
Who Is Neri Oxman? - wallflower
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/style/neri-oxman-mit.html
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c17r
5 years ago, the Connecticut Forum hosted "Vision & Brilliance" with Neil
Gaiman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Neri Oxman. Lots of science-and-art, science-
vs-art, relgion-vs-science, etc. It was entertaining though unfortunately Dr.
Oxman spent most of the time letting "The Two Neils" talk.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GVgUzqSo6I&list=PLMW6ar6w0B...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GVgUzqSo6I&list=PLMW6ar6w0BH9m1P0CxzzYEpLAc4k6tpsH)

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xxcode
Unfortunately, I always thought Neri's work was BS. Perhaps I am not
imaginative enough. But thats what I think. Its BS. Nothing works. Maybe its
interesting design, but it didn't appeal to me.

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nhf
I'm at MIT and there are definitely people in other groups on campus that like
to shit on the Media Lab for this reason. I think this actually raises an
interesting question. If you want to position yourself at the intersection of
science and art, what's the correct balance of practicality, rigor, and
imagination?

The stereotypical person from the "hard science" communities will never
totally buy into this kind of work being science. It's not exact, it's not
rigorous. On the other hand, artists and designers more often inhabit this
speculative, rapidly-prototyped, thought experiment-esque mode of creation and
take it as a valid form of inquiry.

Personally, I love it. It's not hard science or hard engineering in the same
way that someone in EECS or biology might treat those fields, but it's a
wonderful way to root artistic exploration in current scientific technique.

Is that the right balance between the two? Is there a point along the spectrum
where you need to stop calling yourself a scientist and start calling yourself
an artist? I think that's an open question.

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HBlix
I think you bring up interesting points, but in Neri Oxman’s case the answer
seems to be that the science is essentially absent in its entirety. I won’t
pretend to have a good answer to “what is art,” but the question “what is
science” is much easier to answer. Her work may be art, but it utterly fails
the test of science insofar as it doesn’t adhere to the scientific method.
She’s a scientist in the same way that a color therapist is a medical doctor.

Better examples of the intersection of science and art might be found in the
work of someone like Buckminster Fuller. The nature of science being what it
is, the science probably has to come first, with the art emerging from it

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diydsp
this is overly constraining the meaning of science to the process of
deduction. science includes observation and exploration.

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HBlix
Observation and exploration are _part_ of science, but only when mated with
the rest of the scientific method. On its own “observation and exploration”
can be equally applied to playing in beach sand. If you’re not forming and
testing hypotheses, analyzing data from experiment, and attempting to
replicate results, you’re not engaged in science. You can’t pick one or two
elements of the scientific method and call it science, anymore than you can
claim that buying running shoes and standing at the start of a marathon is
racing.

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nhf
It's still an interesting problem of division. Let's say the end result (bees
in space!) is not science. However, in the process of getting those bees to
space, her lab invents a novel 3D printing method [1]. Science in service of
art?

[1]
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17452759.2012.73...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17452759.2012.731369)

