1. IDEA DIRECTORY by Gerald Shepherd
2. MEDITATIVE PROCESS ART by Gerald Shepherd
3. SCIENCE ART ESSAY by Sue Birchmore
4. EXTRACTS FROM "A PLAIN MAN'S VIEW OF BEING" by Brian Halpern
5. LETTER by Ken Palmer
6. LETTER by Steve Mesure
7. LETTER by Dr. D.J. Perkins
8. ART AND THE BASIC PROPERTIES OF NATURE by P.R. White
9. EXPLORING COLOUR BY MEANS OF REPETITIVE PROCEDURE by Sheila Clarke
10. LETTER by Rachel Merry

•  EXPERIMENTS IN ROBOTICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF MACHINES WHICH CREATE ART WORKS.
• ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN AN ART CONTEXT.

•  CONSTRUCTION OF ART WORKS WHICH INTERACT WITH THEIR ENVIRONMENT OR USE ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES IN THEIR CONSTRUCTION (INCLUDING ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION)
• CREATION OF ENVIRONMENTS WHICH HAVE SPECIFIC EFFECTS ON THEIR OCCUPANT(S).

• EXPERIMENTS WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY TO FIND NOVEL, OR MORE RELEVANT, WAYS OF PRESENTING ART IDEAS.
• USE OF MODERN DEVICES IN ORIGINAL WAYS.

• EXPERIMENTS WITH NEW WAYS OF USING TRADITIONAL MATERIALS AND EXISTING TECHNOLOGY IN CREATION AND PRESENTATION OF ART.
• USE OF BASIC SCIENTIFIC PHENOMENA, PROCESSES AND PRINCIPLES IN CREATION OF AESTHETIC OBJECTS.

•  INVESTIGATION INTO HOW CREATIVITY VARIES ACCORDING TO BODY RHYTHMS(?) AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS (INCLUDING NOISE AND LESS READILY DEFINABLE ELEMENTS).
• COMPARISONS STUDIED BETWEEN SCIENTISTS AND ARTISTS RE IMAGINATIVE AND INVENTIVE ABILITY.

•  THE CREATION OF ORGANIC SCULPTURES (GENETIC MUTATION AND HYBRIDIZATION ETC. — EXPERIMENTS WITH MICROORGANISMS).
• STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND CHEMICAL PROCESSES.

• ADVANCED MATHEMATICS USED IN THE CREATION OF ART WORK.
• CURRENT THEORIES IN COSMOLOGY, SUBATOMIC PHYSICS, ETC., UTILIZED IN THE CREATION OF ART.

• CONSTRUCTION OF DEVICES WHICH ALTER THE WAY THE ARTIST SEES THE WORLD.
• CONSTRUCTION OF MULTI—SENSORY ART WORK FOR HANDICAPPED PEOPLE.

Although I work in a number of different styles, most of my painting and graphic work has a pronounced sequential format. Usually with prominent introductory theme and development sections. The thematic imagery — which can be either figurative or abstract — is encapsulated within a precise structural framework. Both structure and images undergo a formalized elaborative process using developmental procedures derived from my research into the sciences, music, drama, etc. I am striving to use this fusion art form as a fluid explorative tool in both an art and philosophical context.

GERALD SHEPHERD
 

When I was at school, the brainy ones were expected to take Science and Maths; only thicks who couldn't manage Real Subjects did Art. Humanities came somewhere in between.

Come the decision time for 'O'—level choices, I went to talk to the Art.

"Well!" says she in surprise. "I didn't think yave time for Art, with all your Science!"

I chickened out in the end. Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Geography. History, Latin (no Biology, though — far too squeamish for squidgy dissections).

Painting and poetry were relegated to hobbies while I grappled from Archimedes, through Bernoulli and Copernicus to Zeno. In an unguarded moment, I did once admit that what I really wanted to be was a writer. The whole class laughed. Now, I don't regret doing science at all; it still fascinates me, and it has enabled me to carry on and earn a decent living as an engineer. But I still want to write. Is it really impossible to have it both ways?

