Roger F.
Malina
Re-reading Darwin’s Origin of Species on its 150th
anniversary, one is struck by its lucidity and humility
and the transformative power of its conclusions. Yet
the theory of evolution is still not widely understood
or accepted. Arrhenius first wrote about the impact
of increasing CO2 on global climate in 1896, and yet
among governments the issue was still argued until
recently. The projects of the Renaissance and the Sci-
entific Revolution are incomplete. Scientific knowedge
is not culturally appropriated. In many ways science
has become a cargo cult. Many people use the cell
phone for daily survival but could not explain the dif-
ference between a photon and an electron.
One reason may be that common science does
not make common sense. The information I study
as a scientist is nearly all mediated through scientific
instruments. I can tell when my instrument is halluci-
nating. I develop new words to describe phenomena I
encounter. I can manipulate concepts not grounded
in my experience as a child. But this intimacy is not
the daily experience of most people.
In an interesting new development in the art world,
a generation of artists are now collecting data about
their world using technological instruments but for
cultural purposes. Shared tool-using leads to overlap-
ping epistemologies and ontologies. These artists both
make powerful art and help make science intimate,
sensual, intuitive.
A second reason for the disconnection of modern
science and public understanding is that scientists
carry out their work mostly in guarded monasteries,
unwilling to consider that a larger public could be
involved and thereby change the direction and con-
tent of future science. This institutional isolation is a
historical accident, largely due to the societal compact
of science and government following World War II.
There are, however, encouraging signs of new
types of “micro science” made possible by the Inter-
net and the new public access to scientific data and
instruments. To coin a phrase, micro science is to the
National Science Foundation what micro-credit is to
the World Bank. I am not calling for a renewal of ama-
teur science but for embedding mediated contact with
the world in everyday life.
Intimate science by artists and micro science at all
184       LEONARDO, Vol. 42, No. 3, p. 184, 2009       ©2009 ISAST
Intimate Science and
Hard Humanities
levels of society are important components of the
“hard humanities”---the arts and humanities disci-
plines essential to the cultural transformation neces-
sary within the next two generations. Controlling
climate change, abandoning dependency on fos-
sil fuels and creating the conditions for sustainable
development will require as deep a transformation as
our ancestors accomplished over tens of thousands of
years in moving from agrarian to urban societies.
The work of the Leonardo community in promoting
art-science and art-technology collaboration is part
of the toolkit for survival. We know what a landscape
artist is, and indeed landscape artists over several
hundred years have helped shape the relationship
between humans and nature. But what is a “climate
artist”? Two hundred years from now we will identify
the climate artists working today who made possible
the transformations now beginning. Climate artists
will use their senses, mediated by technological tools,
to reshape our relationship to the world around us.
The “hard humanities” also include social sciences,
now suddenly required to be prescriptive. Anthropolo-
gists find themselves in industrial innovation work-
shops; historians are called upon to explain the ways
that societies can transform themselves. Artists work-
ing with these scholars also engage in intimate and
micro science that, as in the Renaissance, will help
reshape our relationships to the societies we build.
Over recent months a number of us have been
developing the concept of “open observatories” that
disseminate methods and knowledge for micro sci-
ence, intimate science, people’s science and crowd
sourcing. These open observatories would allow small
communities to develop locally generated knowledge
and to evolve rapidly to confront climate change,
end oil dependency and create sustainable develop-
ment. Open observatories would include artists col-
lecting data for cultural and artistic purposes, as well
as community leaders and researchers seeking ways
to mediate personally meaningful access to scientific
knowledge. They will help make new science indig-
enous and intimate.
Roger F. Malina
Executive Editor, Leonardo
E-mail: <rmalina@alum.mit.edu>