The Cross-Pollination Experiment

Jeff Lockwood

In 2014, 4 artists, 4 scientists and the project coordinator, all from the University of Wyoming, met at the prestigious Ucross Foundation ranch for a 2-week retreat. The results of that collaboration—called the Cross-Pollination Experiment--are astonishing and ongoing. The following is a record of correspondence about the project between me (Faerthen Felix), participant Michael Dillon, and organizer Jeff Lockwood.

Jeffrey A. Lockwood is Professor of Natural Sciences & Humanities at the University of Wyoming. He began his career as an entomologist, then shifted to philosophy.

Michael Dillon

Michael E. Dillon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology & Program in Ecology at the University of Wyoming. Dillon also serves as Director of the University of Wyoming - National Park Service Research Station.

Brochure, explaining the project and some of its outcomes.

-----------------------------

FF: It looks like Ucross facilitated the Cross-Pollination Experiment. How did they find all of you? Was it an open call, or were you recruited? It sounds like there was an "organizer" and Ucross didn't just invite you all out to stay, then leave you alone. Who was that organizer, and how was the experiment structured? Were there structured exercises, specific goals and deliverables?

MD: Jeff [Lockwood] was the mastermind of the initial Cross-Pollination project (which led to all the other good stuff), did the fund raising (from many sources on and off campus), and was the leader. He planned all the activities, the approach, etc. Briefly, we were invited by Jeff and then all lived together for 2 weeks -- we had separate housing but spent most of our meals and lots of free time just hanging out. This was a critical element, in my opinion, because we had the chance to really get to know and trust each other. Jeff ran nightly post-dinner meetings in which we reflected on the day, discussed the positive, negative, difficult, exciting, etc.



Our first day was a "perspective" day, in which we all had the morning to prepare a presentation about the place (Ucross) through our eyes/experience/academic background. We spent the afternoon moving between our studios giving and attending these presentations (8 in all). Jeff then organized a "speed dating" for the next day in which each artist spent 1 hour with each scientist discussing ideas. The goal was to come out of each of those meetings with several concrete ideas for how you could collaborate in a meaningful way. That is, not just artists interpreting the science or scientists trying their hand at art, but rather collaborations that enhanced both disciplines. Jeff paired us up (not sure how he decided as there were so many interesting collaborations possible!) and then we went to work. We had less than a week to make progress on the collaboration as Jeff had already scheduled a "Saturday University" event for the end of the trip in which we would present our "products" to the broader public in the Ucross space. 

JL: Some backstory…I did a residency at Ucross as a writer.  And in the course of that time, I had some lovely chats with Sharon Dynak, the executive director.  She indicated that Ucross was increasingly interested in projects that would integrate natural sciences and arts, particularly as a means of gaining a deeper appreciation of the ranch and surrounding countryside.  I was putting together a pitch for a UW venture in this regard when Shannon Smith (executive director of Wyoming Humanities Council) met up with me and became super-excited about the possibilities.  So Ucross provided enormous in-kind support and WHC provided financial support (especially in terms of the public presentations as UW’s Saturday University program that summer).  I should also note that the UW Biodiversity Institute provided funding.  I’ve also attached one of the original proposals so you can see what approach was being advocated.


FF: I find that, almost universally, people who have engaged in art/sci collaborations find them useful and positive, but it is difficult to measure outcomes clinically, and there is little actual science available on the results. Do you have any publication references that somehow document the effectiveness of the collaboration?

MD: I know what you mean, but don't have references. Our own experiences and all the products that have emerged are the best evidence I can provide.

"This has been an incredibly productive, fruitful venture: 3 exhibitions, a documentary film, an online repository of microbe portraits and artist responses to them, an opera, and Xbox Kinect video game, 3 NSF grants to date totaling over $6 million in funding. The cross pollination website has links to videos and other information about the different projects. We continue to actively develop new projects and collaborations. This venture has been one of the most exciting, invigorating, rewarding, and fun things I've done for quite some time!" -- MD

JL: I’m there with Michael.  Our products speak for the productivity of this venture.  But one of the deliverables is also a sense of morale, excitement, playfulness and fulfillment for academic artists and scientists who may not see much “external” reward and, indeed, have good reason for demoralization.

FF: I found this statement by Jeff Lockwood really interesting: "These synergies have revealed elements of the natural world that would otherwise be overlooked by both artists and scientists." Can you elaborate and provide some examples? This is a big aspect of our push to get more art at field stations: that art is a discovery process that can enhance scientific creativity, and uncover raw material for science. But finding clear and obvious A-to-B examples is challenging.

MD: One example was my collaboration with Rachael Shaw, a dancer/choreographer. We used the notation of dance (Laban notation) to quantify the posture and movements of bees after exposure to sublethal doses of pesticides. A tool from choreography allowed us to better quantify something that was otherwise difficult to describe but visually obvious: bees move differently when exposed to minute quantities of pesticides. Unfortunately, we have not published this work. Rachael moved not long after the initial Ucross trip and we've found it difficult to find time to work together from a distance. Other examples are the microbestiary, and a collaboration between Jeff and Anne Guzzo (a composer): an opera about the disappearance of the Rocky Mountain Locust.

JL: Yup, LOCUST: THE OPERA is premiering this September (I’ve attached the proposal for that project so you can get a sense of the science/art collaboration)—and I should add that Ashley Carlisle, one of the Ucross participants, will be designing and producing our costumes, scenery, etc.


FF: It's great that UWYO faculty work with Ucross. I think field research stations would really benefit from identifying artist-residencies near them to collaborate with on art/sci linkages.

MD: Ucross was fantastic - very supportive of the whole endeavor. But, although some of our art faculty apply for and are awarded residencies at Ucross, I am not sure that the Art/Science residency is an ongoing element for them.

