Converging Visual Art and the Art of Engineers

My college years were spent studying liberal arts. My roommate eventually received a Masters in Mathematics. I'd write his essays, he'd do my pre-algebra.

But that's beside the point. The first 20 years of my life were spent under a convincing assumption that I was not technically adept. The following 15 years were spent disproving the assumption. To be sure, my goal was to get paid well, not to disprove anything. So I figured out basic programming. Then I started taking math courses at ACC, later engineering course. In total, I achieved 36-ish math/eng credits with straight "A"s. I got a "B" in pre-algebra though.

That might be even beside the point. But since this is a blog and I have a non-heavy editing policy for my blogs, I am gonna just leave those first 2 paragraphs alone.

My point is this. There is a convergent space where technology appears to be art; where certain art becomes scientific. Depending on who I am talking with, I either i.) liken it to that tiny space in electromagnetic spectrum, that little slice that is visible or ii.) that space where the distance ocean converges with the sky, that space where you can't really tell if you are looking at water or air.

I am in the midst of writing an essay on Alexander Calder's Untitled mobile that hangs in the east wing of the National Gallery of Art. It was installed in 1976, a few years after he died. It appears to weigh several tons. It hangs on a glass ceiling. It was the largest mobile he had ever created.

In my study, I have found that Calder was in fact a areospace engineer (or something like) before he was an artist. His knowledge of metals and movement and energy and ... was developed long before he created Untitled.

During my years at the washingtonpost.com and Sun Microsystems, I met and worked with engineers. The art of writing neat applications, nesting, re-using, create objects, etc can be as beautiful as a symphony. It can also sound like grunge music. IC designs, especially some of the multithreaded (CMTP?) layered designs I saw in the hallways of Sun campuses were arrestingly beautiful.

Now for the clincher. Do you know of any books or resources where ART is discussed as an input to the engineering function? OR Better still where the function of ART takes engineering inputs? I know there are books written by engineers, for engineers, that discuss good form and function. But what about art books written for and by artists about good engineering form.

I may share my "impression" of Untitled essay on door64 when complete. Since it is not an assignment, with no due date, I also might not.