Shot by both sides: Art-science and the war between science and the humanities

Abstract

There is a fundamental philosophical split between the modern culture of science and the postmodern culture of the humanities. This cultural estrangement is, among other things, the underlying cause for the lack of acceptance of art-science and technology-based art in the mainstream art world. However, in the last two decades the study of complexity has introduced a revolution across the sciences. It is suggested here that complexity thinking can be extended to usher in a revolution in the humanities as well. The apparently irreconcilable world views of modernism and postmodernism can be subsumed and unified by a new synthesis called complexism. And artists working on the complexity frontier can serve a key role in helping to bring this about.