2nd International Conference GENERATIVE ART 1999

2^nd International Conference GENERATIVE ART 1999

Milano, 30 november-3 december, 1999

AMBIGUITY IN ART AND SCIENCE

Giuseppe Caglioti

Dipartimento Ingegneria Nucleare

Politecnico di Milano

E-Mail: Giuseppe.Caglioti@polimi.it

Ambiguity is hardly a failure of rationality, it is a place where art and science can meet and talk

Roald Hoffmann, 1997

Ambiguity can be defined as the coexistence and/or coalescence of two incompatible aspects in the same reality.

Ambiguity manifests itself

in pathologic processes occurring in matter, e.g. at the critical state of the solid ¬ ® liquid phase transformation.

during the process of measurement of quantum structures: a process formally very similar to the process of perception.

Systematically, in our mind, during the process of perception - especially during visual perception of paintings or acoustic perception of music.

Therefore ambiguity is an intrinsic feature of the process of perception and an intriguing step in the way toward the formation of thought. Ambiguity is continuosly experienced in our mind: every act of perception culminates into the critical state of a dynamic instability of the interiorized image, where the incoherent heap of sensory stimuli merges into coherent visual or auditive thinking.

In turn, since perception is essential for life, we should look at ambiguity not so much as to a fastidious travel companion, but rather as to a fixed course toward perception itself, scientific thought and aesthetic emotion: ambiguity is a permanent cultural value.

References

G. Caglioti The Dynamics of Ambiguity, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1992 (also available in the Italian (CittàStudi 1992, 2-nd edition, Simmetrie infrante nella scienza e nell'arte), German (Wieveg 1990), Japanese (Kodansha 1997) and Russian (MIR 1998) editions)

G. Caglioti From perception to thought, in Katachi È Symmetry, Springer-Verlag, Tokyo 1995

Giuseppe Caglioti, Eidos e Psiche: struttura della materia e dinamica dell’immagine, Ilisso, Nuoro, 1995

Giuseppe Caglioti e Tatiana Tchouvileva, Alle radici dell’estetica, in Una rotta verso il terzo millennio, L’uomo, i limiti e le speranze, a cura di Giulio Giorello e Elio Sindoni, Piemme, Casale Monferrato, pag 68-81, 1995

Hermann Haken, Synergetics. An Introduction. 2-nd Edition, Springer-Verlag, 1983

G. Caglioti, Casanova e la scienza, Moretti & Vitali, Bergamo, 199