JL: I think that one of the key features that made our venture successful (in addition to my very carefully selecting participants—there was no open call for people) is that everyone came from one institution, which has allowed the venture to continue for years with all sorts of combinations and recombinations of people based on interests and opportunities.  And such ongoing collaborations would be very difficult to sustain across institutions (heck, they’re hard enough across departments and colleges in a single institution!).

FF: Is there any kind of exportable prescription that either guided the process, or emerged from it? Something like the HJ Andrews Ecological Reflections program that is kind of plug-and-play for any field station that wants to participate, or Best Practices, or anything like that I can direct field stations to? 

MD: I think that, in our case, the key was Jeff's vision -- the combination of prescribed reflection and conversation time, of a deadline for a product, and also of flexibility so the group could go where it wanted to (we often veered from Jeff's original plan - to his consternation and delight, I think). 


JL: If there is anything approximating a set of guidelines/rules, it might be found in this very concise summary on YouTube. I’ve attached the text that I used for this Ignite presentation:

IGNITE
Science & Art: Instructions for Making a Chimera

1.
I have had the joy of orchestrating a three-year project bringing art and science into collaboration. We call ourselves the Ucross Pollinators to honor the institution hosting our gatherings—and to capture the underlying spirit.

2.
The Wyoming Humanities Council has been our principle supporter because they understand that if the arts are the flowers of civilization and the sciences are its stems, then the humanities are the roots.

3.
Our products include: National Science Foundation grants infused with art, a Microbestiary of unicellular life, a choreographic scoring method to encode insect movement, and operatic arias evoking the geology of Wyoming.

4.
I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned as an academic anthropologist, observing artists and scientists working and creating together—as well some thoughts about the institutional framework in which they are embedded.

5.
As for the people, here’s a simple but important consideration.  Scientists are not artists and vice-versa. Each pursues distinct ways of knowing themselves and the world.  To which I say, Viva la difference!

6.
The recipe for a tasty collaboration of artists and scientists is not to blend them into a homogenous smoothie, nor to make a loosely tossed salad.  Instead, simmer them together into a mouthwatering stew.

7.
For our venture, I chose “big dogs”—people at the top of their game, not those needing to yap to establish their dominance in the pack.  I’ve found that little dogs are much more likely to bite.

8.
The sense of wonder among the participants that catalyzed collaboration was akin to watching a spellbinding magician—and then being even more enchanted upon learning how the scientific or artistic trick was done.  

9.
The one quality that is critical to fruitful art-and-science ventures is playfulness—a vulnerable, childlike willingness to ask “why not?”, to wonder “what if?”, and to genuinely share one’s toys.

10.
Scientists and artists need more than a one-night stand to achieve satisfaction.  Fulfillment requires sustained interaction, and fertility is enhanced by proximity.  And so, being colleagues at the same institution is a tremendous asset.

11.
Collaboration does not mean artists making science pretty.  Rather, it requires mutual respect and that means genuine parity of power and prestige.  In this dance, each must be willing to lead—and to follow.

12.
Without constraints, the possibilities at the intersection of science and art are astronomical.  We need boundaries. Or as Robert Frost said of free verse poetry: It’s like playing tennis with the net down.

13.
An interdisciplinary team is often seen as having an ecologist and geologist.  Nobody ever adds a poet or dancer. We sought transdisciplinarity—engagement that was synergistic rather than additive.

14.
I’ve observed that pairs work extremely well.  Having one partner allows intimacy. Academic orgies don’t entail the commitment that sustains relationships.  Maybe science and art collaborations are like American marriage—serial monogamy.

15.
Turning to the institutional context, universities might tolerate, but rarely encourage, science-art collaborations—unless there’s money to be had. So, individuals must find working together to be internally rewarding.

16.
Trying to define science and art is an unhelpful starting point institutionally—much like attempting to define the humanities.  It’s like saying that before dating, one must define beauty, intelligence, and love.

17.
The university has islands of authentic collaboration—such as the Art Museum and the Biodiversity Institute—floating in a sea of institutional ambivalence.  For the most part, we have a College of Arts or Sciences.  

18.
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) is a glutton.  Adding the Arts to create STEAM (I prefer MEATS) still leaves artists nibbling crumbs from the table.  But please sir, I want some more.

19.
Art-and-science collaborations subvert institutional norms.  The results don’t add up on a spreadsheet; they defy administrative classification.  These projects are viewed as the icing, not the cake, of a respectable academic career.

20.
In conclusion, art-and-science collaborations are acts of humanistic faith.  The Cross-Pollinators will continue to pursue beautiful, grotesque, and strangely enchanting works that take flight—or not.


Cross-Pollination Experiment documentary. Explains the program in detail as it unfolded.


Saturday University lecture. Explains some of the trouble communicating the project.

More videos.

Beautiful abstractions of complex physics concepts

This work is so interesting: Tufte's ideas and observations at the link are stunning!

"Edward Tufte's wall-mounted sculptures, All Possible Photons,generate an enormous multiplicity of three-dimensional opticalexperiences of line, light, airspace, color, shadow, form.Made from stainless steel and air, the artworks grow outof Richard Feynman's famous diagrams describing Nature'ssubatomic behavior. Feynman diagrams depict the space-timepatterns of particles and waves of quantum electrodynamics.These mathematically derived and empirically verifiedvisualizations represent the space-time paths taken by allsubatomic particles in the universe.The resulting conceptual and cognitive art is both beautifuland true. Along with their art, the stainless steel elementsof All Possible Photons actually represent something: the preciseactivities of Nature at her highest resolution."

The Trouble with Scientism: Why history and the humanities are also a form of knowledge

"While replicable fact is the domain of science, human perception and value are the domains of art and the humanities."

