EVENTS | LUMEN
7
An exclusive interview with Professor David A . Edwards , Founder of Le Laboratoire , Paris , France , Founder of Art Science Lab and Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering , Harvard University .
Q . Art and Science are considered as two separate entities by many who see their coexistence as paradoxical . How do you marry the two to achieve a quantum leap in learning ?
We have come to understand art and science as certain kinds of outcomes of creative process . To simplify , art is the painting on a wall , and science is Einstein ’ s theory of relativity . Frequently however we speak of art and science as processes , implied when we speak of practising art and practising science . Conventionally these creative processes are imagined to be as distinctive as the outcomes we point to . The artist apparently follows a kind of “ esthetic method ”, by which we mean a process that is guided by intuition induction , comfortable by uncertainty , driving with ambiguity , etc . Science is presumably guided by scientific methods , which is deductive analytical , capable of simplifying a complex world to resolvable hypotheses , etc . What has fascinated me as a creator and eventually as an educator is that artists and scientists in their highest performing capacities do not follow these rigid guidelines at all , and in fact follow a process that , in its most critical moments , is essentially the same .
This process is both , inductive and deductive , analytical and imaginative , comfortable with uncertainty and capable to frame problems and pursue hypotheses . This process , which of course is the essence of creativity , has increasingly been pushed out of our educational cultural and industrial institutions as we have specialized knowledge and human activity along these sharp art and science lines ( and many other lines by the way .)
I have introduced this word artscience to shine a light on the universality of the creative process so that we may discover how to reintegrate into our institutions .
Q . How does ArtScience prepare students of today for the world tomorrow ? What essential 21st century skills does this programme cultivate in our learners ?
Classical Education tends to teach students how to fill blank pages with answers to establish questions that relate to a world we understand . However in the 21st century reality of human civilization we frequently we understand much less than we would like . Tomorrow is perhaps more mysterious than it has ever been . This can be frightening , or it can actually be quite exhilarating . We need to be helping students confront the blank page that society as a whole confronts in virtually every domain of human activity today . As they learn to fill that page with original questions and
personal answers that address the contemporary reality ( the needs , the opportunities ) they learn , necessarily to listen to those around them with critical information , to empathize with those in need , to collaborate with those who are essential to defining the questions and obtaining the answers these are precisely the kinds of skills our companies and museums and schools and governments are anxiously seeking in their leaders of tomorrow . As students come to see the change that is effective by their “ artscience ” process , i . e . the ability to imaginatively fill that blank page with relevant questions and deductively pursue answers , they gain confidence in their ability to create tomorrow and the fear of the unknown becomes the greatest motivation .
Q . What metaphor or object would you use to encapsulate the beauty of ArtScience ? Why ?
Wind . What is very intriguing about the wind is that it has no meaning without movement . Wind is a source of power , of change , and of life itself . Wind is universal crosses all boundaries of cultural and language , and , quite incredibly , continues to defy the best of minds and of machines . The wind without human intuition is hard to foresee and without human science impossible to predict .
Q . What continues to fuel your passion for ArtScience ?
I really cannot conceive of my life outside of the creative process . My relationship to the world , to my family and friends are all embraced to this idea , which is of course the idea of artscience itself .
Q . What do you hope to achieve through your lecture on ArtScience ?
To inspire .
Facing page ( top ): Professor Edwards enthralling his audience
Facing page ( bottom ): Participants from Anderson Secondary This page ( top ): Professor Edwards engaged in a discussion
This page ( bottom ): Edwin , Jonah , Hubert , Jeremy and Christopher bagging the ArtScience Prize