I realize when I turn to the arts pages of the paper that I've become hugely ignorant about art and literature.  Constraints of time have limited my reading to a narrow bandwidth from Kipling to Chesterton, and I never get round to setting foot in an art gallery. That's my loss. I'm trying to make it up — because I really don't accept the idea that artistic skill is in some way inferior to scientific.

In fact, I think the great divide between the "two cultures" is artificial  and damaging. Scientists cold, rational unimaginative? Really? Take a look at the language they've invented. "Quarks" which possess "charm", "beauty" and "strangeness", "cosmic string"; The Big Bang (and possibly "The Big Crunch"). An awful lot of scientific terminology displays a vein of humour, even poetry.

And artists; you surely can't actually create anything in the real world without learning something about it. Good novelists display some sound insights into psychology; musicians exploit the laws of Physics; artists have an intimate knowledge of the properties of whatever medium they work with. The fact that it may not be possible to express this knowledge in words or mathematical formulae doesn't make it any less valid.

As for me, I'm not at all certain which side of the Great Divide I'm supposed to be on anyway. I'm an engineer, an uncomfortable, indeterminate species which is neither artist nor scientist — and is usually held in equal contempt by both. The human mind likes to think in dichotomies; yin and yang, male and female, scientist and artist. People who are neither one nor t'other provoke at best confusion and at worst hostility. I welcome the formation of a group dedicated to disentangling the confusion, diffusing the hostility and generally working to produce a personality which is — apologies to Kipling — "A kind of a giddy harumfrodite — artist an' scientist too!"
 

Speaking as an artist, I agree with Sue's assertion that artistic skill is not inferior to scientific, but I doubt if we can seriously claim equal relevance or importance.  COMMENTS PLEASE! BIG ED.

Music is a fascinating form of art. It is all things to all people. For example, a single phrase can invoke memories that knew both joy and sadness. At times with such emphasis that faces long since forgotten appear as fresh and clear as though time itself was of little consequence. Music is the battle hymn of war, yet in the midst of oppression it will restore an undeniable spirit of hope. It participates in demonstrating our view of the world and also our relationships. Further, we are both lion and antelope to its effect.

The mechanics involved in making music are quite simple. It's a question of finding a constant or set of constants that can be manipulated. Striking an open guitar string produces a fundamental note. Pressing further along the fingerboard produces a higher note. This is the string vibrating faster. Within the octave I sounded the fourth and fifth notes and in so doing increased proportionately the wave frequency. I knew from years of mediocre musicianship the inverse harmony and thus expressed not only a harmony but two equations. I sought the help of a grown-up.

Well, I discovered what many had known for years. Goethe was right. The nature of music is a predictable arithmetic progression and that tonal values are calculable. I don't want to dwell on actual formulae but only wish to illustrate that ultimately melody may be seen as a geometric design. This rapprochement indicates how sound may be seen as a symbol for a law of natural order. If we applied this statement to the shape of an article, I propose its shape becomes more pleasing as we approach what would be audibly more melodic. In short, sound is definable and instrumental in the transition of temporal patterns into spatial and geometric form. The pleasure we encounter in admiring anything is to employ our rapport with this natural law. Film stars, for example, fulfill our overall expectation of how we 'sees these images. Whilst we individually tailor certain areas, generally beauty is definable through the same geometric terms of reference. Our assessment of personality is no less instant than our visual perception. The pleasing 'shape' of charisma is subject to the same geometrical design. I think we must know this inwardly for in conversation we refer to 'good vibrations'; we know when something is 'sound'; we speak of being on the 'same wavelength'.

