The idea of a schism between art and science is a relic of an old myopic culture. The lazy assumption that science is founded in peer-evaluated, culturally neutral exactitudes while art is an indulgence of frivolous luvvies was not recognised in Leonardo's day and is barely credible in ours.
In his book, The Innovators, Walter Isaacson explains that today's digital visionaries have irreverent behavior patterns, despising authority and resisting tradition. Just like artists. These silicon-bohemians don't borrow, they steal: as Picasso said all creative types do. And, significantly, they value “art” as much as they value “science”.
Let's consider Eric Schmidt, one time director of Apple and now Chairman of Google. Schmidt’s expertise in developing distributed software technology has brought him a fortune of $7billion. Art News magazine recently reported Schmidt among the two hundred biggest collectors of modern art. These are individuals (many of them technology entrepreneurs) with collections typically worth more than $100m.
What happens is this. You make your fortune from being a “scientist” then retreat into the comforts of “art”. This is a one way street. I have thought and thought and cannot think of anyone who has made a fortune in art who has decided to commit the rest of his life to data compression technology.
Put it this way: Schmidt will not be spending his retirement surrounded by printed circuit boards. There’s something significant here. I’m not anti-science nor a technophobe. Nor a Google-sceptic. But it is worth mentioning that Google's science threatens ecology. With their continuous draw-down of 260m watts, Google's dirty server farms are the coal mines of the 21st century. Maybe the world would be better off if more of us spent time in low-energy studios, ateliers, garrets and rehearsal rooms.
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