I believe in science and art, and the promise and potential of design to bring them together to change the world.

In our intellectual institutions, and our society in general, science and art live mostly separate lives—developing separate worldviews, distinct methods, specialist language, and segregated communities of thought and practice.

But the more I work as a designer—a practice that demands the constant negotiation of the boundaries and intersections of these two worlds, where every creative outcome relies on a scientific base—the more deeply committed I am to the foundation of science.

The historic scientific project has built a common language of human knowledge that allows any scientist working anywhere to challenge and revise and add to our shared resource. It was open source before that idea was named. And it is on this human foundation of knowledge that we solve the challenges we face as a global society.

It is science that has opened up the electromagnetic spectrum so that we can explore the universe in all of its complexity. It is science that has allowed us the wonders of communication so that you can read my words, and we can connect across borders and cultures and time zones. And that has built the tools to overcome diseases like smallpox, and Sars, and soon polio and others. And that has also built the pathway out of the dark night of ignorance, mythology, and superstition, allowing us to replace imaginary stories with hard won empirical knowledge.

But my commitment to scientific knowledge in no way diminishes my belief in the mystery and power of the arts.

It is art that sings to us and opens our hearts to one another. It is art that gives meaning to things that would otherwise go unnoticed. And that connects us to our past. And that laughs at our hubris and limitations, while speaking to us of the darkness we cannot say out loud.

In the end, it is art that allows us to understand, express and share science. While science works to order the matter of the world, art orders the meaning of the world.

In my practice of design these two worlds of meaning and matter, of aesthetics and scientific knowledge, of quality and quantity, of mystery and certainty, of intuition and expertise, come together to create new possibilities for shaping our world.

As a designer, everything I do draws on the arts and the aesthetic dimension of cultural life, and also rests on the foundation of the scientific project. Everything I do summons up the mystery of beauty and the history of form, but demands the technical base of knowledge for its success. Nothing we make can succeed that does not draw on our technical expertise and the science of material and energy and process. Nothing we make is relevant if it doesn’t “work.” But nothing we make is relevant if it is not also cultural, and beautiful in some dimension.

Buckminster Fuller once wrote, “When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

Without the dimension that we call art—color and texture, form and material, juxtaposition and composition, humor and metaphor—the full potential is somehow unrealized. No matter how efficient or effective, no matter how “smart,” without the language of art, the things we make are limited in meaning and potential. It is art that connects to our life, to human needs and emotions—and that allows us to build a bridge to new possibilities.

At no time in human history has the potential for designing solutions that contribute to the benefit of humankind been greater than it is today. Because of the growing body of knowledge in both science and the arts, our possibilities will be even greater tomorrow.

Bruce Mau‘s essay first appeared in GLIMMER, Chapter 4: "Go Deep"

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