This think-piece is partially from a paper titled “Taxonomy of Technics: a Compendium for Living and Action in Art” I presented at the conference Living in the Age of Convergences: Affect, Affordance, Agency, at NUS (…), in which I call for the need to revamp existing art curriculums within a critical theory paradigm. Speaking to “integrate” (?) sciences and the humanities by someone of my background is tough — someone with training in art, educated in different areas of the humanities, and with sustained interest in the historical discourses of the sciences and an admittedly open mind to scientific knowledge. There are all these hurdles, invisible walls I find myself hitting, because the education of my young days had kept some of the essential doors locked that I can’t even name myself. Awareness is not enough. I therefore refer to Daniel Dennett (author of From Bacteria to Bach and Back), a scientist who has spent xx years trying to make sense of evolution for the contemporary times for everyone. I also rely on Karen Barad, scholar-physicist, who, grounded in a feminist paradigm of change, has spoken on her first-hand experience in running classes that bring together science students with those in the humanities, the arts and the social sciences.
\nKaren Barad
\n\n\nhttps://quod.lib.umich.edu/o/ohp/11515701.0001.001/1:4.3/–new-materialism-interviews-cartographies?rgn=div2;view=fulltext OR http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/ohp.11515701.0001.001
\n\n
The precariousness of scientific truths
\nThe precariousness of scientific knowledge as continuous trials and errors that result in constant revision is a key theme in Daniel Dennett’s book From Bacteria to Bach and Back.
\nUnlike what people, especially those outside the sciences, assume, the journey of scientific knowledge is marked by productive dispute and uncertainty necessary before a scientific theorem is presented to us as common knowledge.
\n“Scientific truths” last and are adopted in human daily practices and yet over time they could be revised, improved, or refuted.
\n// Technological innovation has been driven by human desires towards “uncovering the mysteries of life and the unknown of the universe / The stories of objects / The generative power of things in our lifeworld / Media art embodies the co-agency of human and objects… / Things are produced by human desires. / But once born, they define how we know and how we act. (Shuffling Time & Space)
\n\n
