Science Meets Art?

In an absolutely delightful bit of fiction in the best tradition of steam punk comes the Telectroscope; a device allowing Londoners to see right the way through a transatlantic tunnel to New York, and vice versa.

You really ought to suspend your own disbelief long enough to imagine a project undertaken in the late 1800’s wherein engineers attempt to dig all the way beneath the Atlantic Ocean for the sole purpose of erecting a transatlantic viewing device. The Telectroscope Project is on view in both New York and London (of course) from May 22 through June 15, 2008.

On the cusp of tremendous imagination and invention, authors such as Jules Verne, and HG Wells were fueling fantastic possibilities and with it our own confidence to make our imagined dreams reality through science and the designs of technology. From the fertile imagination of artist Paul St. George and ARTICHOKE,  The Telectroscope Project has a complete back story filled with intrigue and adventure.

Enjoy!

Mars – Wow!

When I was but a lad age 10 or so my Uncle, with whose family I lived, worked as an electrician at Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL), Pasadena, California. This was the mid-sixties, and the Ranger Lunar Program was on. We, the USA, were trying to locate landing spots for the Apollo program, so we launched photographic satellites to take pictures.

What was interesting was that the Ranger satellites were, well… suicidal. They didn’t orbit the moon like our current Mars Surveyor. No, these million dollar babies began taking images continuously from the moment the moon was within camera range, right the way down to the surface where they crashed. They’re still up there you know.

I’ll never, ever forget my Uncle bringing home something really rare. He’d been given an entire stack of lunar images from the Ranger moon-shot. It was absolutely breathtaking to sit in our house and pour over actual black & white 8×10 prints of the surface of the moon. And not just anybody has these babies, no sir. Just people from JPL and the scientists at NASA. I was so excited, that I asked to take them to school for show and tell time. The class was glued to each image.

As I write these words today there are no fewer than three active spacecraft on the surface of Mars, and two of them have gone way off the record for endurance. These two intrepid explorers, Opportunity, and Spirit are solar powered, remotely controlled, camera-toting robots. Both are part of the Mars Rover Program. These multi-million dollar babies were designed to last a mere six months exploring Mars close-up. They are however currently into their fourth year of daily Martian exploration, eight-times longer than originally thought possible. And they show little sign of quitting.

Here’s the clincher; this fifty-four year old kid who still loves space can now get all the pictures he wants off the web, for free, in color, in black & white, and he can “go to Mars” on his own. This direct access to once rare images is a mind-blowing opportunity to personally share in the exploration of space and our nearest neighbors, the planets.

So… why not take your own stroll over the wind-blown dunes, or look at the sedimentary rocks deposited by what can only have been Martian water?

Explore. Enjoy. Grow.

Mutual Enrichment

I love a good discussion, don’t you?

I love to talk with people about most anything stimulating, invigorating, whether or not we agree. I love a mutually enriching exchange of ideas where it’s more important to share than to be “right”. I love discussion over debate.

I see debate as an either/or; as an I’m right/you’re wrong or you’re right/I’m wrong encounter. When it comes to debate, I simply don’t. I don’t have an agenda. I don’t want to be right, and for two very good reasons; debate closes down meaningful exchange; debate alienates us. We gain nothing.

I see discussion as a mutually nourishing, mutually enriching experience regardless of what’s being discussed simply because there is no agenda. There is no need to be “right”, or to “win”. In discussion I can engage in exchange on subjects about which I hold an opposite view. In discussion I can hang in there and really listen because I’m not trying to convince anyone that my way is “the only way”. I’m engaged to listen, to share, to exchange.

In fact discussions about which I don’t agree on everything are incredibly stimulating, nourishing, and enlarging for me. I find myself listening deeply without feeling threatened. I find I wanting to really hear what others are saying, what the really mean, and why they hold their views. And whether or not we agree, we part friends. Agreement isn’t the point – exchange is.

I believe it takes far more courage to discuss than to debate. We all have opinions. We all have views. I certainly do. That’s part of what makes us human. But most debate, it seems to me, is little more than a fight or flight response. We’re afraid or feel threatened so we attack. In discussion we visit ideas about which we may not agree. To do so may enlarge our deepest understanding about why others hold their particular view so precious. That often takes incredible courage.

