There are those who believe the arts must evolve, to a greater degree, with science and technology in turn unifying our human senses within the work of art on a conscious and subconscious level. This will be accomplished by the direct collaboration between the artist, scientist, and technician, The foundations built by the great masters such as Richard Wagner, David Belasco, and Walter Gropius, and the recent developments in art and technology suggest that this unification will indeed take place.
The fine arts and their various spin-offs are slowly merging into an intermedia art form. The theater is the first known attempt at such a union. Its origins can be traced back to the religious ceremonies of ancient Greece, in the sixth century B.C. The theater grew out of the tragedies performed by the Athenians in honor of their god Dionysus. This led to the development of a more synthesized drama: combining elements of stage design, dramatic action, and spoken dialogue; along with the arts of dance, music, and poetry.
Theater eventually branched out to form the art of ballet and opera. The opera's first intermedia-composer was the German Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Dr. John V. Gilbert, an intermedia composer-director, wrote that Wagner ".,.felt from observation that the arts must inevitably merge." Gilbert looks upon this as an enormous challenge: "Such a viewpoint encourages the artist not to limit himself, but to say, 'I can do all of this."' Wagner "would begin to search for a form that incorporated all these ideas into one form. This is what Wagner called his Gesamtkllnstwetk, an all together work."
Ernest Newman, author of Wagner: As Man and Artist, reveals the poetry of Wagner's unified art: "Each of the dissevered arts longs for reunion with the others. 'Dance longs to pass over into tone [speech], there to find herself again and know herself; Tone in turn receives the marrowy frame of its structure from the rhythm of Dance."'
If Wagner were alive today in the midst of all this technology, he might have been a film producer and director, "conceiving the entire finished work, including the musical score and the editing!" He might have been the driving force behind the technological extravaganza of StarWars.
David Belasco was as innovative in the American theater as
Wagner was to the opera. Belasco was born in San Francisco on
July25, 1853. He made his acting debut at age eleven, "as
the young Duke of York in Richard III." In his later years,
he turned to directing where he accomplished his greatest work.
Belasco believes that the theater is "a composite of all
the arts; literature, music, the dance, painting, sculpture -
even architecture, for it is three-dimensional." He relies
heavily upon the principles of science: "Nothing is left
to chance.. .I count time and effort as nothing as against perfection
of detail."
Walter Gropius, a young German architect, was invited to take over the Art Academy and the Polytechnical School at Weimar. The first action he took in 1919 was to merge the two schools into one body; this went under the name Das Staatliche Bauhans. Their first manifesto ended with this declaration:" Let us form a new fraternity of artisans without the class-dividing arrogance that wished to erect a haughty wall between artisans and artists. Together let us desire, formulate, create the new edifice of the future, which will incorporate, in a single entity, architecture, sculpture, and painting..."
Gropius saw a need for teamwork in architecture as well as in the production of furniture and ceramics. The major goal of the Bauhaus school was "the unified work of art" in which there is no distinction between monumental and decorative arts."
However, all the advances in science and technology have given today's artist an advantage over the great masters. The invention of the camera, phonograph, and electronics, has made it possible for the individual artist to unite his or her work with other forms of expression.
Joseph Nicephore Niepce, a French inventor in 1826, produced the first photographic print. The camera is a technical process of recording a permanent image by the combined action of light and chemical processing. This technological revolution led to the development of the motion picture. This made it possible to transform a literary work into a permanent two-dimensional facsimile.
Thomas Edison, scientist and inventor, had a profound effect on the arts. His invention of the phonograph in 1877, made it possible to make a permanent recording of a musical composition. This made music available to a larger audience, especially those who were deprived due to income and location.
Electronics had an equally profound effect on the arts. Rock & Roll and fusion jazz are the products of this technology. Electric guitars and Moog synthesizers, amplifiers and public address systems, flangers and space echos are but a few of the tools used by musicians. The high volume amplification, traditional with Rock & Roll, creates -within the concert hall- a force field strong enough to stimulate a tactile experience. This force field can be intensified by the high amplification of low or subsonic frequencies.
Science and art are both striving to understand the fundamental truth in nature. There is art in science and science in art. There are scientific principles applied to the arts and moments of divine inspiration in scientific discoveries: the two "cultures" are inseparable in our society; they are as one body and spirit. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize recipient in Physics, feels that "Science has certain parallels with art. For one thing, there is the quest by scientists for beauty and for simplicity.... Scientists like artists, rely heavily on intuition. Very often I turn my back on the whole line of work because it just doesn't feel right to me, or I'll spend months developing a line of work because it has just the right feeling."
Environmental artists and NASA scientists, with their real-world simulators, are exploring parallel dimensions. Both strive to create functional environments that respond to human control. Simulators recreate the conditions found in flight and on other planets. Environmental art suggests the same, only with the intention of giving the participating audience an aesthetic experience. Stewart Kranze,, author of the welt-documented Science and Technology in the Arts, believes: "The simulator has achieved the image maker's long, long dream of creating a three-dimensional window into space, a window through which the illusion approximates reality." When the artist is given access to this kind of technology, the real-world simulator 'will take on a profound new meaning.