This New Republic article from 2012 is an excellent rebuttal to the "scientism," of those who argue that the arts and humanities are somehow less reliable and useful than science:

If Marx and Freud are favorite whipping boys for those worried about the [validity of the humanities], the compliment is readily returned...nineteenth-century physics and chemistry [were infested] with the proliferation of “ether theories.” No less a figure than Maxwell even characterized the ether as “the best confirmed entity in [science].

Rigorous mathematical studies of gene-cultural coevolution reveal that when natural selection combines with cultural transmission, the outcomes reached may differ from those that would have been produced by natural selection acting alone, and that the cultural processes involved can be sustained under natural selection...culture appears to be at some level autonomous and in some sense irreducible, and this is what scientism cannot grasp.

But there is still a deeper reason for the enduring importance of the humanities. Many scientists and commentators on science have been led to view the sciences as a value-free zone...Yet on a broader view, which explores the purposes and their origins, it becomes clear that judgments of the significance of particular questions profoundly affect the work done and the environments in which it is done. Behind the complex and often strikingly successful practices of contemporary science stands a history of selecting specific aspects of the world for investigation.

What we discover depends on the questions taken to be significant, and the selection of those questions, as well as the decision of which factors to set aside in seeking answers to them, presupposes judgments about what is valuable. Those are not only, or mainly, scientific judgments. In their turn, new discoveries modify the landscape in which further investigations will take place, and because what we learn affects how evidence is assessed, discovery shapes the evolution of our standards of evidence. Judgments of value thus pervade the environment in which scientific work is done. If they are made, as they should be, in light of the broadest and deepest reflections on human life and its possibilities, then good science depends on contributions from the humanities and the arts. Perhaps there is even a place for philosophy.

Healthy relationships between the sciences and the humanities should aspire to the condition of the best marriages—to a partnership in which different strengths and styles are acknowledged and appreciated, in which a fruitful division of labor constantly evolves, in which constructive criticism is given and received, in which neither party can ever make a plausible claim to absolute authority, and in which the ultimate goal is nothing less than the furtherance of the human good. 

 Read the complete article here.

Field Notes of a Terranaut

Artist Alan MacDonald was inspired by the notebooks of DaVinci and Michelangelo to create his recent work, Field Notes of a Terranaut. MacDonald has some lucid ideas about the creative process:

"Our senses filter out vast amounts of information unessential for survival of the body-organism. Yet still, a trickle of information enters the mind experienced as intuition, a creative spark. Aha moments. Truly creative artists are in a sense mystics, 'receiving' non local information in order to co-create local objects that inspire and extend consciousness."

I would argue that this statement applies to truly creative scientists, as well: they notice things that the rest of us filter out. Perhaps we lack a term for the truly creative perception that distinguishes transformative art and science from the merely pedestrian?

Open Science: Singularity and Irruption on the Frontiers of Artistic Practice

"'Open Science: Singularity and Irruption on the Frontiers of Artistic Practice' is research that deals with the work done by artists who [are trained in and] use scientific methodologies for their work production."

The publication proposes that when artists undertake science, their questions, methodologies and results are different than those of non-artistic scientists, and based in their very different "premises, ethics, prior knowledge, liberties, problematizations and aesthetics."

"The publication works with the hypothesis that art can produce knowledge, reviewing the relationship between art and science, based on interviews with five artists residing in different countries: Dmitry Bulatov (Russian Federation), Susana Soares (Portugal), Rachel Mayeri (USA), Gilberto Esparza (Mexico) and Perdita Phillips (Australia)."

Mechanisms of discovery

Discovery is the creation of new knowledge. Both art and science are ways of combining previously unrelated elements to create this new knowledge.

"In designing this project, I have been looking for the right proportions and contrasts that set associations in motion, that invite the sort of very human experience of engaging through curiosity and being rewarded with discoveries...I think it’s an important skill to be able to read things in multiple and often contradictory ways." -- Todd Gilens

But what are the mechanisms involved in this discovery process? The philosopher David Hume argued convincingly that the human mind does not invent: it combines previously unrelated elements to create something new:

"What never was seen, nor heard of, may yet be conceived; nor is anything beyond the power of thought, except what implies an absolute contradiction...But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall find upon a nearer examination, that it is really confined within very narrow limits, and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience. When we think of a golden mountain, we only join two consistent ideas, gold, and mountain, with which we were formerly acquainted." 

"If all we had to go on were impressions and ideas, we could not do much more than have perceptions and notice past experiences. Hume, however, develops a powerful account of the mind by identifying the ways in which ideas may be related to one another. We can mentally link ideas together in three ways:

1. Resemblance: A and B share similar features;
2. Contiguity: A and B occur together in space and/or time;
3. Cause and Effect: A brings B about.

...Hume argues that all human beliefs [and mental processes] result from applications of these simple associations. From our simple ideas and associations we build very complex systems of thought and belief. Yet, no matter how complex an idea or belief system, it is always possible in principle to analyze it into its simpler component parts: ideas and relations between them.

This theory of mind and method of analysis provided the tools that Hume used to arrive at remarkable conclusions about knowledge, understanding, metaphysics, the self, morality, justice, religious belief, and a host of other key philosophical topics." Much of Hume's work has been confirmed by later science. Read more here.

* * *

So, how does someone actually effect this productive recombination? Artists and inventors have a particular need for novelty; here are a few of the tools they have used to explore new hybrid ideas:

Surrealism is an art movement creating artworks that feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur. The result was achieved by by combining conscious and unconscious awareness, with the goal of effecting social change.

