Whats Wrong with Science and How Can the Arts Help

[Music]

science has a communication obstacle

more accurately the obstacle is creating

entry points for understanding

entry points are the language used

activities done and images viewed

that allow those without the training

background or jargon to engage with

what’s being communicated

entry points are doorways into new

worlds of understanding and experience

albert einstein himself once said it

would be possible to describe

everything scientifically but it would

make no sense it would be without

meaning

as if you described a beethoven symphony

as a variation

of wave pressure my friend dr eileen

habit studies

quote the diversity associated with

communication systems

with concentration and interest-specific

communication relating to reproductive

behavior

trust me it’s super cool and way more

interesting than it sounds

in regular human speech it means she

studies the interesting and myriad ways

creatures communicate through mating

rituals

and her creatures of choice are

arachnids

if you walk into your laboratory you’ll

find a room with three walls stacked to

the ceiling

filled with terrariums containing

thousands of arachnids and other spiders

for an arachnophobe it’s a pure

nightmare yet for eileen

she loves spiders not only is her

research helping us understand more of

the natural world

it is helping us understand the complex

yet elegant solutions nature has served

up to problems of design

and function there is so much we don’t

understand yet about the world and she

is one of many scientists helping us

figure it out

her challenge is how to communicate the

importance of her research

because it is critical for scientists to

communicate the importance of their

research

they have to communicate well in order

to secure grant funding

share their findings with industry and

to teach and enlighten the public

entry points into scientific thought are

vital because as einstein said

they can’t just communicate

scientifically it would lack meaning

which begs the question what is the best

way to do this

what if the arts came alongside science

to create the entry points

what if music and dance could help

eileen share her research

with a greater audience a few years ago

unl associate professor of dance susan

oreda

and i created a magical collaboration

that transformed eileen’s data

into something new emotional and

powerful

and that is why i’m in front of you

today i want you to experience a new

entry point to scientific thought

i also want you to experience a

transformative collaboration between

science

dance and music i also want to ask a few

important questions along the way such

why is it that the arts can create these

entry points and what is it about the

arts and music specifically that allows

it to transform concepts and ideas

into emotional experiences and what does

it look like when the artistic

experiences create

opportunities to connect with the

natural world

because here’s the thing the arts don’t

need ideas

ideas need the arts to become even more

powerful

so why does art influence people in this

way and how can the sciences leverage it

to their advantage

first of all the arts and especially

music are emotional by that i mean they

heighten and can even manipulate

the emotional responses of viewers and

listeners studies have shown

that people listen to music because of

the emotional and physiological

responses it causes in them

both john sloboda of keel university and

carol krumhonzel of cornell university

have proven this to be true and those

they studied the emotional and

physiological responses

ranged from laughter to tears and from

anxiety

to chills science has also shown

that music aids in memory formation what

this means is that music

when paired with another experience

makes that experience

more and sticky it heightens the

response

and aids in creating deeply held

memories

this is also why filmmakers marry their

images with music

and why many of your most emotional and

deeply held memories

can be resurfaced by hearing a

particular piece

who doesn’t well up with tears when

miguel sings remember me to his

great-grandmother

at the end of pixar’s coco or has their

heart rate increased and adrenaline

course through their body

at the opening chord and fanfare at the

start of every star wars movie

whereas feelings of love and passion

recreated in you

when you hear the song that was playing

when you first held hands with or

kissed your partner our emotional

responses

stick to what we are seeing hearing

feeling and tasting when coupled with

music

now let me bring this back to where i

started i claimed earlier that science

has an obstacle in creating

entry points for understanding so what

does it look like when the arts comes

alongside science

and the arts deals and emotional

responses and creates those entry points

well it makes science more accessible

the arts are one way perhaps a wonderful

way to create doorways to help people

engage with science in new ways

the arts also help people who normally

would not engage with science

to begin interacting with it when i have

shared the music and dance that i’m

about to share with you

people without fail respond with at

least two comments

first i never knew spiders could make so

much sound

and second i’ve never thought of spiders

as beautiful before

we have opened the door to a new level

of understanding of the natural world

and the creatures that

literally surround us

therefore we have established that a

marriage between science and the arts is

a good idea

maybe even a great idea the next step

was to figure out exactly how to do that

for my part i had music to write and

questions i had to answer before i could

even begin

such as what does music based on spiders

even sound like

and how am i going to transform

scientific research

into art i decided to start with the

audio and video recordings of the

arachnids

that eileen had produced in her lab

you’d be stunned and possibly even

horrified

to learn just how much sound these tiny

eight-legged creatures can make

just listen to this

[Music]

i took the audio and i transformed it i

transformed some of the sounds by

allowing them

to map onto my keyboard which allowed me

to create melodies and chords

some of them i stretched or reduced in

length to fit within my beaten meter

some i left alone in the end i created a

new piece of art

named after a particular genus of the

wolf spider that eileen studies

schizokoza and outside of noise itself

every sound in the piece was originally

produced

by an arachnid at the same time i was

collaborating with professor orada on

this project

along with her dancers she was explored

what it meant to be a spider

that spider’s on you inside you and a

part of you

she researched the literature of spiders

such as the itsy bitsy spider

as well as eileen’s writings and then

improvised around them

the dancers are not trying to be

directly representational they’re not

mimicking spider movements instead they

use the human form

to bring us inside the world of the

arachnid

together with the combined art forms of

dance and music we found a way to

transform eileen’s research

into something new something beautiful

and something profound schizokoza has

indeed become an entry point into the

fascinating world of arachnids

we have performed at dance festivals

music concerts and festivals

science conventions and at showings of

eileen’s traveling science exhibit

eight-legged encounters there was an

alchemical process where the arts relied

on the underlying research of the

scientists

yet at the same time opened doorways

entry points for understanding

into the world around us perhaps now you

understand what i mean when i say the

arts

don’t need ideas it’s when ideas

meet the arts they become compelling in

visceral ways

they become even more powerful

in this shortened version of the piece i

invite you to experience a fabulous

example

of how the arts can transform concepts

and ideas

into emotional experiences

and now schizocoza

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don’t

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foreign