Though my dad is big news in scienceland, I'll have to come clean and answer all those who wonder—no, it's not genetic. I was pretty poor at science throughout school (at the expense of being preturnaturally good at coming up with punny essay titles instead), but my affection for all things scientific runs deep, counter to my aptitude. (Nurture instead of nature, I guess.)
So, to me, any attempts to deliver science through mediums I understand far better, like, say, art or entertainment, are always quite welcome. Last night at Harbourfront Centre here in Toronto, I was happy to attend "Teaching Tech: Performance Lectures on art and Science by Amos Latteier and Susan Bustos".
Mr. Latteier gave a persuasive talk on ants and how ant functioning can be seen as an inspiration for human societies. His main thrust—besides simply delivering to the audience his fairly contagious enthusiasm for ants—was that it's impressive and mind-expanding to think about how much can be done by ants through organized physicality, whereas we tend to generally write them off as, well, ant-brained. Through the example of the ant, Latteier explained, we should be excited and motivated to participate in our world in a less mentally limited, perhaps more adventurously and trustingly physical manner. Perhaps we could even regurgitate meals for one another, who knows?
One subtext I drew from the lecture—a recurring theme for me within my thinking and pursuits—is that it often takes a change of perspective (in this case, comparing ourselves to ants) to allow us to see what limitations we put on ourselves and one another. By expanding our field of inspiration and appreciation to observe, and enjoy, the capabilities and possibilities of relationships, survival and social functions of ants, we can see that sometimes things we humans think of as elaborately complicated products of our superior intellect are perhaps more physical and innate. While biologists in particular would never undercut the amazement factor of nature and its physical imperatives, I think it's impressive and challenging that Latteier would address a largely artsy-literary crowd (I'm assuming—the event was at the Digifest media culture festival) with what was essentially an argument to look less towards the intellectual and more towards the physical for our inspiration, capability and change.
After the lecture, a bunch of people inspired by his lecture decided to build a human pyramid in the hallway, which I thought was beautiful and spontaneous and un-Torontonian and made me happy and proud. I went in and grabbed Mr. Latteier to show him and he couldn't have looked more delighted to see simple humans trying.
Ms. Bustos gave a presentation on, essentially, learning through practice, and how the act of attempting something can lead to all kinds of understanding even when you make mistakes or don't use pipe cleaner like your friend Liz suggested. Specifically, Susan talked about her attempts to physically model the protein she works on in her research by knitting an elaborate three-dimensional model of it, variously using yarn and wire to make something she could turn around in her hands, see from sensory angles rather than simply computer-rendered ones, and generally feel engaged with.
What ended up happening went beyond her simply modelling the protein (in fact, the final physical results were unsuccessful). Instead, Susan seemed to have entered an almost meditative level of understanding its construction by trying to replicate it herself through her own brute force and limited technologies. Simply by trying to emulate the structure of the protein itself she became involved in how the actual protein's structure is composed, temporally, in particles, in steps, in cells that build onto other cells like stockinette stitches slot into the Vs of each other. Her experiments led her towards a broader thinking about not only the subject of her work, but the subjects of learning and demonstration, and how process and failure can still reveal and engage and enlighten in ways that one might not expect.
(Now, Susan is also a good friend of mine and a member of my knitting group, so I do hope she can inject some fresh scientific theory into the sweater I've been making for three months.)
Both of these talks were really special, not just because they were interesting and funny and made me feel vaguely more educated about science, but because they used science as a leveraging tool to deliver a message to us about possibility and the capabilities of our minds and bodies to actively practice and play in the world—and as a promise to us that it is worth it.
