I think we are getting processes and roles mixed up here. Art and science both exist as social functions and their value is accrued due to this. Art and science also exist as processes. It is theoretically possible, although in practice probably impossible, to separate these two aspects of each discipline. The artist can go off and be a hermit and not engage with any of the social aspects of what they are doing, refining their "vision" within their ivory tower. The scientist can similarly go off and become a "mad individualist" in their laboratory deep in a cave or on top of a mountain somewhere (visions of Dr's Moreau or Frankenstein).
However, I am unaware of any artist or scientist that does manage to work without a social context and thus I cannot see how either of these practices can be pursued without engaging with the ethical conundrums that inevitably emerge when more than one person is involved in doing something. The problem for science is that as a process it is so obviously tangled up with the instrumentality of power that underpins our (often morally ambiguous) societies. When a scientist chooses to work at MIT they must take on board the fact that many of the resources they will be accessing to do their work, whether financial, human, technical or informational, are associated with noxious origins (the NSF, Pentagon, CIA, etc). This is also true if they choose to work in the rather less "military-industrial" climes of Europe. However, artists should be extremely careful when they accuse scientists of being necessarily evil by association. Looking around I see little that is different for artists. They take money and opportunities as they arise. Few have the luxury of refusing the minimal patronage they receive, whether in the form of an invitation to participate in an exhibition, receipt of an arts council grant or the offer of employment in an art school. These forms of patronage can be traced back to not dissimilar origins as those that underpin the economy of science. Some artists, of course, will argue that they lift themselves above this morass of ethical muck by not selling out. I would ask these artists whether they can really make that case. How do they eat? How do they resource their practice? Is the money they use somehow washed clean by being assigned to cultural use? Is it possible to argue that by appropriating such resources they are able to make their whites whiter? Let's not get into an argument about the differences between art and science predicated on good or bad. That is such a naïve and simplistic argument. One role of the artist is to reveal the dark and ambivalent nature of things. If they are to do this effectively they have to recognise this in themselves first. I seem to remember a story about casting stones... Best Simon On 13.03.06 08:25, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > not sure what you mean....... > I don't see it in values..... > > I just see the processes............the > curiosity.......exploration..............result................art and > science to me in that context set are similar.........america has long > bemoaned a shortage of students studying the sciences and it apparently is > worse now.............when I was younger it was taught as quite dry and we > never got any mention of the creative, explorative, more individual > result.......... Simon Biggs [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ Professor of Digital Art, Sheffield Hallam University http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/ ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre