Crossing Over Where Art and Science Meet
Contributors: Rosamond Purcell (Photographer)
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Published: November 14, 2000
Language: eng
Number of pages: 159
ISBN-13: 9780609805862
Description: This work, the third collaboration between scholar Stephen Jay Gould and artist Rosamond Wolff Purcell, brings together thought-provoking essays and photographs to disprove the popular notion that art and science exist in an antagonistic relationship. The essays and photographs collected here present art and science in conversation, rather than in opposition. As Gould writes in his preface, although the two disciplines may usually communicate in different dialects, when juxtaposed they strikingly reflect upon and enhance one another. Working together, Purcell's photographs and Gould's scientific musings speak to us about ourselves and our world in a hybrid language richer than either could command on its own. In an essay on individuality, for instance, Gould looks through the lens of evolutionary theory to address the controversial issue of cloning and the often misguided fears it evokes. As a society that exalts the concept of the individual, Gould argues, we sometimes fail to recognize that clones walk among us. Identical twins represent "the greatest of all challenges to our concept of individuality." Rosamond Purcell's photograph depicting the famous Siamese conjoined twins Eng and Chang conveys an eerie feeling that cannot be captured in words.