Scientist and Artist

I spend 6 weeks to date as an artist in resident at Khoj in Delhi and the most frequent question that was asked was if there was a difference between a scientist and an artist.

Discipline:

Both the scientist and the artist start with hypothesis, the scientists hypothesis originates from a white paper/s and a hunch whereas the artist's starts from a hunch with no supporting white paper. Once the commitment is made both the scientist and artist get down to rigour and practice. The Scientist goes to a lab and conducts research and the artist traverses his mind and conducts thought related research throwing in materials in the mix. The limiting factor of the artist gets exposed here, since the artist relies on thought and since thought arrives out of knowledge, if the artist has limited knowledge or worse if the knowledge is tinted by his experiences and opinions that he could not overcome then the result from the artist will be as limited as his experience. The limitation of the scientist on the other hand is that she is expected to place the finding within a transitory boundary in the ever changing and expanding field of science.

Process:

The process or the path to discovery involved with both these disciplines is rigour, continuous filing of ideas, testing them and filing the results. Both are open to change, In fact, in both cases the origin of the idea and the stated process changes drastically along the path to discovery. The attitude involved with the process is ridden with a few differences. The artist takes it his right to blank unproductive phases as part of the process to discovery, whereas the scientist driven simply by the rigour and training looks at these phases as mere obstacles to urgently and routinely overcome.

Creativity:

The scientist looks to find and contribute to solutions for any and certain human condition. The boundaries that the scientist defines and works from within limits creativity, creativity as popularly understood. I am in no way suggesting that creativity must be a universal pursuit too. Creativity like perfection is a relative, elitist and useless concept . Since the scientist works within stated and accepted boundaries somehow we are to believe that there is no scope for creativity when creativity exists in every field not matter how narrow nor wide.

Human condition to highlight vs human condition to solve: 

The scientists defined goal is to apply and alleviate human suffering or any other human pursuit that will eventually lead to directly addressing the human condition. The artist has no immediate need nor immediate goal but that does not mean that art has nothing to do with human condition. In the case of science the goal is implicit and immediate and in the case of art, stating a goal will result in distancing from the goal itself. 

My conclusion post thinking through for this blog is that there is no difference and in fact those who see a difference are victims of indoctrination that our education system inflicted. Both the artist and scientist need to pull teeth and separate thin air in order find breakthroughs. 

How must asanas evolve to the space traveller in the human and other

http://khojworkshop.org/opportunity/the-undivided-mind-art-science-residency-2016/

Khoj put out an interesting artist residence program which I took to immediately, It is called the Undivided mind and the invited were to artists that were exploring the frontier of the mind and science. I felt this was an interesting opportunity to bring together all the subjects that I have been obsessing about, climate change, evolution of the human body, transformation of the human mind, space travel and qunatum mechanics. I used my personal practice as a yoga student, climate change consultant and disruptor to put together a proposal and it is here.

I convinced my friend, student and photographer Vivek Muthuramalingam (http://www.vivekm.com/) to join me and added Ankit Shekhawat (Moonraft) to join us in this adventure.

We put a proposal out and Khoj thought that it was a good idea and the proposal goes like this.

 

Yoga in evolution.

Foundation principles: 

    A logical pile up of conditions and rules constitute reality.

1. Evolution is real and it does not just happen.
2. All actions and inventions by human beings must be considered as evolution.
3. Humanoid is an advanced form of evolution on earth and elsewhere.
4. The human being will reach the zenith of evolution when they are able to grow two more arms in addition to the two they have.
5. It will also be evolution when human beings develop science to operate and attach the two additional arms.

Evolution is a matter of function. Human beings drop parts of their body when it was not needed and developed new parts or remake the dropped parts.

When human beings carefully simulate the experience of having two more arms they will instinctively miss them.

 

Observing and managing evolution:

 

Human being, practices of the human being, responses of man and society, are the four pieces (constantly in a state of flux) that constitute evolution. A symbiotic interaction between them results in evolution.

