UNIT11: Science, Technology and the Arts

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UNIT11Science, Technology and the Arts

• Opposing or Converging Worlds?

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• Art Influencing Technology
•  
• Although Art and Science/technology are often
  thought of as the antithesis of one another,
  there is a synergism between the two that has
  helped each to evolve.
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• Art Science/Technology
•  
• 1. Free Expression
  1. Formalized
• 2. Spontaneous 2. Calculated
• 3. Intuitive 3. Exacting
• 4. Creative 4. Controlled Creativity
• 5. Liberal 5. Conservative
• 6. Chaos 6.
  Highly Ordered

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Synergism Between Science, Technology and Art

• Eugene Ferguson, a historian of technology,
  believes that invention and optimum engineering
  design result from nonverbal thought, what
  Ferguson calls visual thinking. Because of
  this, technological innovation is allied to art
  much more than it is to science. Engineering
  schools today stress mathematical approaches to
  problems through numerical systems analysis,
  which is a sterile approach to the solution of
  major problems according to Ferguson.
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• Many features and qualities of the object that a
  technologist thinks about cannot be reduced to
  unambiguous verbal descriptions they are dealt
  with in the mind of the technologist by visual
  nonverbal processes. The technologists and the
  artists minds eye is a well developed organ
  that not only reviews the contents of the visual
  memory but also forms new or modified images.
  Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not
  because of geometry, theory of structures, or
  thermodynamics, but because they were first a
  picture - literally a vision in the minds of
  those that built them.

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Synergism Between Science, Technology and Art

• In 1880, Francis Galton, was astonished to find
  that his thought processes were different than
  the scientists. Galton, founder of the science of
  eugenics, thought in visual images while the
  engineers he interviewed thought in words.
•  
• American philosopher, William James remarked that
  a favorite topic of discussion among philosophers
  was whether thought is possible without
  language.
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• Albert Einstein claimed that he rarely thought in
  words at all.
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• C. P. Snows Two Cultures critically analyzes
  the difference between the scientist and the
  humanist.

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Synergism Between Science, Technology and Art

• In Renaissance Engineering, Art as opposed to
  Science was the guiding discipline. Da Vinci,
  Henry Latrobe both accomplished artists were
  prominent engineers of this period as well.
  Robert Fulton, of steamboat fame and Samuel
  Morse, telegraph, were both artists before they
  turned their careers to toward technology.
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• European and American Societies for the promotion
  of the Arts were concerned with the mechanical
  arts as well during the 18th and 19th centuries.
  The London Society of Arts maintained permanent
  exhibits of machines and models for the
  observation and study of mechanics and inventors.
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• As the scientific component of knowledge in
  technology has increased markedly since the
  scientific revolution, the tendency has been to
  lose sight of the crucial part played by
  nonverbal thought in making big decisions of
  form, arrangement, and texture, that determine
  the parameters within which a system will
  operate.

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Science and Technology Influencing Art

• Painting
•  Enormous changes took place in the field of
  painting during the 18th century.
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• Technology became the subject of painters.
• Ex. J.W.F. Turners Rain, Steam,, and Speed
  (1844) depiction of the great Northern Railroad.
  Adolph Menzels Rolling Steel Mill(1873

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Science and Technology Influencing Art

• Impressionism
• Subject Matter Claude Monet completed 12
  paintings of the great Saint Railroad Station
  Train Shed in Paris
•  Pigments During the Mid 19th century, the range
  and quality of pigments was substantially
  increased as a result of chemical research into
  coal-tar dyes. Pigments that were more stable
  than their natural equivalents were developed.
•  Metal Tubes The technological innovation of
  the soft metal tube greatly facilitated the
  impressionist desire to work en plein air (in the
  open air) in order to render the actual effects
  of light and air on subjects of everyday life.
  Beginning in the 1830s ready made oil paints
  became available in collapsible, screw-capped tin
  metal tubes.
• Transportation TechnologyThe Railroad Train
• 1) Provided travel, with relative ease and speed
  to new venues, outside the city where
  impressionists were inspired by a variety of
  landscapes
• 2) Railroad travel in the 1830s and 1840s
  helped promote recognition of the subjective
  nature of the visual experience It represented
  the first time humans traveled at speeds of
  50-60 MPH thus, their perspective was blurred.

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Camera 1840-1865

• 1) Provided fixed images that could be studied at
  length and transported to the studio
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• 2) Liberated painting from its traditional
  function of precise reproduction of external
  reality
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• The Science of Color The science of light,
  color, and perception were greatly influenced by
  Maxwell, Fresnel, Helmholz, Rood and especially
  Chevreul. Chevreuls Principles of Harmony, and
  contrast of Colors and their Applications to The
  Arts was published in 1839. His work
  influenced, among others, Monet and Pissaro
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• Production Technology has made possible the
  mass production of high quality reproductions,
  which have been widely distributed.

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The Science of Color

• The science of light, color, and perception were
  greatly influenced by Maxwell, Fresnel, Helmholz,
  Rood and especially Chevreul. Chevreuls
  Principles of Harmony, and contrast of Colors and
  their Applications to The Arts was published in
  1839. His work influenced, among others, Monet
  and Pissaro

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Production

• Technology has made possible the mass production
  of high quality reproductions, which have been
  widely distributed.

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Music

• 1. Innovation in Musical Instruments
• 2. Advances in transmission, recording, and
  reproduction of music

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Brass Instruments

• 1. Scientific revolution of the 17th century led
  to metallurgical science and eventually improved
  forming methods, which changed the composition of
  the copper alloys used to manufacture
  instruments.
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• 2. The transformation from straight forms to
  circular or curved forms relied on better forming
  processes and equipment. Finally, the addition
  of keys provided a much broader range of notes
  and sounds.

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Piano

• 1821 Sebastian Erard patented the double
  escapement keboard action mechanism that
  enabled individual notes to be repeated in
  rapid-fire
• succession.
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• 1825 Alpheus Babcock (Am) patented a full, one
  piece cast iron frame
• significantly increasing the pianos loudness.
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Phonograph

• Thomas Edison Allowed the first practical
  reproduction of music.

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Radio

• Marconi Expanded the transmission of musical
  works.

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Other Significant Achievements

• L.P. Records (1948)
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• Stereophonic Records 1957
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• Stereophonic Audio Cassettes (1960)
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• Television First live broadcast of a classical
  orchestra in 1948
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• Achievements in sound technology have created the
  ability of the producers to sale the image and
  create the sound.