art & science

  (image: Nikki Graziano)

I’m fascinated with things at the intersection of art and science. Jonah Lehrer has a great book called Proust Was A Neuroscientist. The High in Atlanta just sponsored a Da Vinci exhibit about the intersection between Da Vinci’s sculpture and his understanding of the physical world. The new Le Laboratoire in Paris is dedicated to exploring that space.

The image above is by Nikki Graziano, and currently serves as the background on my laptop. Lots of my coworkers come closer to take a second look, and most dismiss it as one of my nerdy hobbies (of which I apparently have plenty). And maybe it is nerdy. But it’s art. And it’s science. And it’s beautiful.

Design lies at the intersection of art and science. Maybe that's why I like it so much. Designing things – whether that’s objects, systems, shoes, or medical devices (shameless plug) – is most successful when the functional (the science) is married with the beautiful (the art). One can’t exist without the other. It makes perfect sense for engineers and scientists to pursue art as well, because engineering and science are inherently creative pursuits.

Medical devices, then, make for an interesting creative exercise. As Lehrer says about the human body, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, but we are also just stuff.” We have to be creative in how we address the body’s science (by, say, generating electrical signals to keep the heart beating through a pacemaker), but we also have to protect and nurture its art (regulating that rhythm to fluctuate with the body during exercise).

The beautiful part of Nikki's photograph is that the function isn't a simple harmonic oscillator with whole number boundary conditions. Her equations are complex because life is complex, and her photography is beautiful because the world is so.

"Like a work of art, we exceed our materials." (Lehrer 8)