Part One: Information Arts

Culture is being re-defined right before our eyes. For centuries, art and technology have been considered separate parts of culture. Now, because we live in an information society, they may be be coming together. We are, say some people who study such things, at a critical place in history, where it's sometimes impossible to distinguish between techno-scientific research and art. The creation, movement and analysis of ideas is increasingly the center of our cultural, social and economic life. And that's why a startling (and hefty) new book calls itself "Information Arts" -- because the art such a culture produces has to deal with information if it's going to remain central. So this is the first part of a series -- inspired by "Information Arts," edited by Stephen Wilson and published by the MIT Press -- which deals with the new intersection of art, science and technology. This book is onto an enormous idea, exploring the science and art from algorithms, robotics, quantum physics, coding, nanotechnologies, genetic and kinetic art to electrical music, telecommunications and A.I.

The fusion of culture and technology into sophisticated art forms seems obvious when you think about it. But until now, few people have. Most of society is too busy clucking about how new technologies are stealing credit cards, transmitting smut and rotting young brains.

This fusion, Wilson says, is a signal that views of art and research are evolving, broadening, integrating. As he points out, the arts and the sciences are any culture's two greatest engines: "sources of creativity, places of aspiration, and markers of aggregate identity." Before the Renaissance, they were considered the same thing -- science was called natural philosophy.

In the l960s, philosopher C.P. Snow developed his "Two Cultures" theory -- Snow asserted that those in the humanities and arts and those in the sciences have developed sufficiently different languages and worldviews that they no longer understood one another. Wilson believes that art and science/technology are no longer segregated from one another, and that the Net, the Web and pioneering work by artists and scientists are re-connecting the two, creating a new sphere of culture he calls "Information Arts."

From programming to telecom design, Wilson has brought together the work great artists and thinkers in culture and technology and shown us how they are moving closer together, even in fields like bionics, parapsychology and bioelectricity. Coders are artists, not just scientists. So are Web designers and people who paint genetic portraits.The book takes this fusion and looks at its groundbreaking influence on life, thought, cultural theory and artistic activity.

"Leonardo da Vince is well-known was history's greatest integrator of art and science, " writes Wilson, but he was by no means unique in having interests that spanned art and science. Educated people of his time were expected to. But, says Wilson, by the 20th century, science and art had already become distinct and separate fields.

New inventions have stimulated artistic experimentation in fields such as photography, cinema, sound recording, electrical machines and lights -- think of Brian Wilson, Brian Eno, U2. Wilson writes about how Xerox's PARC initiated an artist-in-residence program called PAIR, an open-ended approach in which artists and scientists and researchers jointly defined a program on culture and/or technology, with the definition of the problem becoming part of the collaboration. The book chronicles scores of other experiments in business, Academe and science labs.

So who cares about the re-connection between culture and technology? Anyone interested in either, really. The most interesting and revolutionary parts of the Net and Web -- coding, gaming, role-playing -- have always drawn on artistic as well as technological sensibilities. And many of us have had the sense that we are witnessing a re-definition of what culture is. That's of equal appeal to people like me, drawn to the culture of technology but not the machinery, and technologists, who love technology but want it to embrace culture and artistry. In subsequent columns, we'll draw from the book to talk about the "information arts," and some of the amazing work occurring now at the intersection of culture and technology.

Next: Research agendas in biology and medicine, especially biology and genetic research.

Comments

Baloney

[sphealey]

Culture is being re-defined right before our eyes. For centuries, art and technology have been considered separate parts of culture. Now, because we live in an information society, they may be be coming together

Baloney. As if, on the one hand, the development of plaster of Paris, oil paints, silver halide photography, etc. in their day didn't have just as much impact on the world of art as CG does today. And, on the other hand, as if the most super-duper computer artist on staff at Lucasfilm doesn't spend a good percentage of his time goofing on charcoal sketches on paper.

This reminds me of the day in the 1980's when everyone thought they could fire their graphic artists and give standard employees graphic arts software. Result - lots of hideous graphics produced by non-artists with GA software.

I doubt Gaugain would have had any difficulty with Photoshop. Nor should any true artist today, whether or not he grew up with Photoshop, have any difficulty using any medium that he needs to get the job done.

sPh

Rubbish

[RazzleFrog]

Art, technology and science have always gone hand in hand. Music and math - Pythagoras mixed music, math and astronomy. Bach mixed music and math.

Art and Anatomy - Rembrandt painted his "Anatomical Lecture" showing anatomical dissection. Artist Antonio Pollaiuolo performed dissections to learn more about the human form.

Photography is perhaps the best example of art and technology joining together.

I could probably come up with many more examples throughout all of history of when technology influenced art and vice versa but I think my point is made.

Technology has ALWAYS been related to art

[Kibo]

Regardless of pithy comments AC's have to offer, this is neither accurate nor new. "State of the Art" comes to mind. Is the cg in Tron not art? Laser light shows? The butt ugly architecture of the 70's? The beautiful Konsai(sp?) Airport? Modern graceful bridges?

Ever since man found fire, and began to share his knowledge, there has been a boundry between what is known and true, and what his intuition told him. To me, that is the domain of art. Where the knowledge can be described with paper and pencil and some formal model its technology. But when it leaves that domain, and you're counting on someone's skilled hand, be it behind a welding torch, or a keyboard, that is art.