Quote:
Originally Posted by MrForbes
What is art?
and how can we have this discussion, without a cultural reference?
 yes, my dad got a Masters degree in Art History, later in life
My LeMons Rally car:
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You're 24 Hrs. of Lemons'ing an Edsel? Yeah they have an ugly front end, but at least around here that would be a no-no given their rarity. Cool car all right, but IMHO that belongs in a shop being restored, not in a race of junkers.
(That said, more power to you).
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Back on topic, here's how I see it: Art and Stem intermingle a lot. Some examples:
-A lot of aesthetic trends have been found to have a fundamentially mathmatical basis. Fractals, golden rectangles/spirals, and Fibonacci/Lucas sequences come to mind.
-While aesthetics are often absent in groundbreaking prototypes of new technology, it's an elegant presentation that often gets the technology into adoption (and the history books). Apple is a great example; Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive didn't invent much in the way of new technology; instead they integrated existing technology in user-friendly and eye-pleasing ways. Without the iPod mp3 wouldn't have taken off. Without the iPhone we likely wouldn't have smartphones (at least in the way we do now).
-On that same note, a well engineered product is doomed to fail in the market without good marketing. This includes advertising. Good advertising is both an art and a science, so once again they mix.
-In practice, I find that engineering can often be just as much an art as it is a science. Example: programming. One can slap some code together and make it work, that's the science side. Making it easy to understand and modify, now that is more of an art IMHO. Engineering without the art aspect is generally kludges, which sometimes is a necessity, yes, but often isn't the best way to go about making a quality product.
-Finally, I'll mention Will.I.Am as an example. He uses all sorts of technology to make the music that made him (and the Black Eyed Peas) famous. This is true for many artists; without good, artist-friendly technology their vision will never see the light of day. Likewise, without artists to use such technology the engineers and designers who make such have no customer base. There'd be no Photoshop, Wacom tablets, or Macs.
In many ways STEM and Art support each other. There are plenty of other examples (like the robots made by 254 and the like), but that's beside the point. By adding an A we don't have to make everything "artistic", be we can (and should) appreciate and celebrate the symbiotic relationship between STEM and art.