interestingengineering.com: Is it art or engineering? What about both?
That’s what students at Florida State University ask themselves each day in Mechatronic Art II. The course looks to combine the artsy with the ergonomic, the interesting with the innovative. It takes students from different disciplines and forces them to collaborate to craft new solutions.
9 comments:
This class seems very cool. I know that at CMU there have been multiple classes/events put into place to combine the arts and the sciences (we have a whole bridge dedicated to physically/metaphorically connecting Purnell and Gates), but none, as far as I’ve seen, as clear-cut as this class is. As much as we’ve discussed in class about multiple intelligences/ different kinds of talents (right vs. left brained, artistic vs. mathematical, etc), I think that the conclusion we’ve always seemed to come to is that we as people are inherently complex and can’t be put into one box of knowledge vs. another. That being said, I think it’s very important for us as students to be exposed to people outside of our major/ interests, not only to collaborate on awesome projects such as this time odyssey but to expand our minds to what else is in the world. It is always very humbling to hear about what the science and engineering majors are working on since it reminds me that our “big” artistic problems aren’t the end of the world. I think that theater is a very strong example of the good that can come out of the integration of many kinds of minds.
I love to see more universities tie together the arts and sciences. CMU is starting to do this with IDeATe, and while I have not had the chance to take any of their classes, I really appreciate what they are doing. Coming from a background of art and science, trying to find a university that allowed its students to take classes in both disciplines was actually really hard and a major reason why I chose CMU. I don’t know why so many universities are trying so hard to keep each major separate from the other when places like Florida State University and CMU have proven how interesting and amazing the collaboration of engineering and art can be. I find it interesting though how focused this course at FSU is. They brought the two types of students together and gave them (what seems like) only one project for the whole class. I hope the introduction of this class leads to many more and develops into a whole subset of both departments at FSU and doesn’t stop at this one course.
I think this class sounds like a really good idea. Collaboration between different disciplines in general and engineering and art in specific leads to amazing outcomes and tends to push everyone’s ideas further. Like Monica said, this is something that CMU is starting to do, but I think they need to go further. Right now we have IDeATE and CMU is doing a decent job of trying to integrate art and science more. But it’s still very easy to put your head down and ignore other disciplines, even in projects when you’re supposed to be collaborating with them its all to easy to look at things as being their problem and not having any impact on how your piece works. Aside from training people out of that mindset increased collaboration between art and science would probably lead to better collaboration within those disciplines. Once you’ve spent a term or two working with people whose thought process and ideas are totally different to yours and the people around you once you go back to the environment you’re used to you’ll be able to bring in fresh ideas.
If I can describe my feelings toward this article with an emote it would be “ :/ ”. For me, these kind of interdisciplinary classes have a much higher bar to pass before I am impressed with them. The pictures of what their final product turned out to be something that I think neither engineers or artists would be happy with. Shitty 2x4 is shitty. Interdisciplinaity is a laudable goal, but I still be believe can only achieved by having a depth of knowledge in both subjects that cannot be attained with a survey course, where undergraduate students from the other department are my only source of learning. If this courses purpose is to get artists and engineers to be interested in each other disciplines enough to actually put in the effort to become a student of both fields, then it may be successful, but I would not hope for more than that.
If you take just a little time to ponder the relationship between engineering and art, it is not hard to find a connection that can be seen as essential to both. each discipline is creative in their own ways and so it is interesting to see what happens when you bring them together. I think that this class sounds awesome. I liked how the article talked about what the course aimed to accomplish and a little about how the class fulfilled the open expectations of finding new ways to inspire and learn from each other, but I wish the article included some student observations on how they learned working with each other. This article reminded me a lot about the process of making theatre. these designers create awesome worlds in their head and the technical directors try to make those worlds reality. Overall, I think that this class was very effective at bringing these to aspects together, but also reminded me that theatre is doing this everyday and we should be proud of that.
What I think is possibly the most valuable feature of this course - although I can only hypothesize because I obviously cannot take it - is the potential for students of different disciplines to learn from each other by working together. Not only does their knowledge grow from their professor's teachings and wisdom and their efforts to apply their non-discipline with that which they study - the students also gain an incredible amount of knowledge from working so closely with those who see the world so differently from how they do. One could argue that this learning would apply to most any cross-disciplinary collaboration, but the stigma of contrast behind art and engineering in particular adds a specific and charged sense of contrast which in my opinion would only contribute to the learning of both. I would be curious to see this educational method applied to target the contrast between students in music and business, design and psychology, acting and economics. Perhaps there is something to be gained in CMU's classrooms by recognizing the potential when we work with those who live in such different cognitive worlds than we do.
This sounds like a fascinating course. Often art students and science students are too separate. It can feel almost as if there is a language barrier between the arts and sciences because each discipline has its own vernacular. We need to bring the arts and sciences togethers because they enhance each other. One of the reasons that I really liked CMU when I was looking at schools was that it had both arts and sciences. Especially in theater, but in all types of art, we need to make sure that the art is accessible to everyone. People who don’t consider themselves artists should be interested and engaged in artistic works. Art need to be able to reach everyone, not just artist and having science students on campus allows us to engage them into our work and allows them to give us insight into their work. Collaboration leads to better ideas, especially between disciplines. I hope to see one of the next great ideas from the students in this Mechatronic class.
The combination of engineering and artistic practices in a process of creation is one of the most important endeavors. When creating “things” for people to use, there is a certain art that goes along with the inherent engineering. This factor sets apart the great from the good, and creates products and experiences that really allow people to get the most out of their use. I think a lot of times when we think about combining arts and sciences (such as here at CMU) we jump to two things: how we can use new technology to make art, or how we can use art to represent/interpret scientific concepts or data. But those aren’t the only options. I think this course does a good job at looking at the third and most important combination of arts and engineering – how they can both inform each other in a creative and technical process of development. A collaborative approach allows a more mutual relationship: in developing a product, the engineer may begin to ask what it does, while the artist may ask what it says. The engineer may then consider how it says this, while the artist would consider how it does what it does and what this means to the user. And so on. A true give and take where both parties are engaged in the technical and creative processes, informing one-another throughout. I think including such courses and opportunities in our education is paramount to producing the technical and creative thinkers of tomorrow.
This reminds me of an article I read that spoke about companies searching for a new workforce. Essentially, they were tired of hiring closed minded engineers to think inside the box, but artists were creatively qualified but couldn't fulfill all the needs they had technically. A lot of these new startups are looking for a perfect balance of both. To me this class would be extremely beneficial to scenic designers and technical directors or costume designers and costume builders etc. because bridging that gap between ideas and execution is a very specific interdisciplinary skill. I can also see how freshman year is like that. I am not an artist and I came in with technical direction as my intended concentration, but I love that I am experiencing some of the artistic process to better understand how designers work.
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