Breaking the Barriers

In 1999, Antwerp was transformed into a series of laboratories and galleries. Throughout the Belgian city, scientists opened their doors to members of the public who were curious to see what they were working on. At the same time, Antwerp’s artists were also welcoming people into their studios and displaying numerous works of art. The citywide exhibition, entitled “Laboratorium,” curated by Barbara Vanderlinden and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, and including Harvard physics professor Peter L. Galison among its artists, was intended to probe the ways art and science are interrelated by inviting the citizens of Antwerp to experience the interfaces between the two disciplines.

Despite the historically strong ties between the arts and the sciences—from Leonardo da Vinci, with his painstakingly rendered anatomical investigations to Albert Einstein, who was a gifted violinist—such projects are the exception and not the rule. Today, the two disciplines are conceived of as not only separate but diametrically opposed to each other. Such a caricature, which portrays science as essential but uncreative and art as humanistic but ultimately impractical, is overly simplistic and does not do justice to either discipline.

The divide is present at Harvard as well, perhaps nowhere more obvious than in the geography of the University: science and engineering labs sprawl north of Annenberg, while the Barker Center and most of Harvard’s art museums huddle together on a narrow strip of land between Quincy Street and Prescott Street. The first question after the obligatory name-dorm-hometown exchange a freshman is likely to be asked is, “Are you a science person or a humanities person?” It’s a loaded question, one that presumes that it is impossible to be both. And for people whose interests really do straddle the divide between the two, students and professors suggest, such a culture can puts pressure on individuals to focus on one side of their interests and shelve the others.

But here, as in Antwerp, academic innovators are pushing back against this either-or culture. A multiplying list of interdisciplinary courses questions the notion that science and art are irreconcilably separated. By creating classes that meld the two together, professors are challenging students to think critically about culture’s perceptions, blurring the boundaries and in some cases rejecting them altogether.

CONCEPTUAL ART

Among those bridging the gap are students who do not merely take an interdisciplinary elective, but who choose to concentrate in two “opposite” fields. Awais Hussain ’15 is such a student: a joint physics-philosophy concentrator, he says the two complement each other more than people might assume. “Philosophers actually love analyzing math and trying to figure out why math [has] this weird kind of position in terms of knowledge. One plus one is always two, no matter where you are on the planet, no matter where you are in the universe,” Hussain says. “Why is it so special in that sense?”

“[Philosopher] Bertrand Russell is a prime example of that – he basically redefined logic but he was an amazing mathematician,” Hussain adds. “I think it makes sense because in both subjects you have to think very clearly, very specifically, and focus very much on the small details that most people would arguably miss.”

Even the app Hussain is currently trying to launch comes with some philosophical aspects. The program, an intuitive calendar that allows you to log everything you do, is designed to make people more aware of time and break out of bad habits like procrastination. In Hussain’s opinion, people should acknowledge that time and money are both quantifiable assets that can be spent, wasted, and lost.

Like Hussain, Aisha K. Down ’14, a joint Physics-English concentrator and inactive Crimson editor, also sees a natural link between her two fields. “Physics and English: they’re a way of using language in order to get at truths which are much more underlying,” she says. Even though she’s hoping to write a fiction thesis, Down feels sure that her background in physics will have an enormous impact on her work. “Physics has made me a much better writer,” she says. “In a way, writing a story is more like solving a problem than other aspects of English because you have to make things logically follow, you have to create your own causality, and you have to sell it.”

Down expressed a great deal of frustration at the stereotypes and rivalry that persist between departments. “I don’t think that the end goal [of physics and English]—or the thing that drives them, which is a quest for a kind of truth—is different. I don’t think one has to be less rigorous or more creative or more practical than the other,” she says. “I think a lot of good thinking is killed off by attitudes that different departments have towards each other.”

ARTISTIC AWARENESS

Physics professor Peter S. Pershan is one member of the Harvard community attempting to present a picture of art and science unified. His freshman seminar, “You and Your Camera,” examines the science of photography, with topics ranging from quantum mechanics to how the eye works. The course also delves into photography’s history and asks students to try their hand at the art.

While he spends much of his time working with physics at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Pershan has always had an interest in photography. “It’s been a hobby of mine for many years,” he says. “I would describe myself as an old child, and I think most of my colleagues, especially in sciences, are. What do you do when you’re five years old? You play with toys, and that’s how you learn. I love playing, and photography is just part of that.”

Pershan affirmed that his knowledge of physics strongly influences his own photography: for example, his knowledge of the eye’s perception of color might play a role in his selection of a photographic subject. Yet despite his personal enthusiasm, Pershan acknowledges that many photographers never found it necessary to understand optics in order to be great artists. “It’s a very personal thing. People often learn things empirically and use them without ever understanding why [they are effective]. Other people like to know why,” he says. “And who moves ahead faster in accomplishing more? That’s very hard to say.”

For Pershan, his passions for physics and photography are two different manifestations of the same concept: an eternal sense of wonder at the marvels of nature. “Art and science go together,” he says, “I think any scientist who hasn’t thought about the fact that science is beautiful—well, I think they all do. Part of the motivation of string theory is the beauty of the way mathematics can explain nature, the beauty of how our bodies work. And so I’m in awe of this thing every day of my life.”

