Tag Archives: art

Understanding the Ocean: Art vs. Science

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While reading The Blue Humanities, by John R. Gillis, I kept thinking about the relationship between art and science.

I believe that both art and science are ultimately trying to accomplish the same goal – albeit by taking different steps. To me, the goal of art is to spread awareness and an overall understanding of any specific issue or topic by creating something an audience can observe and explore with their imagination. Whether its a movie, song, painting, etc. it is my understanding that art is to be carefully crafted in order to raise a question in the viewers mind that they are supposed to answer for themselves. Science, seems to be the opposite. Where art aims to ask questions, science wants to provide an answer. Science produces theories that are meant to be tested and experimented with to get the greatest understanding of the subject as possible.

So where does the Ocean come in with all of this? Well, with the ocean being so vast and mysterious – it is no question why so many works of art have been produced with the ocean being the main character. It’s unpredictable and violent while also being calm and serene. It is the perfect canvas to paint upon the fears, desires, and wonders of the human mind. But how does writing a book affect the ocean? Making a movie? Writing a song? The biggest influence art has on the ocean is how we view this integral part of our world. Could it lead us to wanting to investigate it.

Where we observe the ocean through art, we could disrupt it with science. While we can learn a lot about the ocean through research, there’s a difference between observing it as it currently exists and observing it with a plethora of variables. Human beings have an impact on everything they decide to get themselves involved with. I am not against science in the slightest, but I do tend to associate the urge we have to “understand” the world around us with the tendancy to try and control it. I think that we cant fathom the perfectly chaotic synergy of the Natural World. We require structure in our lives to make the world go ’round, so we intend to implement that structure on a world that would be better off without it. The way I see it, we are product of the Natural World, but we are in no way a part of it. I dont think we can return to it, so ultimately this debate on whether understanding the world through art is better than doing so through science or vice versa is rather moot.

Sorry for the downer post, I’ve just been chasing this idea around in my head and reading The Blue Humanities somehow made the idea click into place.

Week 9: Blue Humanities

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Out of the two readings for week 9, I found the Blue Humanities one to be more interesting. This article discussed our scientific and conceptual history of the sea and how it has developed over the last few centuries. One part I liked was when the author talked about how with more analysis of historical sea documents, we have started to understand our changing perceptions toward the sea. Our view of the sea has primarily shifted from a more utilitarian and mechanical perspective to an aesthetic, modern, beautiful conception. This tied into some of our discussion from last week, when we talked about how the sea used to be only visited by people who went there for work, but it later moved into a more recreational activity for people as it became this beautiful, relaxing concept. Our interaction with parts of nature depends on our subjective value of the entity. This can apply to really everything; for instance, our social interactions with others will depend on our subjective value of the other. But even within our subjective values of parts of nature, there is variance between person to person. No two people see the world the same, as our worlds are shaped by personal experiences and our top down processing of the world creates a biased and personalized living experience. Take for instance–some people go into nature and take the ‘leave no trace’ method, while others destroy and litter. All depending on subjective value. But it is interesting to see when these perceptions of the world are something that are the same from person to person–this shift from a utilitarian ocean to an aesthetic ocean. Mediums such as stories and paintings are fascinating to analyze because of how they may affect the viewers and change their own perspective of the world. How much of our reality is actually real, and how much of it is influenced and made subjective? I don’t believe anyone can truly see the world in objective eyes. I wonder what other parts of the world that we disregard may become more ‘aesthetic’ to us, or the reverse. Will the ocean become less aesthetic and beautiful to us as we discover more about it? Or as environmental pollution/destruction ruins it? Will we have places on land, similar to aquariums, that mimic what the ocean used to be like?