I could never come to terms with the idea of artificial intelligence. There was a time when I began to wonder what the phrase really meant. Was the final working model going to emulate the human brain. On the face of it computers are superior in the speed and accuracy at which they process information. They also have a better memory. I mean, whoever heard of a computer with amnesia! They are also not given to emotional decisions. By that I refer to extraneous influences. In fact, it's difficult to imagine them displaying experience or creativity beyond the parameters of their program. This point brings me to something else which I call "The Law of Two".

Now it's really interesting how language has developed from presumably a few grunts to the articulate communication we enjoy today. In conversation there is a clue to how we think, even the mechanics involved. I don't want to get tangled up in the organic matrices of pre and post synaptic exchanges, instead let's settle for the effect. We seem to rationalize in basic steps of right or
wrong; left and right; plus or minus; positive and negative, etceteras. I found about fifty phrases of this kind, most of which are in common use. I don't think it unfair to summarize this particular feature as a series of yes and no gates. To go a stage further, we think in binary. This admirably suits my ideal. If awareness is an involuntary and direct result of mate knowledge, do we extend our potential by an intentional symbiotic relationship with a complex array of Universal wave forms. Instinct, for example, rather than being a residual effect of evolutionary development, is part of this knowledge, part of the way we express our intelligence. By the same token, those lesser creatures we refer to as animals share a common potential. Consider the manner in which the bower bird attracts, courts, and dwells. Not dissimilar to its human counterpart. Dolphins demonstrate their creativity in the same way as a choreographer displays a dance routine. All creatures are good at being themselves. Man is no different. Undoubtedly superior but not necessarily a superior being. Which brings me back to the computer.

Will it evolve to a point approaching awareness. If the Law of Two is fact rather than fancy, will it follow a development where its ability to follow its own neuronic lines of 'thought' lead it to a philosophical question of why it Is?

If so, may we expect it to 'see' Man as its Divine Creator simply because its intellectual potential cannot accept its Being more than a computer. Will it arrogantly attribute a metaphysical state to Consciousness because the reality is unacceptable. The decision doesn't have to be emotional, merely subjective logic.

My concluding remarks refer to the role of the artist and scientist who I think treat parallel paths. The artist who discovers and expresses the nature of things. Who shares real Truth and in so doing expands the horizon and vision for those who care to open their eyes. I'm sure I'm correct in saying that every nation that achieved any greatness was primarily subject to a great aesthetic awareness. As though the awakening itself was the precursory agent in the attainment of military or industrial might. Odd that long after the generals and the bankers are dead and largely forgotten the art form lives on.

The scientist also seeks real Truth. Perhaps even more so, for he demands proof. His byword is evidence and in establishing each tiny step he shares the road that leads Mankind out of darkness. It is no wonder that the politicians seek to corrupt science and the theologians choose to deny it.

So everyone is right. We all have an mate understanding and the only difference is how we express it. The sadness is in our blindness for it may be that we all have a potential for discovering every secret that Nature holds. That Nature is. Perhaps our eternal father is the unmotivated symmetry that is no more than existing and Man, of its constituent, no more than being, fulfilling laws that are the result of an event ignorant of consequence and servant to its own creation.

The model is still evolving and I'm still learning. I therefore make no apologies for failing to quantify the suppositions. Rarely a week goes by without some item of scientific evidence turning up to support the theory. In any event a million words could not describe or express the experience. The essence is in self discovery and the discovery of self.

Metaphysics is, of course, worthy of exploration in a science-art context. But what about the question of religion itself? (Does the Church make an effort to keep abreast of new scientific ideas and study their implications as regards religious belief?) COMMENTS PLEASE        BIG ED.
 

My paintings, though derived from electronic devices, are not an attempt to produce a photographic image of them. A work is rarely based on a single device, but is a fusion of many forms. Over the years I have developed a visual language which is based on electronic forms. There are a number of reasons for my choice of subject matter.

First, I believe these shapes are representative of our age; secondly, in painting they provide me with a visual median between representation and abstraction and, thirdly, they allow me to investigate the relationship between man and machine.

