Mislocation
“Cathy, you like art. Why are you in a science class? Are you going to be an artistic scientist?”
“A scientific artist.”
The whole class laughed and clapped. Despite the humour, there was a seriousness to what I said. I never found entering the science stream (either arts or science for my high school) and my interest in art contradictory. I did not find it necessary to study art in school either. Science and art just go hand in hand in my life. Logic and aesthetics, to be exact. The two can never be and should never be separated, in my life or in this world. But people always find it strange for subjects that I take, and what I like to be.
And the story continues. Between Fine Art and Design I chose the latter for my Bachelor’s degree. Again, they don’t get it. I understand the relationship between science and art may be subtle to realize, but art and design, are they that different to puzzle you? Alright…there’s a difference, or else I won’t choose one rather than the other. $Practicality$ could be one reason. I also thought design mentalities would be a suitable injection to my artistic ones. Naturally enough to me, I went through university life with design studies.
Nothing is enough. For yet another time I’ve misplaced myself in others’ eyes. Currently I’m taking a curatorial programme. I can find nothing more logical to learn more about the art field, also because I had the chance to this course. As said by my friend, life is random, yes. I tend to take randomness. I’m young but not very young anymore. What if I don’t try now, and it’s just one year anyway.
Then you may ask, if I were to know more about the art field, I could have studied Fine Art in the first place. Why make another option only now? Maybe I really detour, doing art without ever touching the art field. Yet by moving along the spiral, I guess I can hit the centre a little bit more precisely. Maybe not as accurate as the golden spiral, but I will be there one day.
There are people who are not comfortable when you use a knife to kill people. Not because anybody’s harmed. They won’t feel good even if you use it for cutting hair. They want apple knives for cutting apples, fish knives for fish, frog knives for frogs, if there are such knives. Not only designers get angry because people come up with creative methods of using their products. Everybody else comes to condemn you for playing ping pong with iPone (there may be a lot of virtual-real applications, but I mean real hitting here).
I can decide what to learn and how to use what I’ve learnt. The knowledge is mine.
