The 1973 Physics for Artists Course at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.

Leonardo, Vol. 8, pp. 221-222. Pergarnon Press 1975. Printed in Great Britain THE 1973 PHYSICS FOR ARTISTS COURSE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, U.S.A. Rita Deanin Abbey* 1. Numerous authors have discussed aspects of the relationships between the visual arts, science and technology in Leonardo, pointing out similarities and differences between these manifestations of human culture. As a painter and teacher with a recent but highly rewarding introduction to the physical sciences, stimulated by my attraction to developments in holography, I can strongly urge art students to explore the exciting possibilities for art offered by the natural sciences. To help student artists in this exploration, a Physics for Artists course was organized under my initiative in the autumn of 1973 for the Department of Art at the University of Nevada. I took this initiative after spending a considerable amount of time during the preceding year doing research work in the Department of Physics upon the invitation of Lon Spight, Chairman of the Department, who shared my interest in the interactions between art and science. It was, therefore, especially satisfying to me when he agreed to teach the Physics for Artists course consisting of lectures on selected topics chosen from the domains of the physical sciences. 2. The series of 48 one-hour illustrated lectures by Spight covered, among others, the following topics: A. B. C. Philosophicalbackground: What is ‘reality’to a scientist; religious and scientific bases for beliefs; the approach of modern science to obtaining knowledge; the concept of complementarity and the principle of indeterminancy in physics (quantum mechanics); space and time (relativity theory) ; energy and entropy. Cosmology and astronomy: Hypotheses on the evolution of the universe; galaxies, stars, the solar system; Newton’s and Kepler’s laws. Physics: Electromagnetic spectrum ; visible light (reflection, refraction, diffraction, polarization and interference);lenses;lasers; holography ; fiber optics; the human eye (color; Artist and teacher, Dept. of Art, Universityof Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154, U.S.A. (Received 13 June 1974.) D. E. visual illusions, moirt patterns ; stereoscopic vision); thermodynamic principles (heat, entropy , heat engines); the energy crisis. Apparatus of the physical sciences: Telescope; microscope ;pressure measuring devices;gyroscope ; oscilloscope; stroboscope; Tesla coil; Van de Graaff generator; pendulum. Detection offorgeries in art by means o f X-ray and other techniques. 3 . I attended the course with the students and conducted individual art-oriented student conferences. There were also the following student activities: A. The students, acting as teachers, took Spight on a tour of the painting studio and of the ceramics and metal casting workshops of the Department of Art. A visit was made to the exhibition of paintings by Ben Cunningham, who was working with Op Art concepts as early as 1950. Each student in the class of 26 was asked to carry out an art project that made use of ideas, methods or materials discussed in the lectures. Simple demonstrations of physical phenomena were not to be considered to fall within the domain of art. The various projects can be classified into the following three main categories: a. Traditional paintings in which the subject matter was chosenfrom the lectures. They deal with, for example, the concept of the ‘black hole’ in astrophysics as a singularity in the physical universe and an interpretation of life in a world of statistical mechanics. Pictures made withnontraditionalmaterials and techniques. One of the students, for example, described her picture of this type as follows: ‘In an attempt to literally piece together knowledge gained in the Physics for Artists class, I constructed this patchwork painting from rectangular pieces of canvas. Each section of canvas was stitched together on a sewingmachine B. b. 221 222 Rita Deal without a preconceived notion of the design. Of the hundreds of mind-bending unbelievably fascinating subjects that werediscussed, I chose but a few to paint.’ A collage-type of picture was made consisting of a piece of canvas on which were glued fragments of a mirror that reflected light from projectors through different filters and a painting with fluorescent paints for viewing first in visible and then in ultra-violet (black) light. The idea of man’s search for identity in the universe was expressed...