Exploring the Full Spectrum: the Power of Combining Art and Science
Abstract
Science is publicly perceived as a challenging discipline open only to a small elite of extremely intelligent individuals. Its historic deficiency of women and racial minorities has helped to keep it on a outwardly unreachable pedestal far higher than the public's reach. One way we can pull science out its stiff academic walls is to incorporate it into an artistic performance. I have produced a multi-disciplinary performance event, called "The View From Nowhere", which combined dance, physics and philosophy, all in one evening. The event is part of a long-term series which will attempt to translate scientific concepts into a diverse range of works by international choreographers. Because of the success of this series, both in the public feedback as well as in the amount of educational baggage acquired by the participants, I analyzed the structure of my own event and compared it to other existing ones to generate a model for multidisciplinary collaborations between the arts and the sciences. I will present a general structure for building collaborations between artists and scientists, more specifically in the context of visual, sound and performance art. From outlining the psychological aspects of human learning and their relationship with science communication, to discussing the potential of art as educational medium, I will discuss how science-inspired performances along with a pedagogy of the topic by a scientist allows a wider pool of people to have access to topics which are normally difficult to grasp in a traditional academic context. I will also be presenting the outline of a current APS-funded, long-term project which aims to build artistic collaborations between researchers in fluid dynamics from NYU, Georgia Tech, and University of Maryland and international artists which will result in an exhibit on the topic of quantum fluids at the New York City art venue Pioneer Works.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #227
- Pub Date:
- January 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AAS...22724801C