Orkney Science Festival

25 Sep 2005 in Festival, Orkney

Making an art of science

PAM BEASANT found art intimately interwoven with science at the Orkney Science festival earlier this month

ART AND SCIENCE are compartmentalised as if they are mutually exclusive, but art in many forms was literally everywhere at the 15th International Science Festival in Orkney this year.

Through the wide-ranging programming of the festival’s polymath director, Howie Firth, the festival as a whole demonstrated that the arts and science have always been closely associated, and that the aims of highly creative people in any discipline have been the same – to explore truth and reality. And everything in the universe is connected, ‘not as pieces of pie, but ropes in a net’.

This was epitomised at a concert entitled ‘A dream of angels’ wings’ in the Cathedral, where the fusion of music (given by Orkney’s Mayfield Singers and the Paisley organist, George McPhee) and readings explored the nature of matter, light and energy. Extracts came from such disparate sources as David Bohm, Hildegard of Bingen and George Mackay Brown, and music from Bach, Duruflé and Peter Maxwell Davies, amongst others.

‘The sun lives in its light…and thus I remain hidden in a fiery reality,’ (Hildegard of Bingen) was read as the last light of the day poured through the stained glass windows. The highly charged atmosphere caught the wonder of the world, underlining that the imagination and lateral thinking that produces the most surprising science, and the most arresting art, writing and music, are part of the same thing – our deep curiosity about ourselves and our surroundings and our ability to express it.

Perhaps the most satisfying exposition of art’s relationship with science was in the work of Matjuska Teja Krasek, the Slovenian artist.

Back to earth, there was much topical discussion throughout the week about global warming and its solutions. Even here, however, it was possible to extract something positive. Dr Jon Side, a professor at Heriot Watt Univeristy who is based in Orkney, suggested that we are living in a ‘new enlightenment’ – that our age is demanding unprecedented innovation and imagination, not just from the scientists working on renewable energy solutions, but from all of us. A motivating thought amongst the gloomy projections.

The sense of pulling together whatever our talents and disciplines, was picked up in an informative talk given by Anne Sinclair from Fair Isle. With well-chosen slides showing the landscape, people and history of this tiny community, she demonstrated its strengths and difficulties.

People have to be multi-disciplined, multi-talented and extremely hard-working. They have to look ahead – finding solutions to energy and employment problems – as well as back – celebrating the skills and traditions of the island which have been handed down over generations. They have to think bigger and bolder to survive. It seemed to be a lesson in microcosm.

Perhaps the most satisfying exposition of art’s relationship with science was in the work of Matjuska Teja Krasek, the Slovenian artist. Her mathematically-inspired pieces, in some cases computer-generated, decorated the shop windows of Stromness, nestling among electrical equipment, coal stoves, stationery, clothes and books in a cumulative celebration of the surprising beauty of pure maths.

In an evening lecture, the artist gave a detailed, technical explanation of the concepts behind her work. She explored the fundamental concept of symmetry, the satisfaction of the Fibonacci number sequence, the fascination of polyhedra tiling and how beautiful fractals can be generated by repeating simple equations on the computer.

Her enthusiasm was infectious, and the dimension it lent to her work illuminating. Quoting Einstein, ‘Imagination points to all we might yet discover and create,’ she showed how his philosophy encompasses all things in heaven and earth and refutes the idea of compartmentalising.

Art also had its say through the Stromness-based artists Matilda Tumim and Christopher Prendergast, collaboratively known as Christil Trumpet. Their exhibition, part installation, part hung works, was a brave exploration of time, memory, ritual and identity.

There was nothing vague or general about this. The central pieces, two free-standing figures representing the artists on their wedding day, clothed in their actual wedding outfits, were as solid and in-your-face as it gets. Each figure was covered in beautifully painted labels representing the forebears of the bride and groom, and their children.

On their shoulders sat daemons (Philip Pullman style) and the heads were eerily, gorgeously grotesque. Behind, on a large white cloth, was a huge flower display, each piece hand-made by friends and family of the artists. Some were delicate, others rude; some were gloriously over-the-top, others fragile and tiny. Together they were a perfect representation of all the various characters who gather to witness the strange and multi-layered ritual of a wedding.

The work picked up the recycling theme of the festival. More deeply, it picked up on many of the central points of scientific exploration – genetics, genealogy, the psychology of relationships, how time and memory work. The central questions seemed to be – how did we get here, and what made us the way we are? Questions tackled in many forms by the various eminent academics throughout the week.

It was artistic food for scientific thought (and vice versa); a vibrant end to the lecture, and the festival.

The final lecture, given by Howie Firth himself, was a ‘family romp’ through quantum theory (an unpromising subject for those with dismal memories of schoolroom maths). The talk, however, succinctly embraced eastern and western cultures and incorporated music from Africa and Orkney.

The western, object-centred thinking was compared with the more holistic, process-based attitude of the east. Our black/white approach, based on nouns, opposites and absolutes, was set against the continuous flux of eastern philosophy and language, based on verbs.

Howie was trying to show that if we shift our way of thinking towards the process-based, and the deep relationship between light and dark that has always been embraced by the east (yin/yang, for example), we can understand quantum theory easily. Pairs of electrons dance in the cosmos like dolphins, their relationship deeper than time and space and absolutely complementary. Once we understand that, we understand the principle, or what it’s based on.

Projected fractals illustrated the beauty of these deep, mathematical relationships, and the point was ably underlined by the musicians – the drummers from Ghana, Kakatsisi, and the Orkney traditional group, Three in a Bar. In an exciting finale, these seemingly incompatible musicians threw the music back and forth, almost like cosmic electrons. It was artistic food for scientific thought (and vice versa); a vibrant end to the lecture, and the festival.