• Inventor Thomas Edison also famously accessed the power of his unconscious mind by power-napping at his desk with a handful of ball bearings. When he drifted off to sleep his hand would relax, dropping the heavy metal balls to the floor. The noise woke him to record his unconscious answer to whatever question his conscious mind had been pondering.
• Artist Salvador Dali used the same technique with a spoon and metal plate. Dali was intrigued with the images which "occur at the boundary between sleeping and waking that occur when people are falling asleep, or when they are starting to wake up. These images tend to be extremely vivid, colorful and bizarre".
• Though it slightly predated the Surrealists, Freud's work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious, mirrored and inspired their goals. Despite significant errors, Freudian analysis led to a revolution in psychology, ultimately transforming it from essentially voodoo into a more scientific discipline.

Humor uses startling juxtaposition of apparently unrelated elements to convey new concepts, and to build new coping mechanisms and emotional connection to the ideas and the people expressing them:

"Humor also bestows social, psychological, and physical benefits. It attracts attention and admiration, softens criticism, delineates social boundaries, and alleviates conflict between people with different worldviews (Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Keltner, Capps, Kring, Young, & Heerey, 2001; Martin, 2007). Humor even helps people cope with anxiety, embarrassment, grief, and physical pain." (Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Keltner & Bonanno, 1997; Martin, 2007)

"...comedy goes far beyond the business of making us laugh: it has long been a powerful tool for social change and a means of undermining authority. What we find funny can also be cruel, establishing symbolic boundaries that divide people, setting those with power against those without and vice-versa." -- Artdaily.com

"Stand-up comedy is among the most popular forms of entertainment in America today. It is also one of the few places in mainstream society where people speak candidly about the topics of race and racism. This is no coincidence." -- Colleen Frances Manwell

Perhaps because of its transformative power, humor itself has often been seen as subversive: in Confucian China, in the medieval Islamic world (where comedy was dissociated from Greek drama and re-associated with Arabic poetic forms), and in more modern culture, where jokes can unite, or at the expense of national, religious or social identities can work to enforce tribalism, misogyny and racism.

However, for its transformative capacity humor is often seen as the enemy of fanaticism. In fact, "the topic of whether Christ ever laughed was hotly debated by theologians over many centuries. So, if Christ never laughed, and priests should be models of Christ, then humor and laughter were counter to true religion" (which is conservative and rejects re-interpretation).

The roots of humor include:

• Being reflective of, or imitative of reality 
• Surprise/misdirection
• Contradiction/paradox
• Ambiguity

The comedian Rowan Atkinson goes so far as to state that a person or object can become funny in one of only three ways: by being in an unusual place, by behaving in an unusual way, or by being the wrong size (Laughing Matters, 1992).

Atkinson also notes the strangely close relationship between comedy, fear, surrealism, and magic, as well as the surprising recurrence of classic themes in all of these. The physical comedian, like the ground-breaking artist, "breaks all the rules of decorum and convention".

Magic upends expectation, exploiting object behavior that obviously must be following the laws of physics, yet appears to break them. Artist and inventor John Edmark says,

"Clearly the works are sculptures of sorts, but in a sense that's just a coincidence; they're just the medium that I'm using to ask and answer questions that I'm interested in...I think my work is most successful when it evokes a sense of wonder, when it sort of seems to be magical."

Explanation of the strobe effect seen in Edmark's dynamic sculptures:



Source: Removable Thumb Magic Trick by ViralHog on Rumble

EDWARD TUFTE  ALL POSSIBLE PHOTONS
THE CONCEPTUAL AND COGNITIVE ART OF FEYNMAN DIAGRAMS

Einstein was an Artist

Einstein was an Artist? Zat Rana wrote a recent article in Medium that makes some interesting points:

"Einstein inspired a paradigm shift in physics not as a scientist but as an artist...English distinguishes a scientist as someone who systematically learns about a part of the natural world and uses that knowledge to describe and predict it. An artist, on the other hand, is defined as someone who creatively produces."

"When it comes to categories like science and art, we have a tendency to presume [incorrectly] mutual exclusivity."

"There are many smart and knowledgeable scientists. Rarely, however, are they capable of producing work that shifts our entire understanding of the world. That requires an entirely new way of looking at things... At its core, creativity is just a new and useful way of combining old ideas. It isn’t imagined out of thin air, and it isn’t completely abstract. It’s a fresh way of making sense of the existing components of reality that have yet to merge."

Rana goes on to identify several key ways of nurturing creativity:

1. Be willing to produce subpar work
2. Compromise today for tomorrow
3. Don’t wait for inspiration to get moving
4. Seek relationships between existing ideas
5. Produce a large volume of work

Read the full article here.

Work by the Root-Bernsteins establishes that practicing art as an adult is 15-25x more likely in Nobel Prize-winning scientists than in their non-winning peers. Einstein was an accomplished violinist.

Einstein famously claimed to have conceptualized the notions behind the work that became Special Relativity while imagining what the world would look like if you could ride along on a beam of light.

This video by Eugene Khutoryansky does the best job I have ever seen of visualizing and explaining that conceit:

Medical discovery by Leonardo confirmed

One of the basic tenets of this blog is that the artist is a pattern detector that can engage in basic discovery that can enhance science. Here's an example of a missed opportunity...

Leonardo da Vinci was the first to notice and characterise the human mesentery--an odd section of colon--in a drawing from about 1508. One of the first anatomical textbooks to include the mesentery was by the anatomist Henry Gray, in the first edition of the well-known medical textbook Gray's Anatomy. In this text, the mesentery was presented as a fragmented structure until 2016.

That change is because a 2012 paper on mesentery anatomy analyzed over 100 bowel sections, discovering that this part of the colon actually has a continuous spiral structure, rather than being a disconnected series of functionless bowel folds, as previously thought. Paradoxically, the sharp focus of surgeons prevented the big picture from emerging until now:

Even when performing open surgery on the intestines, the structure was hard for surgeons to spot. "When you operate on the right hand side, you don't really tend to see the left hand side and vice versa, if you operate on the left you just don't see the right."

