It is by gathering data that we come to know about the world
The relationship between art and science often has been distant, even antagonistic, especially during the twentieth century although at other times a closer liaison has been apparent. The early Renaissance humanist and architect Lean Battista Alberti, for instance, began his influential book On Painting (1435) by discussing mathematics,[1] and most thinkers from antiquity to the eighteenth century would have agreed that maths––far from being the sort of thing short-sighted weirdos do in labs––was a fundamental form of knowledge, underpinning our efforts to understand natural phenomena, astronomy, architecture, music, and even the mysteries of the divine. Leonardo da Vinci––admittedly exceptional in his ability to lead twin careers as artist and scientist––inflected one with the other, founding his art on his experiments in anatomy, botany and optics, and in turn investigating the natural world and its principles in notebooks crammed with drawings of breath-taking beauty.
Later, though––for a complex variety of reasons––the gap between art and science grew wider, and it probably remains so today, given educational theory and practice, popular perception, and the attitudes of many practitioners in both broad areas. Nevertheless, various contemporary artists now work at the intersection between art and science/technology. Among local examples, one thinks particularly of Ros Bandt's sound sculptures, Paula Dawson's laser-generated environments, and Patricia Piccinini's alarming computer-generated genetic mutations.[2] Peter James Smith explores the same territory, although in a more celebratory mode, explicitly aiming to bring art and science into a fruitful working relationship, reflecting his own unusual blend of careers as Associate Professor of Statistics at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and painter. Smith bases his art on his experience and interests in science, especially mathematics, literally spelling out these