    The practices and responses of human beings form and define society. Their immediate and primary interaction with society is with the body and therefore studying and actively engaging this important feature will help manage evolution. This feature can be accessed when one reflects on the various professions human beings practice and the way the human body is used to achieve whatever ends they seek to achieve with that profession. These professions keep changing in response to the invention of new tools and with ideas of human beings with it the overall direction and evolution of the human being and society.

In the past popular professions practiced were farmers, rock cutters, carpenters, barbers, builders, butchers, metal workers, soldiers and in the present white or blue and to name a few are; scavengers, teachers, conductors, domestic maids, drivers, retail executives, waiters, cooks, street hawkers, welders, masons, mine workers, prostitutes. 

    Asanas, which deal with the physical aspect of the Yog philosophy are underlying archetypical forms and have evolved by observing the above said and other professions. Therefore by regular practice of asanas these professionals will be able to perform better. Since asanas are unification of all professions they may also be considered as common and underlying aesthetic documentation of all professions. This unification of professions or unification in general is the universal common denominator of all output by scientists, artists and thinkers.

    This activity to codify asanas and develop the subject of Yog results in texts, documents, books and other types of output; some become famous and are revered as milestones in the development of Yog. The finest and most contemporary example of this phenomenon of unification is by Mr. B.K.S. Iyengar, called “The light on yoga”. 

We (3rd people) intend to examine the unification process by looking at some of the above professions and by documenting the underlying asanas in them, in juxtaposition we will also cast our observations to the immediate future and study the archetypes that will be popular when human being evolve with professions like astronauts, pilots, space travellers, inter planetary dwellers, robot handlers, scientists.

 The process we propose to adapt is best put down in two parts. The first, we will conduct raids into Khirki and document human professional activity on camera and come back to examine and present the underlying archetypes in them. The second will be to put two additional collaborators/models (2 experienced asana practitioners + Mohan) in space suits and in zero gravity. We will document the process as they evolve the idea of what asanas can mean to the human being whose profession and primary interaction is with space. The output may be photographs of the most suitable asanas for them.

 These two sets of output may be a series of photographs that document the underlying archetypes. Human beings in the present and future generations will be inspired by this output and it may influence the evolution of these professions and hence evolution. Many other types of output may develop from this core documentation. Ex: A pictorial and easy to use book titled “asanas for the common profession” 

The above observations, explorations and relative output deals with the present and immediate future whereas the third will be an examination of yog cast along the evolution line referencing the #5 of the foundation principles.

The process for this third part will require us to collaborate with doctors on the panel and Dr. Venkatasubramaniam in particular with whom we have found common ground. The second collaborator will be Ankit Shekhawat, electronic interaction designer who has in the past explored software based tools that can be controlled with thought and mind. We will examine present inventions whose primary objective is to move objects with thought. 

The output may be two parts where one will be a series of photographs of asanas as practiced by a human being with four arms and the other a demonstration of the ability of the present state of the mind to interact with two additional arms and also to experience the movement of these arms. Two prosthetic arms will be attached besides and behind the deltoids of Mohan. These arms will be controlled by the mind whose instructions will result in the upward and downward movement of these prosthetic arms. 

    The 3rd people propose to output three photographic series and one installation involving prosthetics and thought/mind control. The proposed collaborators are:

Zubin Zarothostramanish - Yoga expert with over 30 years of practice and senior teacher in Mumbai. He is a direct disciple of Mr. B.K.S. Iyengar and my beloved teacher.

Joya Chakravarty - Yog expert with over 15 years of practice and experience and a teacher of yoga in bangalore and my beloved wife.  

Ankit Shekhawat - Ankit heads the Emerging Media group and the Labs at Moonraft (www.moonraft.com) . He loves to work on intersection of design, art, culture and technology to provoke the human condition. With more than 9 years of experience he has work in various projects touch upon fields like computer vision, gestural interfaces, projections, robotics, artificial intelligence andsensorial networks. Ankitpreviously worked as a design researcher at HP Labs and holds a Master degree in interaction design from IDII / Domus, Italy

HAT MUST BE THE ASANA PRACTICE OF THE HUMAN BEING AT THIS STAGE OF EVOLUTION?