This discovery opens up a new field of medical research to understand the function of this "new" organ.

STEM to STEAM discussion on YASMIN

Yasminers

Announcing a YASMIN discussion beginning Dec 19

What does STEM to STEAM mean: New Ideas or Hot Moist Air ?

Moderator: Roger Malina
Discussants: Dimitris Charitos ( Greece), Guillermo Munoz ( Spain,
currently a nanoscience postdoc in Japan)

if you want to participate as an invited respondent- contact
rmalina@alum.mit.edu

As you know there is an international discussion on "stem to steam"
concepts and approaches for new art/sci/tech teaching and research
methods.  There is much debate and discussion on whether the ideas
behind STEM to STEAM are new in anyway, or whether the phrase is a
repacking of current work in a way to attract new funding ( for an
understanding the social and cultural processes at work in 'selling'
programs like stem to steam - on  a larger scale- see for instance
Patrick McCray's detailed book called The Visioneers: How a Group of
Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a
Limitless Future  http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9822.html   )

The US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine are
currently conducting a two year study to address  the higher education
part of the question:

Integrating Higher Education in the
Arts, Humanities, Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/bhew/humanitiesandstem/index.htm

The European Union has initiated the STARTS (science technology and
the arts ) funding program:

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/ict-art-starts-platform

which seeks to address the innovation argument:

STARTS encourages synergies between the Arts and innovation for
technology and society by promoting the inclusion of artists in
Horizon 2020 projects.An increasing number of high-tech companies
assert that scientific and technological skills alone are not
sufficient anymore. In this context, the Arts are gaining prominence
as catalysts for an efficient conversion of science and technology
knowledge into novel products, services, and processes.

We are proposing a discussion on the YASMIN discussion list on
this topic on Drec 19-2016-all members of the yasmin community
welcome to participate



in our own School at the University of Texas at Dallas faculty members are
learning how to teach science and engineering differently using STEAM
approaches: eg http://www.utdallas.edu/atec/

eg:

Karen Doore:
Curriculum Re-Design: Computer Science for ATEC Students
Karen Doore will present an overview of curriculum for CS
programming-sequence courses for ATEC and will include student
projects showcasing top student works. There are significant
challenges and difficulties in attempting to teach complex technical
material to a diverse student groups, particularly when many students
question the premise that these CS courses provide value for the
effort that is required to learn the course content. There are
current efforts to re-design curriculum for these courses. She is
looking for feedback and suggestions that can further guide the
curriculum re-design efforts.

About Karen Doore

Karen Doore is a Senior Lecturer and PhD Candidate in the Computer
Science Department at UT Dallas. Her research focus is Computer
Science Education, with an emphasis on curriculum design for
Non-Majors. She earned her BS in Material Science and Engineering from
the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN and an MS in Computer
Science with a focus on Intelligent Systems from UT Dallas. She
currently teaches required CS programming-sequence courses for ATEC
students, and has been working for several years as part of the
re-design effort for the curriculum of these courses. Her new
curriculum has an enhanced focus on computational modeling, so that,
in addition to learning fundamental programming concepts, students
learn how to model dynamic, interactive systems. One goal of this
modeling focus is to provide students with skills to design,
communicate about, and implement dynamic interactive programs, such as
games, animations, and design tools

Our school of Art Tecnology and Emerging Communication has also
announced 6 full PhD scholarships including STEM to STEAM creative
work and research.

for the YASMIN discusson we are interested in STEM to STEAM topics
in artistic work, art-sci-tech research, education and personal behaviour !!

Hopefully STEM to STEAM is not just vapor ware !

Roger Malina
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Discovery before science

Science was invented by Al-Haytham in the 10th-century, and expanded by other Muslim scholars and Renaissance philosophers through the 14th-century. Since then, science has proven to be perhaps the most productive intellectual tool in human history.

6 simple machines are used to control mechanical
advantage. Complex machines (like a drill press) use
more than one simple machine. All were invented or
discovered before the invention of science.

Yet prior to the 10th-century, people managed to discover and invent all manner of useful things, including many technologies we typically think of as abstract, technical or scientific. These inventions include alphabets, writing, literature, philosophy, mathematics, calculating aids, and controlled chemical reactions like fermentation, metallurgy, gunpowder, and cement (whose lost formula--incidentally--far surpasses the quality we can produce today).

Pre-scientific people invented complex architecture, including massive stonework, and the arch, vault and dome; they developed agriculture and animal husbandry, including selective breeding, the seed that became the field of genetics; they invented cities, plumbing, long-distance water delivery, and sophisticated forms of government, paper money, and banking. Pre-scientific people discovered mechanical advantage, and harnessed the energy of moving water and wind to power mills and sailing vessels.

Clearly, science's incredible later success is clouding our perception of its true nature: science is not the foundational source of human creativity, discovery, invention, and problem solving. In fact, science is just a criterion of truth--a powerful way to test assumptions and hunches, and bend them to useful application. No scientist comes up with their research focus via the scientific method: you come to science with a question that needs answering.

One problem with our current tendency to off-load all of our problem-solving onto science is that very few of us are actually scientists. 1999 Bureau of Labor statistics show that only 3.5% of the total US population worked as a scientist or engineer. Those numbers are likely not much different today. So, in turning exclusively to science for answers, we are ignoring the discovery potential of 96.5% of our human population.

Science's necessary objectivity is also off-putting. People are emotional creatures, yet emotion can have no part of scientific results...or it isn't science. We are now seeing the dangerous results of alienating the bulk of our population: science has become politicized and unpopular, eroding funding and support.

