Cancer phase
space (2014), 18” x
18”, acrylic on paper.
Image courtesy of the
artist.
MG: Your role as a scientist has a clear impact on
your art making. Does your role as an artist have
a similar impact in the research lab? In what ways
does art improve your work as a scientist?
DD: In biomedical research, we scientists
are trained in a specific way. A typical research project begins with literature review
and sometimes generating preliminary data.
Next, on the basis of the data, a hypothesis
is formulated. The hypothesis is tested with
a series of specific experiments to answer
questions like ‘what’ and ‘when’. Once we
find a series of ‘whats’ are correlated to each
other for a certain ‘when’, we perturb the
experimental system to find the causality.
With these data we find the answer to ‘how’.
An example of ‘how’ can be a mechanistic
understanding of how a specific pharmacological inhibitor gives a better outcome on a
subgroup of cancer patients.
A blind spot of such a rational approach
is not knowing ‘why’. Many of my scientist
friends would say that science only answers
‘how’, not ‘why’, because ‘why’ is a philosoph-
SciArt in America February 2015
ical question. However, personally, ‘why’ is
the question that motivates me to find ‘how’.
When I create art, I try to address this blind
spot. When I’m coming up with a novel idea
of reconciling principles from various disciplines, it is the ‘why’ that drives me. In many
instances, while trying to understand the
behavior of a complex system, real-life data
may not be available. This is quite common
in theoretical physics. For me, conceptualization of such problems comes only via visualization. Once I sketch, draw, or paint the
behavior of the complex system, it becomes
clear to me what should be the next step.
Representing complex scientific results via
illustrations, sharing idea with non-science
people within a minute (the ‘elevator talk’)—
these are some common applications of
practicing art for the scientists. But for me,
science and art exist in a balance. One addresses the blind spot of the other and by
doing so creates wholeness for me. I can’t live
without practicing both of them.
Read more about Deb here:
http://creativedisturbance.org/people/dhruba-deb/
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