Art & Science Collaboration
Art & Science Collaboration
  • Reporter Kwon Na-eun
  • 승인 2014.11.19 11:06
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 Many people think of art and science as completely opposite concepts. However, there has been a new point of view for art and science. They have something in common: they are both creative activities. Art is about suggesting new and universal views of the world and science is about suggesting new and systematic views of nature. Understanding the relationship between art and science will help to develop the convergence era, in which people integrate different fields of study and create unique industrial fields. The Postech Times interviewed Professor Gyeongsoon Im (HSS) and he mentioned that there are several examples for collaboration of art and science.
Leonardo da Vinci
He was a person of Renaissance. Many people know him as an artist but he was also an anatomist, engineer, and inventor at the same time. He made numerous designs which were ahead of contemporary economical requirements. For example, he not only drew a lot of anatomical diagrams of human beings and other animals but also tried to invent dynamic forms of parachutes and aircrafts. Furthermore, he was looking for a way to ‘remake’ the world by using geometry and proportion. He tried various geometric experiments to anatomical charts of human beings, mechanical designs, and paintings. Eventually, all he did can be understood in the same context. He thought of himself not as a mere artist but as a master craftsman who remakes everything in this world.
Marcel Duchamp
Duchamp had the idea that in his painting he can express time, which is known as the fourth dimension in science. He was inspired by the artist Etienne-Jules Marey, who took continuous pictures of running horses and human beings for the first time. Duchamp tried to collect precise information of science in order to express motions in his painting. He invented the language of vision and studied geometry to show motion as symbols in the canvas. He tried to integrate the discussion of motion and the fourth dimension, called time. Moreover, he had interest in countless fields of science such as the discovery of electromagnetism and invention of engines and wireless devices. His effort appears best in one of his paintings called “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even [The Large Glass]”. It is an extreme example of the art work influenced by contemporary scientific discovery, picture, and devices.
Salvador Dali
 He was influenced by the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, which can be thought as one of the greatest discoveries of modern science. In 1930, he used the theory of relativity and Freudianism to produce his best known work, “The Persistence of Memory.” Also, during the Cold War, he was inspired by Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. He came to portraying paintings with nuclear mysticism. A few other examples include “The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory,” and “The Three Sphinxes of Bikini.”
 In sum, there are three representative artists who showed the collaboration of art and science: Leonardo da Vinci, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dali. They all had different ideas and styles but they all used science as a tool or inspirational source for art. There are many more examples like Max Ernst, Nam June Paik, and so on. In addition, science needs art as much as art needs science. It’s because visual and non-verbal thinking is very important in engineering. Design is not only the means for commercialization or promotion of a product but also the key point in composing technology.