The author provides an account of his development and experiences as both a visual (mobile) artist and a chemist. He describes the surprising similarities between the planning of the construction of a mobile and the execution of retrosynthetic analysis used to chemically create a particular molecule. The fusion of these two independently initiated mental processes into a common creative act can be referred to as a coalescence of processes. The present article discusses the consequences of this merging for both artistic and scientific practices, as well as its relevance to the artscience concept of idea translation.

Issue Section:
ArtScience: The Essential Connection
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© 2013 ISAST

Supplementary data

A Device that Sucks the Darkness From the World, Makes it Invisible and Turns it Into Salt

Mobile portion of the work: height 85 cm; materials: hematite, quartz, rutilated quartz, music wire, glass (2011). (© S.H. Kawai)

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A Device that Sucks the Darkness From the World, Makes it Invisible and Turns it Into Salt

Detail of the full installation with a pile of salt (2011). (© S.H. Kawai)

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Gauche Interactions

This mobile makes reference to a type of interaction between atoms which commonly occurs within organic molecules. Length 210 cm; materials: brass, aluminum, hematite, music wire, plastic (molecular models) (2009). (© S.H. Kawai)

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