Aldous Huxley, in his Brave New World, sees the future -art as a multi-sensory art form. The citizens of his utopia experienced the art form with the feelies, smellies, audio, and visual. The only thing wrong with Huxley's art form is in its oversimplification. The sensory units were not used to expand the citizens' perception of reality, but rather, to take away from them the necessity to think. This is a society in which their every need is seen to by art, science, and technology:" And she would tell him about the lovely music that came out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the wall and the pictures that you could hear, and feel and smell, as well as see..."
We now have the technology that is necessary for the pure unification of art, science, and our human senses. The funding for this merging could come from The National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C., or state and local institutions.
Alwin Nikolais, a renowned choreographer-director, believes: "Man is no longer content to perceive his world through the sensory dominance of the eye and the ear.. .We want a total perception of our world. We're not content only to see or hear; we want to smell, we want to taste, we want to feel our whole relationship to environment, and world, so that we can decide through perceptions accumulated through all the senses what is the fact of the matter." Nikolais seeks an absolute freedom in his work "to regain some of the sensory vitalities inherent in our animalism, which civilization has dulled."
The environmental artists were the first to recognize the actual limitation of the fine arts, which stimulate only visual and audible sensations. Allan Kaprow, one of the founding fathers, wrote that the environments are a place where "One sees, sometimes listens, eats, drinks, or rearranges the elements..." He sees the spectator-participant at as a collage of "household objects" and "free with respect to media." Some environmental artists disagree with Kaprow's limitations, and rely heavily upon the arts and technology; some have gone as far as "sensual overkill" designed to affect the spectators' "subconscious and unconscious urges".
In the play The Governor's Lady, Belasco introduced a new concept into the theater:" On this occasion [in 1912] he actually reproduced on the stage.. .one of the famous Childs' Restaurants in New York, complete to the last detail. Even the invigorating smell of the Restaurant's celebrated pancakes could be sensed by the audience as they [the pancakes] were prepared on stage."
Chemists are now able to go even farther than Belasco, they can synthesize any conceivable fragrance or taste, and do so within the guidelines of The Food and Drug Administration. Joan Steen Wilentz, science writer for the well-researched book The Senses of Man states: "There are school smells and army smells, laboratory smells and church smells, all of which will evoke deep memories." the olfactory sense can aid the artist by its very nature, as Wilentz points out: "Smell can conjure up the past or quicken the present; it can nauseate or excite, repel or entice us." A well-chosen fragrance can add a separate dimension to the work of art; one that can draw from an individual, memories that are as unique as day is from night.
Harriet Laflarre, in an article for Cosmopolitan reveals that the movie industry had a good idea with their Smell-O-Rama, but not good enough. The problem wasn't getting the fragrance into the theater, but rather, removing it in time for the next scene: "Here's a John Wayne-type shoot-out and you smell gunsmoke. . and a minute later you're in the homestead kitchen trying to smell Dutch apple pie! But you're still smelling gunsmoke!"
This problem can be eliminated by placing the fragrance in a filter; the force from an air compressor 'will push out of the filter evaporated molecules of smell. When the filter is off; the actual source of smell is locked inside. The molecules that were placed in the atmosphere, in terms of intensity, will vanish within sixty seconds. This will make it possible to go from one fragrance to another without interference from the previous.
With this system the Smell-O-Rama can work. The next time the industry tries this olfactory stimuli, let us hope that they do so with a little more creativity. The smell of gunsmoke is rather simple-minded and redundant. Take, as an example, the emotional dialogue between Cathlenne Linton and Heathcliff, at her deathbed, in Wuthering Hei ghts As each reveals his/her eternal love the fragrance of rose would emanate into the audience - slowly fading into an earthy-soil fragrance This tie with nature is an essential element in the power and beauty of Wuthering Heights.
Joan Wilentz wrote that the tiny receptors of the olfactory can "pick up different scents in different places. The result, blended in the brain, is an intricate odor snapshot of the world." She goes on to explain: "So indelible is this picture that you were to smell an odor tomorrow that you hadn't smelled for twenty years, the chances are that it would not only be instantly recognized, but that it would trigger a whole flood of memories and emotional associations."
The International Flavors and Fragrances organization, based in New York, was commissioned on several occasions by museums and institutions to create specific fragrances for their exhibitions. The Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, requested a "slum" fragrance to add authenticity to an exhibition. As La Barre points out: "...IFF obliged with a smell that would make any slum dweller feel depressingly at home."
Our tactile sense may prove to be a greater asset to the artist,
for it unites every element in our
environment. The light from a painting touches the cornea of the
eyes and journeys through to the retina, where it's transmitted
through the optic nerve to the brain. Sound waves touch our ear
drums and organic matter touches our taste sensors. Evaporated
molecules of smell touch our olfactory nerves and are transmitted
as electrical impulses to the brain.