I am currently working towards two one-man exhibitions this spring. One is with Siemens in West Germany; the other is for the Science Festival in Edinburgh. For the latter I am collaborating with the poet Ewan McVicar and the composer John Maxwell
Geddes on interdisciplinary pieces.
 

I don't know whether I'm an art—orientated scientist or a science—orientated artist, but I am very interested in becoming involved in such an interdisciplinary movement.

I am an environmental physical science graduate. I have worked five years as a geophysicist and I now work for an engineering society.

A few years ago I became interested in mime, physical theatre and performance art and studied mime and movement at the City Lit, in London for two years part-time. During this time I began to look for ways of mixing mime with science — I wrote a four minute solo piece trying to illustrate Einstein's special theory of relativity (as I understood it).

I helped start a semi-professional mime company called 'Fourteen Paces Mime Theatre' that had a moderate amount of success (received to GLA awards, performed at Shaw Theatre and Battersea Arts Theatre as well as many smaller theatres and festivals).

Presently, I am working with a fellow mime artist, writing and touring shows to children on aspects of science and engineering, with the intention of teaching and promoting science and engineering. We intend to expand our material to appeal to a wider adult audience.

I also enjoy contemporary art (my present full time job is in Westminster so I am able to make regular visits to the Tate). I design and make my own masks and have ideas about doing Duchamp—like things with new technology. I also feel strongly that art should be temporary so that it cannot be bought or sold.
 
 

Several other members of the I.A.G. are involved in the performing arts. Perhaps we could all collaborate on sane kind of show? ANY THOUGHTS? ———— BIG ED.
 

I did my first degree in Geography/Geology at Oxford with much unofficial pursuit of zoology, and followed it with research for four years or so on the form of the bedrock surface beneath the Antarctic ice sheet using geophysical and geomorphological techniques. In terms of education, therefore, I suppose I am a natural scientist (I suffered from the shunting away of intelligent children from ''at school).

I taught geography for just over three years after the research grant dried up and then felt that I had enough, just about, finance behind me to give up work —by philosophy, by inclination, by psyche even, I am, and always have been, an artist. Hence I now sit — in a bed-sit, painting. I came here two and a half years ago to shift the landscape — natural history representational artwork I had always indulged in into something more serious — so that even one individual piece of work might contain as much intellectual content, as much imaginative and visual stimulation as the whole of a PhD thesis (he says, grandiosely)
 

I had my first exhibition of paintings with various literary sources (Beckett/ Sonnevi) at the National Poetry Centre a year after arriving. Work since has pursued the literary connections to an extent — including my own novel as a source. The latter has absorbed more energy than painting in the last six months but I have a large canvas that has evolved alongside just completed. The work is mostly abstract in oils, but with heads and also constructions — I am interested in relationships within space, of these with time (I reject the latter), and in those between internal imaginative states and external action — how the various arts — literary, dramatic, visual, are used to complement, illustrate, and as comfort in times of bewilderment)
 

(1) PHYSICAL EFFORT RECORDED IN ART WORK

During the sixties I was interested in the record of movement and effort created in rough stone blocks by the marks made by a cold chisel as it was hammered into the surface of the material at different angles and with different degrees of force.

From this I moved on to the examination of the forces of impact when two stones were hammered together — the rock fragments were left where they fell.

I recorded gestures and movements in slabs of plasticine or trays of wet sand. Folded wire netting was also found to be an ideal medium for recording violent or convulsive action. It could be compressed, pulled about and twisted with satisfying ease.
On a smaller scale, thin wire work, recording a single movement (twist) or complex movement (knot) were experimented with.
Later I became interested in how metals reacted to different forces in different ways. Sheets made from aluminum alloys were pushed, pulled, cut and manipulated with various tools.

I then started bolting odd bits of metal together, the bolted portions forming fulcrums, from which the metal structure could be opened out.

