Authors:

 Rajah, Niranjan

Title:

 The Representations of a New Cosmology: Digital Technology and the Integration of Epistemologies

Keywords:

 representation, cosmology, reality, technology, epistemology
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Abstract:

 Beginning with the inspired application of the computer's facility for numerical manipulation to expedite verbal 'processing', all categories of representation have ceded to the digital domain. As what were previously separate analog mediums are now converging into one digital multimedia platform, the idioms of artistic and scientific representation are merging. Indeed, it can be argued that by virtue of technology, we are at the dawn of a new integration of scientific and artistic epistemologies.

In fact, before the Renaissance, the role of the artist was to articulate the expressions of a symbolic order, a cosmology, derived from scripture or tradition. Be it in Islamic geometry or Hindu sculpture or Gothic architecture, there was no separation of technology from art nor art from science. Indeed, sacred art is a technology or 'calculus' with which to transcribe universal truths. Like science, this art generates and articulates symbols for the underlying realities of our existence. Indeed, it can be said that sacred art addresses 'first causes', while scientific representation deals with the 'mediate causes' of the same events.

With the Renaissance in Europe, however, concerns with the personal and the particular displaced the spiritual unity of the Medieval world. There was a disengagement of the sacred from the natural world and empirical knowledge was born. It was from here that art went on to be concerned solely with objects of aesthetic contemplation while science, to describe the bare facts of the world. Nevertheless, at this point of bifurcation, be it in optics, anatomy or engineering art and science were united in their empiricism.

This paper examines the history of this relationship between Science and Art in terms of their modes of representation. It goes on to investigate if the integrative, immersive and 'a priori' nature of the representations enabled by today's technologies - Internet, hypermedia, virtual reality, etc. might lead to a departure from the obsession with crude empirical facts and engender a rapprochement of artistic and scientific knowledge in the new millenium.
Rajah, Niranjan niranjan@faca.unimas.my Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, http//www.kunstseiten.de/installation/ http//www.hgb-leipzig.de/waterfall/ Niranjan Rajah is an Art Historian, Cultural Theorist and an Internet artist. He heads the Critical Studies Department at the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak He has served on the Malaysian National Art Gallery's Planning and Acquisitions Committee (1996-97) and has curated national and international exhibitions, including Malaysia's '1st Electronic Art Show' (National Art Gallery, 1997). He was on the Programme Committee for the 'Ninth International Symposium on Electronic Art' (Liverpool/Manchester, 1998) and will be chairing a Session titled 'Art in an Age of Borderless Instantaneous Transactions: A Critique' at the Annual Conference of the College Arts Association (Los Angeles, 1999). He is co-curating the Malaysian section for the '1st Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial' (Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, 1999). Niranjan is concerned with the relationship between Traditional Metaphysics and Digital Technology. His writings have been published extensively, including 'Sacred Pictures Secular Frames' in the 'ART-Asia Pacific Journal' (1998), 'Prosthetics for the Mind' in the 'Digital Creativity Journal' (1998) and 'From the Control of Content to the End of Art' in the Internet Societies 'On the Internet' (1998) magazine. He is currently working with traditional and digital artists in India to develop sacred Hindu architecture and Sculpture in an on-line/virtual reality/video conferencing mode. He is also developing the use of Hyper-media and the Internet as a medium for the integration of creative and critical productions. Please visit 'La folie de la Peinture' (1996) at http//www.kunstseiten.de/installation/and 'The Failure of Marcel Duchamp/ Japanese Fetish Even!' (1996) at http//www.hgb-leipzig.de/waterfall/