Touch not only serves as a link to the brain, but has its own sensory function. when pressure is applied to the skin a spontaneous message is received by the brain, This message can be in the form of a warning, warmth and pleasure, power or anxiety. It can be in the form of texture, temperature, vibration, electrical impulse, or sound waves above and below our hearing level.
Michael Noll of Bell Laboratories produced the first "tactile simulation device." this simulator permits an individual to "feel the contours of objects that exist as mathematical concepts." A round knob, the size of an eight ball, extends from the simulator; this is activated by three motors and three potentioneters, controlled by a computer. When your eyes are closed, and your hands are upon the eight bail, "the simulated three-dimensional object can be visualized."
An exhibition devoted to our sense of touch was organized by a Museum of Contemporary Crafts:" A tactile environment of hundred of thousands of plastic streamers, hanging from ceiling to floor, was developed by a group of tactile multimedia artists. As one penetrated the plastic environment, the first reaction was alarm: vision was totally cut off At first one could not move with confidence. Soon, however, reassurance came... There were from time to time little tactile oases, freestanding sculptures that responded to one's presence with whistles, hoots, bells, and gusts of compressed air. The total impression of this tactile environment was sheer delight."
Our sense of taste can add a profound dimension to the work of art; one that has its own preconceived associations that are passed down through generations. Any substance, soluble in water, can be tasted; this can include solids, liquids, and gaseous or vaporous forms.
Evaporated molecules of taste can be placed into the atmosphere that would directly affect our taste receptors. This can be done, safely, within the guidelines of the Food and Drug Administration. The manual intake of liquids or wafers would be a simpler approach, but this would require wasted energy on the part of the spectator, energy that can best be applied elsewhere.
Taste can also be stimulated through electric currents. This may seem a bit futuristic, but worthwhile mentioning. Frank A. Geldard, Professor of Psychology at Princeton University and author of The Human Senses, writes: "Electric currents may be employed to arouse gustatory sensations.. Direct and alternating currents give different results. With direct currents varying effects are produced, depending on the direction of flow."
Taste is looked upon by some food experts as 90 percent smell. They state that "all you really can taste of a steak is whether it's salty or not." Ms. Wilentz claims that this is basically true: "The implausible, uncomfortable fact of the matter is that much of what they say is technically true. Taste is an unusual sense which doesn't conform to simple rules. It is mixed-up 'with sensations of temperature, texture, and smell." Smell, then, can reduce the need for an intense mist of vapors -taste- to be placed in the atmosphere, by suggesting a small percent of the taste sensation.
Let's examine the multi-sensory impact on two separate and opposite paintings; the extra stimuli will be identical for both works. Imagine a small boy sitting on the steps of an abandoned home, and a single tear falls from sad, sad eyes. Emanating from the painting is the fragrance of Johnson & Johnson baby powder and the flavor of milk. Both sensations will "quicken the present" or "evoke deep memories." Our drawn out experience will add to the intensity of the total work of art.
Let's replace this painting with an abstract representation of a deep and penetrating darkness. The flavor and fragrance would take on a more profound and complex array of psychological associations-still drawing on memory and emotion
We can take both paintings a step further, but adding to it a child's lullaby and a small area of cold air. This stimuli added to the flavor and fragrance will merge our very human selves into the intense and variable meaning of the total work of art.
The main criticism against an all sensory art form lies in the belief that we can associate sound, smell, taste, and touch with visual stimulation, alone. Ms. Wilentz explains: "To some extent all language and art are elaborate constructs of symbols which can act as secondary evokers of sense organs -a Tamayo painting of a watermelon may make your mouth water. Respighi' s Pines and Fountains of Rome may evoke pastoral imagery..." One of my instructors in Political Science told me about his experience before Goya's "The Shootings on Principe Pio Mountain"; how the painting, alone, stimulated secondary stimuli of sound, smell and touch. Cross reaction to sensory stimuli is rather common. Wilentz goes on to explain that "Dr. Peter F. Ostwald of The University of California Department of Psychiatry in San Francisco estimates that as many as 14 percent of men and 31 percent of women experience some kind of double sensation..." Imagine what these individuals could experience with a multi-sensory art form; if one sense can trigger two or more sensations, what can five well-organized senses do for their perception?
The merging of art, science and technology is as old as recorded history. We have examined the many advances in technology, making it possible for a greater unification. We have examined the thoughts of innovative artists and the great masters, whose accomplishments are unquestioned. We are able to absorb a vast amount of stimuli; what can't be absorbed by the conscious mind will be devoured by the subconscious. Wilentz, in her final chapter, reveals that the "Researchers find it increasingly plausible that the brain is stirred by vast amounts of sensory stimuli that never rise to consciousness." We may not be aware of the goings on in the subconscious, just as the subconscious is unaware of the conscious self- but an undeniable bond of the two does exist and that bond, when stimulated, will unite our very selves, as one unit, in the totality of the total work of arts, sciences and sensations.