Do I discuss anything? No, of course not. As curious as I am about life and the meaning of the universe , there are indeed topics about which I have absolutely no interest.

I have no use for politics, mere religion (as opposed to faith), or even most “news” (I used to work in broadcast news). But if you want to discuss things like faith, art, and science, for example, I’m your man. I love to talk about Galileo, his work, and the Roman Catholic Church of the day. I love to talk about the different world-views held by artists. I love history, astronomy, physics (basics only please), ecologically sustainable design, the role of the Body of Christ, etc., etc., etc. I’m a philomath, remember?

Maybe some of what I’ve said here has raised your temperature a bit. That is not my intention. All I ask is that you remember, I am discussing, not debating.

Be open. Listen. Enjoy.

Mind-fully Creative

I love to read and believe reading is an essential tool for my growth. I think people often underestimate the life enhancing, even life changing power of really good books read deeply. So here one book in progress.

I am hammering my way through this fascinating psychological treatment on mindful creativity. Just the premise of living mindfully is tremendously powerful. The book?, On Becoming an Artist by Ellen J. Langer.

The most concise way I can describe mindful creativity will make the most sense to actors. When I’m on-stage in a scene I must listen. I must pay intimate attention to what is being said, to what’s going on, to where we’ve been and where we’re going with the work. To act mindfully is to be “in the moment”, to sell out and become completely engaged in the work. Mindful creativity is engaged creativity, a listening if you will to the work; think the opposite of robot, or automaton, or even auto-pilot.

When we live mindlessly, we’re disengaged and running from one meaningless event to another on auto-pilot. We’re not thinking, we’re just doing. We’re bored and shut down. When we live mindfully, we’re interested, we’re engaged, we’re afraid and taking healthy risks, we’re growing.

I’m excited about this book, although the less creative, more psychological approach the author takes is a little bit left-brain for my ears. This isn’t Julia Cameron’s incredible The Artist’s Way where we’re encouraged and nourishing our attitude toward our art. No, Langer is a psychologist and deals with this subject from more of a behavioral paradigm. That’s what makes the book a little more difficult for me. There’s still a great deal of insight and wisdom here well worth mining out.

I’ll post more on this book as I move through it.

Here’s to living mind-fully!

Invention: Original not Unique

I’ve been happily making art lately and helping my daughter and a friend get their Street Market booth ready and so haven’t posted lately – sorry!

Prolific Invention

This morning while reading another WordPress blog, “Arts of Innovation”, I came across an article by one of my favorite thinkers, Malcolm Gladwell. In a May 2008 piece for New Yorker Magazine, Gladwell discusses a fairly recent discovery; discovery, innovation, and invention are “in the air”.

Simultaneous Invention

Two big ideas jumped out at me; First, that innovation, invention, and discovery is a group process. An idea may be original, but it’s rarely unique. Several people discovered and developed the calculus (a subject I do not understand at all). The Wright brothers weren’t the only people who “invented” successful aircraft designs. In America there were at least two people working simultaneously on the telephone, and the list goes on and on.

If I remember my college anthropology ( oh, I loved that class) the prof. called it independent invention. Groups of humans could and would come up with innovations, and with contact with other humans would pass some of those ideas on to others. However there is strong evidence that separate groups of humans, those who had little or no contact with one another, would come to similar or identical innovation or inventions; hence independent invention.

The article is great “Gladwellian” reading and if you want more, he gave a talk on TED about marketing and product development which is incredibly insightful.

Art is Personal

The second point is that we artists do not work in a “think-tank” environment. Though some arts, particularly the performing arts, are collaborative, we do not sit down and come up with the end product as a group. There weren’t two composers simultaneously working on the Tocatta & Fugue in D Minor, or painting the Mona Lisa. Art uses a very different, very personal process, even though there are great movements in the arts which inform and influence the works of various artists in various media. Art is less communal and is a very personal, internal process. Science as discovery and invention is far more tangible and external with one discovery often leading to others.

Let me know what nourishes & nurtures you. : )

Enjoy!