/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/EXHIBITION: Science Alone Cannot Suffice to Comprehend the World

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Julio Godoy

PARIS, Mar 13 2001 (IPS) - Spanish artist and educator María Novo calls into question the ability of the instruments of science to provide humanity with a grasp on the complexity of nature, in an exhibition at UNESCO headquarters in the French capital.

The exhibition suggests the possibility of humanity complementing scientific observation with the tools provided by art and philosophy, in order to come up with a more complete, and green vision of the universe.

The exhibition, which runs Mar. 6-20 in the foyer of the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) building in Paris, brings together philosophy, poetry, painting and science.

It takes visitors on a journey through nature, from the infinitesimal universe of the microcosm through the disturbing dialectic of the world’s chaotic order, to the incomprehensible eternity of space.

Under the title ‘Science, Art and the Environment’, Novo asks observers to be humble enough to accept their own limits, and generous enough to conceive of behaviour not born of the lame rationality of science, in order to conceive of collective attitudes coherent with the world. A new humanism, in short.

To illustrate, a poem from the exhibition: “To us/ life’s passers- by/ who wanted to understand life/ and, in the end,/ resigned ourselves to loving it.”

The exhibition forms part of UNESCO’s run-up to Rio-plus-10, the global summit on the environment slated for 2002 in South Africa to assess compliance with the Earth Charter and other agreements on the environment and biodiversity adopted at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit.

A seminar will also be held in Alicante, Spain next September as part of the ‘Science, Art and the Environment’ exhibition.

“Science’s outlook on nature is necessarily limited. The windows of the scientist only open on part of the landscape, and cannot encompass the entire universe,” Novo told IPS in Paris.

The artist, UNESCO’s head of environmental education, was referring to scientific observation, which she said was limited by the “narrowness” of the human being, whether as a direct observer or through instruments like microscopes or research in chemistry and physics.

Novo said that narrow vision, combined with the all-too-frequent arrogance of scientific researchers, had led to catastrophes. “We see it these days in Europe with the crisis in the food sector. Scientists made us believe it was possible to act against nature. So we turned herbivores like cows into cannibals by feeding them animal meal, with the results that we are all too familiar with.”

Something similar could occur with genetically modified organisms, to which traditional farmers are opposed, she warned.

Novo called on scientists to recover their lost humility and to recognise that ageold farming practices are often based on great wisdom, and are worthy of being taken into account.

Novo’s canvases and poems are accompanied in the exhibition by quotes from philosophers and poets who have reflected on science. The result is a sometimes humorous, always inspiring collage on the awakening consciousness of leading thinkers regarding their own cognitive limitations.

The quotes range from Socrates (“Human science has more to do with destroying errors than with uncovering truths”) and Max Weber (“Science works as a roadmap: it can tell you how to get from place to place, but it does not tell you where to go”) to Ludwig Wittgenstein (“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”) and Félix de Azúa (“… and paint it!”).

The exhibition can be seen as a hologram. Each detail, whether Novo’s paintings and poems or the quotations by philosophers, can be taken as the centre, from which the universe expands chaotically and systematically into the infinite.

That is the view of Luz Poso, a Spanish writer and member of the Galician Royal Academy, who wrote: “Order and disorder, chance and uncertainty, time and history are exciting themes with which science struggles. María Novo creates a world for them in her art.”

Novo has been working with UNESCO for 20 years as director of environmental education. She also heads the masters programme on the environment and development at the National University of Distance Teaching in Madrid.

She has written 13 books, including ‘Foundations for a Spanish Strategy on Environmental Education’, published by the National Institute for the Conservation of Nature, and she holds doctorate degrees in philosophy and education sciences.

Novo was a forerunner of “eco-art”, the meeting-point of the up to now parallel universes of science and art, the object of which is the conception of a new humanism that holds the environment in a central position.

Gustavo López Ospina, who is running the exhibition, believes the concept of “eco-art” provides a preview to the overarching tendencies to be followed by art, science and culture in the 21st century, which should entail “the elimination of real or imaginary frontiers, the mixing of races, cultures and forms of knowledge, the acceptance of unity in diversity.

“I hope science and art develop, as María Novo proposes, routes that will take them towards a final reunion, to a fruitful embrace in the joint production of knowledge.

“And I hope we will be able to take advantage of those new routes, in order to contribute to cleaning up the environment and mitigating the problems of ‘mis-development’,” said López Ospina.