See that picture above? I took it. No joke. It was on the very last day of 2017. An unexpected family trip to the country's mountains, allowed me the opportunity to record and relish one of the most majestic views I've seen so far in my life. One of many gifts from the Gods bestowed upon humanity. The picture wasn't just well-detailed. It was absolutely awe-inspiring. The sunlight beaming down on the natural elements. The realistic greens, greys and browns sweeping through the entire photo. The tiny waterfall peeking through the centre as the water flows smoothly and consistently over the jagged rocks. Of course the picture above doesn't present all of these details accurately, given that I added a visual effect over the top. Why the visual effect you ask? Well I'll happily explain to you why that is because it leads into the topic I plan on discussing about. A topic I happen to show a great amount of interest in.
This picture is basically asking a series of questions. What do you think about nature? How does it make you feel? What about art interests you? What in art interests you the most? Your answers would speak volumes for how you'd see this picture. You could see just a sweeping of strong colours with irregular patterns. Or you can see a forest and waterfall behind a computer-generated effect. Then after that, you're making a judgement. What are your thoughts? What do you gather from it? Does the visual effect make the scenery look better or does it make everything worse? Whichever way you wish to perceive the edited photo is up to you. I captured something natural and covered it entirely with a band of translucent colours, smoothly transitioning from one to another starting from the top left. For me it's admiring all sides of the spectrum for what they are. Long story short, it's my way of accepting the two separate worlds of Art and Science.
The topic of Art and Science and the relationship between them is one of the more under-appreciated of its kind to exist. While studies on the topic have seen the light of day, they haven't been as acclaimed or widely recognised by everyday people compared to most other things. I like to think it's due to it being a topic you don't need to go searching for. Research isn't a requirement. This topic is more of a jigsaw puzzle, and over many years the pieces are slowly given to you in the form of different materials. They gradually come together for the bigger picture to emerge. At least that's how I see it, because at no stage did this topic ever come to me. I didn't learn it from school or from friends. I found and chased it. If I asked you what both art and science were, you'd most likely see them as how you've learned them. Art is drawing and painting pictures while science is chemical formulas and experiments. Art is opinions and beliefs while science is facts and theories. Art speaks for one while science speaks for all. These aren't wrong, but for me they only make up a small percentage. There's just so much more to them that meets the eye.
Let's begin with the discussion of 'Art'. What is it? Well art is what I simply like to believe as being anything man creates. The sounds of music, the texts of literature, the objectives of sports and the tastes of many foods. Even the English language itself is a form of art. It wasn't like the Earth was formed and all of these ideas suddenly came into existence. All forms of art share more than one thing in common as they aren't just man-made material. They all primarily aim to entertain and keep us occupied. They are shaped and reshaped over time in ways for us to capture their beauty. And although created by certain sets of hands, these artistic ideas are adopted by us as a means to both define and distinguish ourselves from everybody else. When we hear of art, we often think of painters and sculptors along with their historical work. But it's more than that. I don't believe artists are solely those who create things, but also embrace creativity for what it is. Hence the term I like to use: 'Live Season'.
To 'live season', one is predominantly enjoying life without questioning it. When most times see things thrown our way, we tend to look at them as being normal and/or self-explanatory. 'Season' specifically represents any internal or external conditions that are placed before us. Think of activities like shopping, chatting with friends or playing video games. These particular activities are some of many we do without delving deep into 'why we're doing them'. How often do you stop in-between any of them and ask what's going on? Do you ever ask yourself 'what is this thing I'm doing'? The answers to these questions are almost never. Truth is you don't care about the meaning behind them. You're performing these activities like they are programmed into your head. It's a way of accepting them for what they are, making you somewhat of an 'artist'. There is no escaping this sort of natural behaviour as it happens from when we are young, impressionable children.
As expected, 'Science' is pretty much the complete opposite. It's everything man hasn't given birth to and has little to no control of. The celestial bodies, the flora and fauna, the cause of action, natural disasters, etc. Science is certainly the more challenging of the two to understand as it's like getting to know a stranger. There lies a more complicated relationship between a scientist and their work, which can involve such problems like a lack of resources and trust difficulties. A scientist to me isn't just some old grey-haired guy with glasses, a moustache and a lab coat. It is any person going beyond their reach or adopting a philosophical behaviour. When they more often than not find themselves invested in thorough digging, searching for answers to seemingly troubling questions. Basically it's seeking reason. Taking the time during the day to stop, focus and attempt to solve the more brain-twisting of mysteries.
Going back to the relationship between art and science, a lot can be learnt about it through the few examples I have given in this piece. While art has created languages for us to speak, science has been responsible for their evolution over time. In all of man's artistic inventions, science is the engine that answers for how they work. Sometimes it isn't just one lifting another on their shoulders, but both simply holding hands as well. Art and science often share ideas. Sport for instance isn't just the games themselves, but the physicality involved to play them. When art focuses on the game, science looks at things like the human body and what happens when it's put through rigorous exercise. Same thing happens with food, with art recognising the beauty of food through the sense organs and science making measurements whilst studying chemical reactions (the change of molecular structure through different processes and cooking techniques). It seems that opposites really do attract.
There may however be one or two disparities despite their equal level of importance. Art allows for us to be imaginative and interpret just about everything in ways we like seeing them. It's obvious with my photo up top, as I placed a rainbow effect over it. Despite my love for natural colours, I too like adding artificial colours and intensifying them. I mostly see it adding more detail and evoking a variety of different emotions from warmth to optimism. Here's another example of artistic interpretation of reality, and it happens to be one of the most common to exist. The Sun. Ever noticed how some kids love making the Sun more sentient than what it is by drawing a smiling face on it in their works? What realistically is a hot, fiery ball of gas and light is turned into a friendly being from the sky in a child's imagination. Although it's distant from logic and reality, applying our own artistic vision to things aims to simply make us feel safe and happy. And the possibilities seem limitless.
But what if it was the other way around? What if we tried to look at everything scientifically? Let's once again go back to the example of shopping. We know that shopping is the purchasing of goods from different stores, but can we go any deeper than that? True we can rephrase and change words, but it still mean the same thing. This is when you sense a limit. You just start to see the activity of shopping as somewhat unusual when you think long and hard about it. It's sort of like semantic satiation. I'm sure we have all come across certain words on any given day and repeated them over and over. When that happens, we sense the words beginning to sound funnier or stranger as they slowly lose meaning. Similar thing happens when thinking about any form of leisure. When the answers don't satisfy you and you ask for more, you're pretty much asking for too much. Science is applied so hard, that it can temporarily leave us in a black hole, unable to see things as they normally are.
Art and Science basically make up existence. The sensations and individual perceptions of reality accompanied by knowledge and reason. The two are well-balanced, harmoniously coexisting and depending on one another to define each and every one of us. Little do we know that we practically demonstrate the strength of their dependence from the day we are born. We start by living science to live art. We're then living art to learn art and finally learning art to learn science. Simple and incredibly broad, yet nothing short of amazing. To think such vastly different subjects have strong connections with each other, and neither coming out to look of greater importance. And the fact they forever continue to better us as people, remains as it is. Together they succeed in delivering the communication of messages, the evolution of technology and the welcoming of convenience. It's completely impossible to picture life without them.
Travis "TJ" James
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