Technology and Art:
Hubris, Habitus and the Hybrid Imagination
1. The View from History
Andrew Jamison
Reading matter:
Today:
Introduction and chapters 1-3
Tomorrow:
Chapters 4-6
The problem:
”When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact that modern
man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit which stands in
glaring contrast to his scientific and technological abundance.
We’ve learned to fly the air like birds, we’ve learned to swim the seas
like fish, but we haven’t learned to walk the earth like brothers and
sisters.”
Martin Luther King, Jr
An Underlying Tension: Hubris...
Hubris (overmod): ”impious disregard of the limits
governing human action in an orderly universe. It is
the sin to which the great and gifted are most
susceptible, and in Greek tragedy it is usually the
hero's tragic flaw.”
Encyclopedia Britannica
...and Habitus
Habitus: ”...a set of dispositions which generates
practices and perceptions. The habitus is the
result of a long process of inculcation, beginning
in early childhood, which becomes a ’second
sense’ or a second nature.”
Randal Johnson on Pierre Bourdieu,
introduction in The Field of Cultural Production
...versus Hybrids
Hybrids: ”...offspring of parents that differ in genetically
determined traits”
Encyclopedia Britannica
or, more colorfully:
”By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time,
we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids
of machine and organism...”
Donna Haraway, ”A manifesto for cyborgs”
The Hybrid Imagination

At the macro, or discursive level
–

At the meso, or institutional level
–

making connections, integrating concepts
creating contexts of mediation, hybrid forums
At the micro, or practical/personal level
–
forging hybrid competencies and identities
Hubris in
History

The myths of Icarus and Prometheus

The scientific revolution: ”New Atlantis”

Industrialization: ”Prometheus Unbound”

Atomic energy: ”Science - The Endless Frontier”

The arms race and the Apollo Mission
Hybrids in
History

Medieval monks: artificial people

The ”renaissance men”: artists-engineers

Experimental philosophers: scholar-craftsmen

Professional engineers: theoretical technicians

Environmentalists: scientist-activists
Artistic Appropriations of Technology
Market-oriented, commercial, ”machine-made”:
art for the masses, low-brow, vulgar (hubris)
Artisan, exclusive, traditional, ”man-made”:
art for art’s sake, high-brow, luxurious (habitus)
Hybrid, synthetic, intermediate, ”co-constructed”:
popular art, making the mundane meaningful
Different Ideas of Beauty
The beauty of commerce:
attractive, appealing, desirable. exciting, ”cool”
The beauty of the artist:
elegant, sublime, authentic, classical, ”fine”
The beauty of the hybrid imagination:
functional, useful, tasteful, appropriate, ”neat”
A Brief History of Science

Ancient, or Traditional science, up to about 1600
–
–


philosophical, spritual knowledge, distinctive regional modes
gap between theory (episteme) and practice (techne)
Modern, or Western science, from about 1600 to 1970
–
instrumental, rational, universal knowledge
–
functional differentiation of theory and practice
Global, or Technoscience, from about 1970
–
–
situated, pluralist notion of knowledge: sciences
combinations of theory and practice
The Making of Modern Science
From the Reformation…
to the “scientific revolution”
reform of society
reform of philosophy
visionary, utopian
realistic, pragmatic
decentralized organization
(central) academy
technical improvements
scientific development
informal communication
formal publication
The Scientific Reformation as Cultural
Appropriation
At the discursive level
a discourse of ”useful knowledge”
a language of mathematics and mechanics
At the institutional level
academies of science
professional norms and quality standards
At the level of practice
hybrid identities
routines for technical applications
procedures for experimentation
At the discursive level...
Francis Bacon,
statesman-philosopher:
”Human knowledge and human
power meet in one; for where
the cause is not known the
effect cannot be produced.
Nature to be commanded must
be obeyed...”
At the institutional level...
Gresham College in London,
where the Royal Society first
met in 1660 – and where the
first scientific ”journal” was
published in 1666
At the practical level:
an experimental way of life
From Robert Boyle´s
air pump...
...to Benjamin Franklin flying kites and looking
for electricity in the age of Enlightenment
Some cultural factors…

A supernatural God, religion of the book

Monasticism and labor discipline

Regulation of time and space

Urbanization, cathedrals, and universities

The ”Protestant Ethic” (Weber)
Some economic factors

Agricultural improvements, food surplus

Interurban trade and competition

Mercantile expansion and exploration

The Asian connection (compass, windmills)

Invention of printing
Modern Science as Hubris

positivism, or scientific rationalism:
–

scientism, or (logical) empiricism:
–

science as a new (secular) religion
science as superior to all other ways of knowing
universalism, or cultural imperialism:
–
Western science as valid everywhere
Hybrid Identities 1

The Renaissance Men: Leonardo and co.

Artists and engineers in combination

Inspired by magic and humanism

Emphasis on describing and imagining
Leonardo da Vinci:
The artist-engineer
Hybrid Identities 2

The scholar-craftsmen

Paracelsus, Agricola,Tycho Brahe

Inspired by ”Protestant Ethic”

Emphasis on observation and work-practice
Tycho Brahe:
The scholarcraftsman
Hybrid Identities 3

The natural philosophers

Galileo, Huygens, Newton

Inspired by mathematics and machines

Emphasis on instruments and experiments
Galileo and his telescope
Artistic Appropriations of
Modern Science

The market-oriented – turning the vision
into a new technical reality

The artisan – reaffirming traditional ideals

The hybrid – developing new kinds of art
A
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The market-oriented approach
Agostino Ramelli, 1588
Robert Hooke, 1665
The artisan:
Peter Paul Rubens
(1577-1640)
Prometheus Bound,
1610-11
The Fall of Icarus, 1636
Diego Valázquez
Las Meninas, 1656
...and onto a new kind of art
Rembrandt van Rijn,
1606-69
Johannes Vermeer
1632-1675
Jacob von Rusdael, 1660
...and then came Industrialization

A political and economic revolution
–

A process of social change
–

from agriculture to industry: mechanization
from the country to the cities: urbanization
Cultural, or human transformations
–
from community to society: modernization
A new kind of technological development...
Joseph Wright, 1760
...and a new kind of society
from a painting by William Wyld(e), ca 1840
...and a new kind of hybrid art:
the machine in the garden
George Inness, 1851
George Inness, 1851