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I read an interesting blog by John Hammond entitled: What Makes us (More) Human: The Vast Middle Ground Between Art and Science. Hammond has been featured on Art 21’s blog a few times for similar discussions. He has both science and art backgrounds. I have read many things of this topic (being that its a driving force for my work) and this piece had two key insights that I found unique or at least intriguing.
This first point that Hammond begins the article with is about specialization. He suggests the future of our species will be similar to ants in an ant colony. We are highly specialized workers, existing in out own spheres of knowledge. I agree. He uses this to make the point that science and art are treated very differently in out society. This leads me to his next interesteing point. Hammond states that art is subjective truth and science is objective truth. This is a common view.
Hammond then writes, “So what lies in that vast middle ground between objectivity and subjectivity?
I believe the human aesthetic does.”
After this he dives into a pretty detailed explanation, giving examples of human biases toward symmetry and idealized form.
The point is more simple in the end. In dividing the fields of art and science, we compromise our own humanity found in the middle ground experiences.
That’s a nice Quote!