Rovelli’s book thus far has been a fairly linear (extremely readable) recounting of the history of physics. He efficiently and very enjoyably shepherds the reader through a couple thousand years of fascinating breakthroughs (and requisite scientific recessions) leading to a discussion on quantum gravity (haven’t gotten there in the book yet.)

It’s hard for me to not get completely lost in Rovelli’s narrative of the incredibly fascinating ideas, literally forming the basis of pretty much everything. Taking breaks from reading, it’s easy to imagine the world he describes completely enveloping and connecting us to everything–a vast vibrating interconnected field of pulsing energy.

Connecting Rovelli’s world back to art, obvious themes of dematerialization, atemporality, absurdity arise: If color is just a by-product of different frequencies of electomagnetic energy, as processed by our visual anatomy (most of which are undetectable to our puny eyes*), what value is a painting to the ongoing story of existence? One can easily see how this obvious question alone can yield a complete deconstruction of painting, and through extension to other disciplines, dissolution of material/formal practices in general. So Duchamp perhaps most dramatically (but many, many others before and after) went ‘here’ (deconstructing) aligning creative practice to emerging ideas in physics (among other scientific disciplines.)

The story of physics has continued into the 21st century still on a fairly linear trajectory (in spite of very non-linear principles.) Art/creative practice of this century however seems to have fully broken away toward a sprouting pluralism. Many/most practitioners by now have backed away from Duchamp’s severe pragmatism and are reengaged in material/narrative practices. So what has “Art” to do with the emerging physics and through it new models of understanding existence? This was a question I considered when I began exploring computation as creative practice, 20+ years ago.

 

My explorations over the last two decades of coding as creative material/’Art’ have largely been failures. I don’t write this with false stoicism or seeking any sympathy; it is just plain and simple honesty, as I perceive my results. This is not to say I would have done anything differently: I needed to get this out of my system (perhaps to some degree I still do.) My best coding work is sparingly, intellectually interesting, contextually disruptive and occasionally beautiful, but I’m not sure if it’s ever emotionally engaging, the way great painting can continue to be for me.

 

Painting (and I can only really speak of western painting with any authority in this capacity, through my own very limited experience) remains timeless for me. Though technique and materials have evolved, in step with the sciences, their application across creative practice all exists in present time for me. A Giotto, Masaccio, Bellini, Titian, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Corot, Cezanne, Morandi, Uglow, Auerbach, etc are all contemporary paintings when I view them. I do not (ultimately) see a refutation or negation as we see in science between great practitioners’ works. Yes, we see new ideas and approaches from generation to generation in the history of painting, some directly antagonistic, but (most simply and inelegantly stated) great painting is great painting, regardless of these stylistic differences (e.g: positing the earth is at the center of the universe is a very different erroneous conceit than the purposeful retreat from naturalism.)  I think this is a very, very important distinction between advances in the sciences and the arts. Why this fundamental difference exists is perhaps fodder for a future post.