Others, such as professor of systems science Peter A. Cariani, look at how science can help illuminate what it is that draws people to art in the first place. Much of Cariani’s work involves the psychology of why people listen to music, and it is this topic that he addresses in his class “Music, Mind, and Brain.”

“We use [music] to change our emotional states.... for mood control, for distraction, for cognitive interest, for inducing spiritual states, for reinforcing personal identity,” Cariani says. Because music has so many uses, it has been difficult to pin down the exact evolutionary reason for what Steven Pinker once termed “auditory cheesecake,” or designed to stimulate several areas of the brain. Still, says Cariani, there are some things that we do know, such as that certain dopamine circuits are activated by pleasant music, and that circuits related to unpleasant stimuli are activated by music disliked by the listener.

Cariani agrees with Pershan that artists don’t need to understand the science behind their work in order to be successful. In his view, the purposes of art and science are fundamentally different—art affects, while science explains. However, he adds that several past students of his who were studying musical composition at the New England Conservatory had found the psychological background helpful to them in their work. “The more one knows about one’s art and how it works, the more conscious one can be. It can be useful for artists to understand because it makes them more aware.”

DOUBLE EXPRESSION

Engineering Science 20: "How to Create Things and Have Them Matter” promises a lot in its course title. Taught by biomedical engineering professor David A. Edwards and International Director of Education for the ArtScience prize Andrea R. Sachdeva, the class attempts to introduce students to scientific concepts that then serve as jumping-off points for projects in fields ranging from design to humanitarianism. Students who wish to pursue their projects further have the opportunity to continue their work over the summer in Paris or Cape Town. Ideas that have come out of the class include Le Whif, a breathable chocolate spray now available in 20,000 stores, and the Pumpkin, an eco-friendly device for carrying water that was modeled after biological cells.

“At the time [I began teaching this course] there was a lot of effort to get different groups around the university to interact and to work together, and I noticed that in those complex group meetings there were medical doctors and physicists and engineers,” Edwards says. “But there were no musicians, there were no faculty from VES and so forth, and so that led to a conversation.” His goal in developing the course was to create an environment of true collaboration among students of various fields. “Today, if you’re the math student, you’re among the math students, and if you’re the literature student, you’re among the literature students,” he says. “The environment you’re given is encouraging a certain way of thinking, but typically not an integrative way of thinking. It’s hard to achieve that in a specialized environment.” This semester, the course includes students from a wide variety of concentrations—literature, history of art and architecture, history of science, and molecular and cellular biology, to name just a few.

According to Sachdeva, many of the students choose the class as a way to express a side of themselves that their usual academic track does not allow them to. “Most of them have an official major, and that’s their title and what they do, but they have all these secret skills that they just don’t have the chance to exercise normally,” she says. “We have someone who’s a bio major but also a ballet dancer.”

Edwards adds, “We always get a certain subset of people who have that dual interest and focus, but typically—and it was totally true of me—have never seen the advantage of having that dual interest. But to discover that that’s a richness and an opportunity is the new thing going on here.”

Edwards has also noted an increasing willingness on the part of the faculty to experiment with interdisciplinary methods. “When I made the flip from being this applied math guy to suddenly art, there was quite a reaction from a lot of faculty members here who went, ‘There’s no calculus in the class? Then how can this really be real?’ But there’s been a real evolution.”

“AN INTELLECTUAL BUFFET”

Hugo Van Vuuren ’07 was one of the students who took ES 20 in its early days. His class was tasked with lighting London in preparation for the Olympics. But his team, composed mostly of African students, decided to take things in a different direction. Together, they launched Lebone, a project aimed at creating a battery powered entirely by dirt for use in developing countries. The project, which is still going, won grants from both the World Bank and the Gates Foundation.

Edwards’s class has had a lasting impact on Van Vuuren’s professional trajectory, he says. “I took the course before secondary fields, and so David’s class was just an awesome buffet, an intellectual buffet of projects that you work[ed] on in the course with other students [using] either a scientific method or an artistic method.” In the time since he graduated, Van Vuuren says, he has seen Harvard increasingly embrace interdisciplinary courses, a change he partially attributes to Edwards’s charisma and unflagging efforts.

Van Vuuren is currently a partner at the Experiment Fund (also called the Xfund), Harvard’s first dedicated seed fund. The project backs four to six startups a year, ranging from health incubators to Tivli. Several of the projects currently being considered for funding came out of ES 20, and the Xfund has also given grants to the course’s students in the past to help them continue their research abroad. But though Van Vuuren is in the business of funding startups, he appreciates the fact that ES 20’s goal is not only to churn out company ideas. “There are courses that focus explicitly on building profitable companies, and obviously that’s great for the Xfund, but from David’s perspective, that is also restricting because not all ideas are profitable,” Van Vuuren says. “Not all things that society needs—the creative arts and other cultural entrepreneurship activities—are immediately rewarded by the market.”

Van Vuuren welcomes the increasing number of students who want to explore not just one interest but several. “The question is how to strike the balance between what you call a pan-disciplinary education whilst making sure, as [former Harvard president Abbott] Lowell says, that every student graduates and knows a little bit about everything, but something well,” he says. “That’s a fine balance.”

—Staff writer Erica X. Eisen can be reached at eeisen@college.harvard.edu