N01se, which started life as a multisite exhibition, explores the tension between order and the chaos from which that order, or information, arose. Much of the work, however, was clearly constructed for scientific or aesthetic purposes and so fails to dispel the classic art/science dichotomy. Given the innovative nature of the exhibits and the vast expertise behind the exhibition, it is easy to see how some can claim that science and art must be inherently separate.
The skeptic's view is that the supposed common ground between art and science is actually a superficial sharing of subject and form. Thus we see art about science and products of science and technology passed off as art, alongside rigorously investigated art and research on artistic processes. For example, Talking Heads (developed by the Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris, France and Brussels University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Belgium) could not be mistaken for anything other than an experiment. Robotic agents are launched from site installations around the world or via the internet to interact with other agents in a guessing game that aims to explore the evolution of artificial language (see http://talking_heads.csl.sony.fr/ ). While the experiment obviously sits well with the exhibition theme, it is unlikely to be mistaken for art.
Fortunately, one stunning collection of works does belie the skeptic's beliefs. Electrochemist Merrill Garnett (State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY, USA) has spent more than 30 years investigating the ultra-low-frequency currents of DNA, with the conclusion that altering this DNA "pulse" can reverse the abnormal cell growth that characterizes cancer. His solution is a palladium/lipoic acid complex that acts as a DNA charge donor, without the toxic effects of current chemotherapy. While Garnett clearly uses scientific method to achieve scientific goals, he and others have chosen to publicize his work, in part, through art: radiant electromicrographs of his "liquid crystal" compound; captivating paintings of his cell cultures by daughter Joy Garnett; and his book First Pulse. The book's editor Bill Jones has also collaborated with musician Ben Neill to produce Pulse 4, 6, 7, 8--a light and sound installation that harmonically reflects ratios of the frequencies transferred between Garnett's compound and DNA.
And Garnett's work has more fundamental implications for defining the common ground between art and science. "If there are harmonics in the organism, its physiology will recognize certain signals," he explains. "This would create the possibility of aesthetic relation." Put another away, certain relations will be naturally pleasing, what James Joyce called "the rhythm of beauty." And, as Joyce explores in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, if the articulation of these relations is scientific, this pleasing quality will be called truth, whereas if the relations are expressed in an artistic form, we call the product beautiful. This insight, which lies at the heart of N01se, reveals that just as one person's noise is another's music, so one group's truth is another group's beauty.
COPYRIGHT 2000 The Lancet Ltd. in association with The Gale Group
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