Whats Wrong with Science and How Can the Arts Help
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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
as
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
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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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