So, where else can we look for creativity, invention and human investment?

The Arts are a tool of discovery, and there is a long tradition of art detecting patterns that inform later science. In the 19th-century, a largely self-taught schoolmaster turned his attention from the Humanities to mathematics. George Boole was a big fan of Aristotle, and had the insight that he could use math to extend and formalize the rules of Aristotelian Logic. In doing so, he invented an obscure new branch of mathematics.

Even other mathematicians never imagined that Boolean Algebra would ever have any practical application to science or engineering. However, decades later in the 1930's, a young mathematics student named Claude Shannon enrolled in a philosophy course at the University of Michigan. There, Shannon realized that Aristotelian Logic, in the form of Boolean Algebra, could be used to describe digital circuits. This insight formed the basis of what has come to be known as "the most important Master's thesis of the century". Shannon's work went on to create the field of Information Theory, which profoundly influenced such diverse intellectual disciplines as biology, ecology, physics, electrical engineering, linguistics, philosophy and more. Information Theory utterly transformed society, resulting in the modern telecommunications and computer industries.

So, the foundation underlying the structure of the modern world came from the Humanities. Maybe that alone is reason enough to re-engage arts with science at FSMLs?

Here is an example of an artist using a visualization technique for the beauty and provocativeness of it...

Ground Cloud from Dennis Hlynsky on Vimeo.

...and a scientist using the same technique to make a fundamental discovery:

Hummingbird research at Sagehen from F. Felix on Vimeo.

Architecture of Life exhibit

UC Berkeley has a current show that includes anatomical drawings by Ramón y Cajal that are still used in medical textbooks today. From a review by NPR:

Santiago Ramón y Cajal: Microglia in the grey
matter of the cerebral cortex, 1920.

 "We forget that it is hard to see. To paraphrase Kant (loosely), seeing without understanding is blind, even if understanding without seeing is empty. A good drawing — for example of the working parts of an engine — is often much easier to interpret than an actual perceptual encounter with the engine itself. The engine, after all, is very complicated. What is important? What deserves notice? It's hard to know. But the drawing, when it is successful, is more than a mere representation; it is, really, the exhibition of what something is, of how it works, of what it is for. A good drawing is an image that has been imbued with thought."

Architecture of Life runs through March 29, 2016 at BAMPFA, the new visual arts center of UC Berkeley.

How two Santa Cruz artists changed the course of environmental history

KQED recently produced this profile of Helen and Newton Harrison, the parents of the eco-art movement. The piece includes a radio broadcast, and a more detailed web article with photos.

"Widely known as the parents of the eco-art movement, the Harrisons have become world-renowned for using art to tackle environmental problems on a massive, global scale."

The Harrisons partnered with UC Berkeley's Sagehen Creek Field Station and the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art for a project looking at native vegetation manipulations to mitigate snowpack conversion to rain. This is part of a larger, worldwide, climate-themed effort they call "Force Majeure" that seeks to find answers to thorny environmental issues.

More info about the Harrison Project at Sagehen.

Community Innovation Labs

"Community Innovation Labs offer the opportunity for the cultural sector to play a vital role in community change, using artistic practices to build a shared vision, explore new possibilities, and advance adaptive solutions...

Our Labs create the space and conditions for organizations to test innovative new ways to take on their most complex, intractable challenges. We do this by helping them bring together teams of 'unusual suspects,' unfreeze the status quo, and test their most promising ideas by putting them into action...

We believe that innovation is primarily a process, not a product, fueled by discipline, focus, and a strong will for change. It requires letting go of what is no longer useful and experimenting your way forward. This is difficult and vulnerable work. We also believe that artistic experiences help us learn to productively navigate the tension between thinking and feeling, both of which are required to respond to complex challenges."

The project asks several questions to find fruitful areas for collaboration:

• What problematic situation(s) in your community would be a good fit to explore in a pilot Lab? 
• In what ways might a pilot Lab build on existing momentum, networks, and efforts? 
• What group of community stakeholders from a range of sectors and backgrounds might be champions of this effort? Who is already committed?

The Community Innovation Labs model is clearly applicable to FSMLs aiming to foment creative abrasion between arts and field science in pursuit of fundamental discovery and solutions to wicked environmental problems.

The project website has links to a recent Webinar and an incredibly insightful and valuable Information Packet.

The gap between thinking and doing

There's an interesting article in Wired UK this month about art/science convergence, though it isn't presented as such.

Artist Olafur Eliasson is a hybrid. A artist who was first a trained draftsman and architect, whose interest in bodies and spaces came out of his experience as a teenaged break dancer.


In his parent's homeland of Iceland, "he learned the power of defamiliarisation - the feeling you have when seeing things presented in a surprising way that makes you feel you're seeing them for the first time."

As an artist, Eliasson is interested in, "How do I take a feeling I carry within myself and give it shape? What's the gap between thinking and doing, idea and action?" Everyone at his highly collaborative 90-person studio is pushing for "non-quantifiable success criteria".

"Something you can neither see nor feel is hard to think about and easy to ignore; religion is helped by its icons and ritual, whereas environmentalists must rely on over-familiar, depressing footage of melting ice caps and denuded rainforest."

"Fundamental to Eliasson's work is the belief, rooted in phenomenology and gestalt psychology, that in changing an individuals' perception of their surroundings, art actually changes the world. The studio is based on a shared conviction on art and creativity as means of change, and 'because we are looking at things from an artistic angle, we consider things relevant that other people would not.'"

Eliasson is interested in somatic knowledge. "How do we change the world and push it away from being so obsessive with measurable success results?" he asks.

It seems to me that this somatic response is the thing that underlies science, and makes us care enough to do that work in the first place.