During the seventies I began to haphazardly drill, saw, plane and chisel wooden panels — the panels could be further modified with paint, casually applied.

Sheets of plastic also proved useful. And could be attacked with a red hot iron rod.
 

(2) TRANSDUCERS ETC..

I have always been fascinated by machines and mechanical movement. I constructed purposeless machines during the sixties and seventies.

I also liked to construct devices which would respond to the natural environment in unusual ways — I built windmills in pipes and metal flags.

I experimented with aimless electronic circuitry. It is immensely exciting when one flicks a switch and the circuit "works".

I built working sculptures from plastic model parts, toy bricks, and meccano. I modified toys.

Coloured inks were agitated in bottles of water and in an aquarium. Jets of water were directed at cloth and wood strips.

Ping pong balls marking intersections of light wire constructions, were positioned where they had to be touched.

Strips of flexible plastic on wooden battens were secured in various ways, in respect of wind direction. Sails were made and experimented with.
 

(3)  CREATION AND DECAY

I have been interested in the past in building sculptures from cardboard boxes and packaging. These were left in situ.

Pencil marks were made on small pieces of primed wood which were subsequently nailed to fence posts and other places exposed to the elements. Paintings on paper using fugitive materials were stuck in windows.

Sods of earth and cut turf were used to make simple arrangements. Decaying vegetation, manure and compost were piled up and sculpted. They were often left in place over the seasons.

Dead leaves were collected and scattered.
 

(1) Crystal formations, contortions of rock strata, sandstone pigmentation, petrification, creation of stalactites and stalagmites, glaciation effects, weathering of rock outcrops, fossil forms, etc. — ALL OF INTEREST IN A SCIENCE—ART FUSION CONTEXT?

(2) Model engineering, plastic kit modelling, model railways, wargaming, etc. —ALSO WORTH EXPLORING?

(3) Plant and animal forms equally relevant? HORTICULTURE IS SCIENCE—ART FUSION: — BIG ED.
 

Colour is what interests me most; the extraordinarily expressive effects of Bonnard's juxtapositions of colour, for instance, or the atmosphere suggested by the use of colour in Indian miniature painting.

I have always disliked the moment of having to make a choice in art; both the act of choosing and the result have usually seemed banal.

Instead of choosing, I have been setting down colours and juxtapositions of colours which were dictated by chance. In one watercolour series, for example, I picked six colours at random, and placed them at random (using dice) in the squares of a grid. A fairly boring sheet of paper was the result.

Following John Cage's advice ('If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it's not boring at all, but very interesting.'), I repeated the procedure on a second sheet of paper, but this time overpainted the squares a second time, with the same six colours, again placed at random. New colours now emerged and the whole sheet had a quite different character.

I went on, producing sheets with three layers, four, right up to six. Very peculiar colours emerged along the way, and very peculiar juxtapositions, far more exciting than any I could have invented. The series as a whole has a character I had not foreseen, and what I have found most interesting and rewarding is that I can see things in it which do not seem to have been put there my me but to have come into being in some sense of their own accord. The outcome of all this was, it seemed to me, something not banal but a serious piece of work.

Sheila is also interested in Yoga and Zen and the bearing they have on art.
DOES ANYONE SHARE HER INTERESTS? BIG ED.
 

An issue I am very interested in is world energy. I feel that the continuous flow and interchange of energy, allowing the world to exist, is being ignored. People seem to be destroying this planet needlessly, by trying to tap sources of energy that resist disruption and are difficult to harness. There must be some way we can just stand in the flow of energy and allow it to work for us, rather than force it to change direction. Wind power, wave power, etc., seem to be obvious answers, but I think there is so many possibilities which have been left untouched, e.g. the simple energy in the magnetic field around the earth.  Perhaps if people could be persuaded of the futility of worrying about profit and costs and realise that peace and harmony is a way to happiness and well being there may be something worth trying.