Principles and Thoughts that affect my pursuits

“Of course, our failures are a consequence of many factors, but possibly one of the most important is the fact that society operates on the theory that specialization is the key to success, not realizing that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking,” Buckminster Fuller, 1942.

Thinkers ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Buckminster Fuller have warned against the overspecialization of knowledge. Physicist C.P Snow explored specialization by defining two separate cultures of knowledge: the sciences and the humanities. He noticed a failure of the members of these two cultures to communicate and entertain concepts not required for their fields. Snow called for a Third Culture bridging the knowledge of the sciences and humanities. He defined this intellectual equivalent of bilingualism as the capacity not only to exercise the language of a respective specialism, but also to attend to and learn from other fields, forming a basis from which to contribute to wider cultural conversations.

The artist maintains the unique role as a catalyst for this broader discussion. The discipline of visual art naturally combines the applied sciences and humanities in its investigation and pursuit of expression. Utilizing techniques native to visual art (space, shape, form, color, etc.) to communicate information1 from disparate disciplines allows for unification. This unified whole can generalize the dialogue for broader audience participation. By presenting distilled, visually compelling information the viewer can develop an attitude of inquiry and criticism toward the presented assumptions: Is objective questioning possible? Is all data controllable? Is anything quantifiable?

Scientific projects are best left to highly disciplined and trained scientists where the control of the data is paramount to duplication. Art allows for the flexibility of thought and the freedom of exercising the dialectic power of critical questioning. It is important to move beyond artist as a manufacturer of objects, expending energy to transform materials to a final outcome. Instead the question determines the object, rather than the material determining the path I follow. The difference is the realization of a product through questioning. As a member of the third culture, I promote the artist as agent of communication utilizing data and information provided by my environment. By transforming information into varied formats and non-traditional styles viewers can be initiated into utilizing principles of logic and reason to evaluate its validity. By drawing on didactic demonstrative means I can reduce the illusory aspect of the mystified art experience and counteract the viewer’s tendency to react viscerally or emotionally rather than rationally to visual evidence. A more intellectually invested participant will produce greater discussions on how science and the humanities determine individuality in society.