Steve’s Stuff

The Technology: Art and Sound by Design class (and many like it) pose a novel dilemma for the idea of a “work” (i.e. the expressive product of an artist or artists). The goal of the class at hand is a unification of two seemingly unrelated disciplines: science with its positivist empiricism and art in its current state of postmodern incredulity toward the meta-narrative of empirical thought. The dialectical energy of science (hereafter technology) and art has the power to produce an explosion of creativity, if we can find a true synthesis.

We must ultimately classify the course itself as an “art” class because, after all, the end result (or goal) is to produce a work of art that utilizes technology. This is not, however, to suggest that the artist is dominating force, as the engineer, in this unique situation, is called upon to engage in the process of artistic production. Ideally, the artist and engineer contribute equally working together as two artists: one familiar with aesthetics, the other familiar with technology.

The goal is a gestalt—a unified whole, irreducible into an aesthetic portion and a technological portion. The technological component must not intrude on the aesthetic component and the aesthetic component must not resist the introduction of the technological component. The spectator must be unaware of the synthesis and experience the work as a gestalt.

This is well and good in theory, but very difficult in praxis. That is why the two artists with their respective backgrounds must develop a means of communication—a common ground. This will be, I suspect, one of the more difficult aspects of the class, but also one of the more useful. The common ground must be the creative act itself. Both artists and engineers engage in creativity on a daily basis, but for different means where the former creates objects of art while the latter uses the creativity for more practical purposes. These two approaches to creativity can only benefit each other and they are the key to successful interdisciplinary communication.

It will be up to the artist and engineer to find this common ground and to exploit their complimentary skill sets. The potential is nearly limitless.