The Relationship Between Art and Science

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Imitation is a big question for the modern world. How we share information and how we choose to do it, I don't think that we're very good at it yet. The smart alec answer and half true is that inspiration is for amateurs. And the rest of us just go to the studio every day and go to work. That's what sculptures do. When I'm working with my colleagues on a piece, probably half our comments are about air space. You can tell within about half an hour, whether this is going to work out or not. We have to trick ourselves.

So you have some information — how are you going to share it with and present it to the rest of the world? There has been a long history of organizing and displaying information without putting too much thought into it, but Edward Tufte has done an enormous amount to change that. Beginning with The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and continuing to his new book Seeing With Fresh Eyes: Meaning, Space, Data, Truth, Tufte’s works have shaped how we think about charts, graphs, and other forms of presenting data. We talk about information, design, and how thinking about data reflects how we think about the world.

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Edward Tufte received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. He has been a professor of public affairs at Princeton and of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale, where he is currently emeritus professor. He is the founder and owner of Graphics Press, and his books have sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide. He is an active artist and sculptor, as well as a touring lecturer.

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