Pollack’s drip paintings as fractals…the list goes on. We are simply bursting with material that begs to be used in the name of this discovery. And use it we do, and discover we do, over and over and over again.

The thing is, I agree with the press: science does make a good subject for art. I do not mean to imply that this is not a worthwhile manifestation of the art-science connection, nor do I mean to imply that we should not notice efforts in this direction. It is, and we should. But I wonder: why must we notice every other month? Why do we act so surprised each time we stumble upon a new piece of art that takes science as its subject? The possibility of interaction between the two is hardly a new idea, and hardly a profound one. What may be profound, however, is the recurrence of our collective amnesia when it comes to this link—what is the elusive thing lying silent, beneath, that urges us to forget?

Something larger is going on here. Larger than art engaging science in its quest for truth or beauty. We know already that science can live in art. (The question of how art lives in science—and the reason that that part of the discussion is so often ignored—is a much larger issue that can’t possibly fit between two parentheses. That is a discussion for another time.) We knew it when we were Michelangelo and Da Vinci, when artists and scientists inhabited the same bodies without anyone forcing them to choose. We know it now, when art forms of all kinds tie science up in knots of beauty. We don’t need any more proof. We are at a juncture where commentary should be beside the point. So why isn’t it?

Artists and scientists are doing the same thing, at any magnification: reconceptualizing the Universe.

Because the question we answer when we say that “science can be good subject for art” is not: “What is the relationship between art and science?” No. This is the question we pretend to be answering. The question we are actually answering is, “How can we appease the people who insist that there is a connection here without actually dealing with the fact that there might be a connection here?” Saying that art can successfully take science as its subject does not truly relate the two to each other at all. It simply demonstrates that they are part of the same world, that they are aware of each other’s existence. Having proven that, we wipe our hands and say, “See, art and science are related, now we can put the subject to rest for another month or so.” But really what we mean is, “Fine, they both exist and sometimes they speak to each other.” This answer seems close enough to acceptable that it distracts us from the actual issue at hand. We assert and reassert it because, what else can we say? If we shout the words loudly enough, perhaps no one will notice that they don’t answer the question.

But why bother avoiding the issue so feverishly? My answer: it’s easier that way. It’s safe.

I propose that the question we work so hard to avoid is worth actually asking. Because rather than thinking of them as disciplines that merely occupy the space around each other, I find it much more interesting to think of art and science as slightly different ways of answering the same question.

The split, then, would be merely a matter of approach. Artists and scientists are doing the same thing, at any magnification: reconceptualizing the Universe. Renaming the world. We are getting each other and ourselves to look at things in different ways, reminding ourselves constantly that the way we see things now is not the way they necessarily are—or the way they necessarily have to be. If art and science see a world that needs constant redefinition in all possible ways, then having one approach that defines itself as subjective and another that defines itself as objective is essential. The two approaches complement each other; they create and change and validate each other.

I had a math instructor once who spoke of the poetry in numbers—aching with his eyes to show it to us, but we were only in first semester calculus, and there was much to learn before we could get anywhere near that beauty (or understand it, in any event). One thing I do understand, though, is a sort of scientific rule of thumb that is so clearly artistic that it is hard to see it in any other way: Occam’s Razor. The idea that the right answer is the aesthetic answer, the simple and elegant and beautiful answer. This is as much about beauty as is determining which color vibrates when placed next to a square of lapis blue—which is determined by how wavelengths of light bounce off pigments in paint and react in your eye. The cycle weaves back and forth, around and around and around.

I could certainly argue that art and science use the same equipment, the same chemicals, the same precautions, the same kinds of experimentation, but I am not talking about tools here. They form a decent metaphor, perhaps, but in any event, my point is simply this: take a closer look. The fundamental precepts of art and science are far closer than they appear to be. And if all of the articles about the art-science split were up front about which question they were answering, if they acknowledged that their aim was only to demonstrate the most superficial connection between two intensely related ways of viewing the world, perhaps they would serve to open discussion instead of stifling it. I can’t say that the article on “String Fever” didn’t pique my interest about the play—but I can say that it barely touched on the part of the art-science connection about which I most wanted to read. I have no problem with the assertion and reassertion that art and science can be good topics for each other (obviously, otherwise why would I be writing for this magazine?)—I think, in fact, that pointing out this connection is a necessary part of the process in a society that continues to forget. But when such an assertion shoves the deeper, more fundamental connection out of our range of vision, we move farther from the thing we have spent so much energy trying to approach.