In a perfectly timed coincidence, the current exhibition at The Tetley is titled The Scientific Method: Lecture, Dialogue, Demonstration co-curated by the West Yorkshire based artist Amelia Crouch. The exhibition claims to:
“…show how artists have revealed the structures and systems of knowledge that we consume daily, subverting the accepted and confounding the expected… Departing from the objective knowledge sought by the classical scientific method, these artists foreground the bodily, the personal or anecdotal” (The Tetley, exhibition brochure, 2016)
It seems that the exhibition is challenging the idea of scientific truth, as well as addressing the impenetrable nature of some scientific discourse. By commenting on the ‘daily consumption’ of scientific knowledge, the exhibition also confronts the purpose and functioning of science in everyday life. However, some works in the exhibition themselves seem difficult, and to be speaking more to an artistic community than the general public. I wonder if some of the exhibition’s claims stem from a general dis-ease that artists may have about science – ‘real’/hard subjects – and make an attempt to unstable it’s assumed authority.
This doesn’t correlate with my understanding of how The Arts and Sciences can work in tandem (or across the disciplinary boundaries) to produce new, holistic understanding about ourselves and the world around us, an understanding which has been further solidified through the SciArt module. I assume that any truly reflective/reflexive scientific practitioner would not dismiss the far reaching and profound impacts of art and it’s capacity to generate knowledge and meaning. Alternative forms of knowing, such as embodied and experiential, are afforded increasing significance.
This stance is exemplified in the video piece by Semiconductor titled Do you think science (2006), which was the stand-out work in my opinion.
In the film, Semiconductor, who are UK based artist duo Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, have asked an unanswerable question to a group of space physicists at The Space Sciences Laboratory, UC Berkeley, California, USA. I gather from the conversation that the question is something like “do you think science can understand everything?” This gets the scientists twisted into knots at times as they attempt to grapple with concepts and topics which are not part of their day-to-day work. This includes a contemplation of the limits of scientific knowledge, as well as more obscure and philosophical concerns such as faith and religion, medicine, and the laws of matter. By cutting between the different interview the film highlights that these subjects are in the open debate, and it illustrates that nothing is simple in our infinitely complex world.
I feel that the affect of the piece isn’t to demonstrate how little scientists can claim as truth or knowledge, but rather shows that scientists themselves are aware that they are questing in the dark. The subjects hesitate to make over-generalised or over-simplified remarks, or to disparage other systems of thought, and instead consider wisely the impact of such philosophical questions on their own work. At times it is evident that these questions are not always at the forefront of their minds, which serves to humanise the scientists and shows them as ‘carrying out their job’ rather than as maverick genius thinkers. But when confronted, they are quick to concede their own motivations, assumptions and understandings about what it means to be working at the outer-limits of human knowledge.
As one considerate subject puts it:
“The other ways of understanding, I would say these other means are not all that different from science. People don’t recognise that science uses intuition, inspiration, I might say revelation. It uses faith, we have to have faith in science in order to do science. I would maintain that science and religion use all of our human abilities, both of them. And they’re probably more similar than people think”
And I would contend that art is up there alongside science and religion in using all of our human abilities to discover and make meaning.
References:
The Tetley (2015) The Scientific Method. [Online] Available at: http://thetetley.org/scientific-method/ [Accessed: 7 November 2016].
Semiconductor (2006) Do you think Science…. [Online] Available at: http://semiconductorfilms.com/art/do-you-think-science/ [Accessed: 07 November 2016].