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Engineer or artist?
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14/09/2008
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Here’s a surprise: I recently read an article in the Daily Telegraph that annoyed me.
It has to do with a recent collaboration project between a noted artist – Anish Kapoor – and a high profile engineer, namely Cecil Balmond of structural engineering firm Arup.
The two have got together to create a huge public sculpture called Temenos, which will stand in the old Tees Dock in Middlesbrough. The Telegraph makes much of the partnership between the two – calling their collaboration the work of an ‘enginartist’, in whom “engineering and aesthetic powers meet on equal terms”.
The article goes on to say that Kapoor has agreed to “share equal billing” with Balmond – much against the grain of artists, sculptors, architects and other professions that grab sole glory for work that is in fact a team effort.
As Balmond is quoted: “Engineering’s not sexy to talk about. The annoying thing is that engineers are supposed to be calculating machines, mathematically brilliant technocrats, but they’re denied creativity.”
He cites Brunel as the archetypal ‘engineer who creates’ – and bemoans the fact that the contribution of engineers is often “absorbed into the author’s credit”.
It struck me that the idea of ‘art meeting engineering’ is perfectly captured within the field of design engineering. People not familiar with the field often ask whether a design engineer is a designer or an engineer. I usually answer that they are both.
But further than that is the notion – held even by Balmond – that “engineers cannot create”. It’s true that a product designed for the mass market is not a one-off piece of art, but a carefully constructed engineering that is designed to a specific brief.
But to go from a blank sheet of paper to a manufacturable product is creation. Isn’t it?
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Author
Lou Reade
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