But, as with Eliasson, inchoate interest in phenomena can just as easily manifest itself as art. Or both simultaneously: FSML as exploratory art studio in service of basic scientific discovery.

Recommendation from an Eco-art legend

http://www.centerforforcemajeure.org/

For those of you who don't know me my name is Newton Harrison.

I consider myself an artist first but also an academic and an educator. I come out of a number of traditions and the Bauhausian attitude toward problem solving is a background sound in much of our work. The artist educators I identify with and know or knew, are people like Alan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, and Hans Haacke who are or were my contemporaries in my early thirties. I found myself comfortable in many of the sciences. Moreover, I have helped form art departments, chaired them, was the first policy panel chairman for the NEA and have done a body of administrative work. I took early retirement from UC San Diego after reaching the top of the professorial ranks in order to do art full time. The career of Helen Harrison, my lifetime collaborator, has the same general outline as my own. I bring up this history to make clear that I have direct and extensive experience in the three principle domains that comprise this discussion. If I am correct, they are about the melding of art, science, administration and support structures of various kinds.

I would like to suggest that missing from this discourse is what one one might call content. I would also like to suggest that there is a common meeting point between formations in art and formations in science. One might better say, a common beginning point. It is about seeing, in the sense of envisioning that evokes a question of originality about something not previously spoken. Let me begin with Cezanne the father of modern art, the question he asked was: why was the art making in the academies of his time dominated by straight lines that created various perspectives visually when in nature the same kind of seeing happened but in the absence of straight lines? A key question that he spent a good part of his life answering. The answers turned out to be how non-linear perspectives, 6 or 7 in number, actually worked. This was demonstrated most powerfully in his Mount St. Victoire works. From these discoveries emerged a body of art movements, such as expressionism, impressionism, even fauvism among others, changing the nature of the field and significantly expanding the conceptual domain and visual domains that people though of as art. His discoveries, and their proof exhibited in his paintings were endlessly useful field.

Let me now offer a parallel example, perhaps of even greater importance in the sciences. In 1969 I was doing an artificial borealis for Expo 70 and then the Art& Technology exhibition in LACMA. The work was based in plasma physics which I had to learn something about. Richard Feynman the physicist was my guide. The work was done, successfully, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories. One time walking in the woods with Feynman, he explained the problem he had that forced him to make so many equations, always with something missing, finally discovering that what was missing was something. Also a lovely question that he asked which was something like this: is it true that the faster something moves, the more impossible it is to find its location in a trajectory of movement? I think he discovered you could come close by "averaging a sum of its histories" (a good physicist might express this more clearly). These discoveries seem to offer new insight into indeterminacy and wave particle physics.

The point I am making here is that powerful content emerges from asking, then setting out to answer, a question that turns out to be of great consequence. This is true of both the arts and the sciences. The outcomes in physical terms between the arts and sciences are sometimes parallel and sometimes very different but the original question, the original search and high excitement in original discovery, are common. It is my opinion that a concerted effort needs to be made to locate artists who are comfortable in the sciences and who are asking questions and seeking answers that are of great importance. For instance a dominate question in our own work, looks something like this: if flood and drought, the outcome from global warming, reduces dramatically the ability of the peninsula of Europe to feed its own people, is a mediating force on the horizon, can it be enacted, and can civil breakdown be countered? We think yes.

The artists that I have mentioned previously in the response to Janet Brown's blog, do in fact ask and seek answers to questions of importance and are useful models. Therefore I suggest that our rather complex group take on itself the extremely exciting task of locating and supporting, that relatively small group of artists globally, that go about doing what I have been talking about.

More later.

Newton

Mining time-lapse videos from random internet photos

Art/Science Residencies

Here's a great article on residencies that facilitate interdisciplinary work between art and science. Below are some interesting quotes from the article:

"We perceive a world where artists and scientists collaborate directly with each other to create innovative interdisciplinary work and projects that have a positive impact on society, technology and culture."

"The residency environment is also particularly well-suited for collaboration and synergy between often disparate-seeming disciplines...In this spirit, many multidisciplinary organizations are forming creative residencies as a way of addressing ecological and scientific issues."

"Art and imagery are inherent in the creative process in science and integral to the communication of its discoveries. For theoretical physics, images can be powerful expressions of elegant mathematical equations that are otherwise inaccessible to many."

"Artists often investigate ideas differently than scientists, and communicating this way of seeing can move the science forward."

"The artists were also surprised to find that some of the most innovative art was already being created at [CERN] by the engineers and lab technicians, who were crafting machines that combined state-of-the-art technology and some of the world's finest craftsmanship. The resulting dialogue explored the question of whether sculptural objects that were created without the intention of being art--but rather as scientific tools--were in fact art."

"While science dominates restoration thought, it seems increasingly clear that science is necessary, but not sufficient...and neither is art. I think this project can help establish a clear role for artists and humanists, not as solitary visionaries, but as participants; not as some mystical or magical process, but as an important, critical perspective; not as arbitrator, but as co-worker, one among many disciplines equally necessary to the recovery and revitalization of this whole place."

Read more at greenmuseum.org, a nonprofit online resource to support and advance the environmental art movement

Great article on science that was inspired by art!

This article (and references) from 2011 is so good, I'm pasting the whole thing in, just in case it vanishes from the original source at Science Blogs!

Also see this post.

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Most people are at a loss to be able to identify any useful connections between arts and sciences. This ignorance is appalling. Arts provide innovations through analogies, models, skills, structures, techniques, methods, and knowledge. Arts don’t just prettify science or make technology more aesthetic; they often make both possible.

That cell phone or PDA you’re carrying? It uses a form of encryption called frequency hopping to ensure your messages can’t easily be intercepted. Frequency hopping was invented by the composer George Antheil in collaboration with the actress Hedy Lamarr. Yeah, really.

