science art

There is a genre of art that lives on the walls of universities and biomedical institutions. it is mostly comprised of varying-resolution microscopy images or 3-D models of proteins. some of them are quite lovely, and there is something to be said for the notion that art and science are interlinked - each relies on specialized craft and the ability to look at the world beyond preconception, and both create some beautiful things. 

however, this artistic tradition has long rubbed me the wrong way, because the science of the present day, in the center of the American empire, is neither artistic nor objective. yes, it has created knowledge that has vastly improved human well-being. it has also allowed for those beneficial technologies to be privatized, and has produced technologies of control, surveillance, and warfare amid gutted social services and endless imperial violence. that "science art" lacks any critical edge, carefully avoids critiquing the institutions they are under the auspices of. it bums me the fuck out. but then, i'm notoriously hard to please.

sometime last year, i came across an old interview with Joseph Weizenbaum in MIT's paper The Tech, "Weizenbaum examines computers and society". Weizenbaum was a computer scientist and critic of the role of technology and the military. it's a good interview, and shaped a lot of my thinking about the current direction of neuroscience research and how it has been indelibly shaped by the new methods made available by powerful computing technology, and whose interests the research project is shaped around. i think it is neuroscience's saving grace that we do not know how the brain works at a level that would allow us to be of much use to either tech or DARPA. I do not know how long that reprieve will last, but i do think we can do plenty of harm in the interim.