ARTSCIENCE:
Creativity in the Post-Google Generation
by David
Edwards
Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA,
2008
194 pp. Trade: $19.95
ISBN: 9-780-67402625-4.
Reviewed by David G. Stork
Chief Scientist, Ricoh Innovations
Consulting Professor, Stanford University
artanalyst@gmail.com
The problems with this slim volume start
with its title. Edwards, whose primary
job is researching drug delivery systems
at Harvard, introduces "ARTSCIENCE," but
the term means little more than scholarship,
creativity, and invention in which the
creator exploits the rigor, repeatability,
and search for truth of science as well
as the informal playfulness, non-repeatability,
and search for interpretation of traditional
arts. This is a caricature of both science
and art, of course, as some "pure" science
research is deeply playful and some "pure"
artistic creation is deeply analytic,
a point that Edwards first recognizes
halfway through writing the book. Such
interdisciplinary work is very old indeed
and readers will wonder whether Edwards
is saying anything novel when he refers
to Jan van Eyck's invention (actually,
refinement and exploration) of oil paints
at the beginning of the 15th century as
"artscience"? Or to x-ray imaging of a
Rubens painting, which reveals its underdrawings
and pentimenti and thereby enrich our
understanding of the work, likewise as
"artscience." (The practice of imaging
of paintings with x-rays is nearly as
old as x-ray imaging itself.) There are
numerous other such examples.
The second problem is with the subtitle.
There is little if anything "post-Google"
in the book: nearly nothing on the internet,
on Google, and internet search and creation,
on mash-ups, or on innumerable other topics
to which the subtitle alludes. Nor, for
that matter, is there any special focus
on the younger "post-Google GENERATION."
The lion's share of the book consists
of episodes or anecdotes in which a scientist
or artist gets some benefit by dipping
a toe into the "other" discipline, for
instance in gaining insight on a scientific
problem by beholding a work of art or
inspiration for new compositional methods
by reading about science. Most of these
anecdotes are somewhat arbitrary and less
than compelling because they are based
heavily on Edwards' acquaintances in Cambridge
and Paris. We learn of the engineer who
is chosen to lead the Louvre's conservation
science department (decades after similar
departments were thriving at other museums),
of a chemist who gets a technical insight
by looking at a painting, a pianist/composer
who is so intrigued by chaotic transformations
that she studies math and engineering
in order to derive new ways to compose
musical variations, a researcher who is
also an expert skier, a health worker
who considers her photographs not as art
but instead documentary evidence about
the AIDS epidemic, a medical doctor with
a passion for photography, a scientist
with a passion for cello. Such anecdotes
are hardly news to readers of Leonardo,
each of whom likely isand
surely must knowdozens of
such people. Incidentally, "passion" and
its cognates are the most overused words
in this book but because Edwards explains
so little of the depths of the cross-disciplinary
ideas in each anecdote, readers are unlikely
to experience such passion themselves,
or have their interests much piqued.
Toward the end of the book, Edwards lists
a few vague guidelines or principles that
he believes stem from these anecdotes:
Incorporating both science and art can
accelerate the adoption of ideas. Process
matters more than results. Results are
never bad. Some institutions have barriers
between the art and science worlds that
might profitably be reduced. And so on.
Because so much that went before is described
in inadequate detail, and that whole sections
bear little if any relevance to these
principles, and that the principles are
so vague themselves, readers will find
them obvious or not compelling. This book
will change few minds. Nevertheless, Edwards
is trying to put his ideas into practice
a Le Laboratoire, an interdisciplinary
center in Paris, but it is surely too
early to judge its possible successes.
Perhaps someday he can write a deep account
of the lessons learned from this experiment.
In the meantime, readers should stick
to the best books in the large literature
on creativity in science, technology and
the arts, such as Tom Kelly's The art
of innovation: Lessons in creativity from
IDEO and The ten faces of innovation:
IDEO's strategies for defeating the devil's
advocate, or Stewart Brand's The
Media Lab, where detailed examples
of creative interdisciplinary work and
the organizational structures that support
it make the concepts more real and convincing
and where the link from such interdisciplinary
work to the scholarly, artistic and business
successes are clear.