Ghost in a Crinoline

Cirenaica Moreira From the series Metalica: La Industrial, Lavanderia Habana Gelatin silver print, 1998

This image has inspired me to write a short story.

Defining Creativity and Rationality.

There is a really persistent underlying discourse in the English language and culture: duality. Everything is black and white, male and female, tall and small, right or wrong, good or evil. One of the assumptions about real science is that there is very little creativity involved. Science is logical, rational and ‘cold’. I hold a Bachelor of Science AND a Bachelor of Arts, and I can tell you that nothing is further from the truth.

Human beings tend to prefer simple over complex, and science is neither ‘cold’ nor is it solely rational. A scientist is not the opposite of an artist. A scientist follows the stream of science that interests them. They are certainly not unemotional when they are in the ‘my work requires funding’ stage of their career (stressed would be one of the words I would use instead). In Australia, most scientist aren’t that well paid, and generally work for love (like writers and artists) rather than fame and fortune.

I love this website and can recommend it highly.

By buying into the discourse that science is rational and cold as opposed to art being warm and creative, two stereotypes are perpetrated. Being an artist takes a lot of training and thinking and expensive equipment as well as talent … as does being a scientist. Passion is something of an over-used cliché these days, but both art and science take real passion. As a writer and a scientist, the conflicting stereotypes would indicate that I have a split personality, rather than mad fangirl that I am in reality.

The perceived opposition of science and art is as fake as the culturally perceived duality of night and day, and is lazy writing. A day can be broken down into morning and afternoon, and what about sunset,sunrise and twilight and a dozen other ways of describing the zeitgeist of a moment. Don’t fall into the trap.