The electronic screen that displays your messages (not to mention the ones on your computer and your TV), they employ a combination of red, green, and blue dots from which all the different colors can be generated. That innovation was the collaboration of a series of painter-scientists (e.g., American physicist Ogden Rood and German Nobel laureate Wilhelm Ostwald) and post-impressionist artists such as Seurat – you know, the guy who painted his pictures out of dots of color, just like the ones in your electronic devices…

The first programmable device was invented by J. M. Jacquard to control the looms that made his tapestries and exactly the same technique was used to program the first computers. He also made the first digital image – out of black and white threads. In fact, the computer chips that run virtually all our devices today are made using a combination of three classic artistic inventions: etching, silk screen printing, and photolithography. 

Data from NASA and NSA satellites is enhanced using artistic techniques such as chiaroscuro (a Renaissance invention) and false coloring (the Fauvists) to increase the contrast so it’s easier to perceive the important information. Artists figured out how to hide information, too. Camouflage was invented by the American painter Abbot Thayer, who was unable to convince Teddy Roosevelt to use it in the Spanish American war. By WWI, however, painters such as the Vorticists in England and the Cubists in France were co-opted by their governments to design prints to protect troops, equipment, and planes.

In medicine, the stitches that permit a surgeon to correct an aneurysm or carry out a heart transplant were invented by American Nobel laureate Alexis Carrel, who took his knowledge of lace-making into the operating room. That pace maker you use: it’s a simple modification of a musical metronome. If you have a neurological deficit, your neurologist may employ dance notation to analyze your problem. The stent that was implanted in your aorta to keep it open, that was designed using the principles of origami.

Oh, and that bridge you drove over on the way to work: good chance its design was invented by an artist. Princeton engineering professor David Billington and Smithsonian historian Brooke Hindle have shown that most of the innovations in bridge design have originated with artistically trained engineers such as John Roebling and Robert Maillart. 

In fact, there’s a long tradition of artists-turned-inventors in the US. You probably didn’t know that Samuel Morse (telegraph) and Robert Fulton (steam ship) were among the most prominent American artists before they turned to inventing (visit the Smithsonian American Art Galleries some time). You are probably also ignorant of the fact that Alexander Graham Bell was a pianist whose invention of the telephone began with a simple musical game. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes don’t just provide us with unusual architectures, they also inform our understanding of cell and virus structure that permits new biomedical insights. Geodesic domes led to the invention of a new kind of chemical nanoparticle called “Buckminsterfullerene,” which is the basis of new medicines. Kenneth Snelson’s tensegrity sculptures (stroll past his “Needle Tower” outside the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden on the Mall) aren’t just fascinating, they’ve also created a whole new form of engineering. Biologists have even found that it’s principles explain the shapes of cells. Google it!

In fact, I’ve just published a study that shows that almost all Nobel laureates in the sciences
are actively engaged in arts as adults. They are twenty-five times as likely as the average scientist to sing, dance, or act; seventeen times as likely to be an artist; twelve times more likely to write poetry and literature; eight times more likely to do woodworking or some other craft; four times as likely to be a musician; and twice as likely to be a photographer. Many connect their art with their scientific creativity.

Moreover, those folks who produce the new patentable inventions and found the new companies to produce them – they, too, are artistically trained: they are far more likely to have continuous participation in drawing, painting, dancing, woodworking, metal working, and mechanics than their less innovative peers. Ninety percent of them, in interviews, expressed the opinion that the arts should be part of every scientists and technologists education. Eighty percent of them could point to specific ways in which their arts training directly enhanced their innovative ability.

In sum, successful innovators in sciences and technology are artistic people. Stimulate the arts and you stimulate innovation.

Bob Root-Bernstein, Ph. D.
MacArthur Fellow
Professor of Physiology
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824 USA
rootbern@msu.edu

Root Bernstein, R. S., Bernstein, M. and Garnier, H. W. “Correlations between Avocations,
Scientific Style, and Professional Impact of Thirty Eight Scientists of the Eiduson Study,” Creativity Research Journal 8: 115 137, 1995.

Root-Bernstein, R. S. “Art Advances Science,” Nature 407: 134, 2000.

Root Bernstein, R. S. “Music, creativity, and scientific thinking,” Leonardo 34, no. 1, 63-68, 2001.

Root-Bernstein, R. S. “Sensual chemistry. Aesthetics as a motivation for research.” Hyle: The Journal of the Philosophy of Chemistry 9, 35-53, 2003.

Root-Bernstein, R. S. and Root-Bernstein, M. M. “Artistic Scientists and Scientific Artists: The
Link between Polymathy and Creativity” in Sternberg, Robert, Grigorenko, Elana L., and Singer, Jerome, L., editors, Creativity: From Potential to Realization (Washington, D. C.: American Psychological Association, 2004), pp. 127-151.

Root-Bernstein, M. M. and Root-Bernstein, R. S. “Body Thinking Beyond Dance: A Tools for
Thinking Approach,” In Overby, Lynette, and Lepczyk, Billie, eds. Dance: Current Selected Research, vol.5, pp. 173-202, 2005.

Root-Bernstein RS, Lindsay Allen^, Leighanna Beach^, Ragini Bhadula^, Justin Fast^, Chelsea Hosey^, Benjamin Kremkow^, Jacqueline Lapp^, Kaitlin Lonc^, Kendell Pawelec^, Abigail Podufaly^, Caitlin Russ^, Laurie Tennant^, Erric Vrtis^ and Stacey Weinlander^. “Arts Foster Success: Comparison of Nobel Prizewinners, Royal Society, National Academy, and Sigma Xi Members.” J Psychol Sci Tech 2008; 1(2):51-63.