▣ Title : The First Artists Were the First Scientists
▣ Speaker
:Jung Ah Woo (POSTECH)
▣ Date
& Time : Friday, March 21 (2:00 ~ 3:30pm)
▣ Place
: LG Research Building, Room #101
▣ Host
: Prof. Sung JooYoo(T.
2379)
▣ Abstract
The
history of art is the history of our ongoing struggle with our surroundings,
both natural and social, to achieve the ideals that we seek. Of course, what is
“ideal” for a society is amazingly diverse, fluctuating constantly according to
different cultures, peoples, and historical periods. Thus, artists have always
devised new languages, new tools, and new visualizations to grasp the complex
ideas and questions that their society chooses to pursue. In a words, it’s not
so very different from that of scientists (and engineers and technicians).
In
fact, those first artists on earth, who struggled with so many difficulties in
painting the animals on the cave walls, can safely be called the first
scientists. They researched natural phenomenon to better understand human
needs, and sought to materialize their ideas into concrete things, all in order
to achieve a “better world” for humanity.
The
distance between art and science is actually not as far as it initially
appears. From the beginning, the term “art” came from the Latin “ars,”
which is a translation of the Greek “techne.”
“Techne”
(or “ars”
in Latin) means “skill,” which could mean the skill to make all kinds of
objects, including paintings, houses, statues, ships, pots, clothes, etc.
Moreover, it could be the skill necessary to command an army, measure a field,
or sway an audience.
All
these skills, which were called art, depend upon an understanding of nature
and, more importantly, human nature. Hence, both art and science are based on
the study of humans, or better yet, the study of ourselves.