The Art of Innovation: From Enlightenment to Dark Matter

Throughout history, artists and scientists have been driven by curiosity and the desire to experiment. Both have wanted to make sense of the world around them, to change it, sometimes working closely together, certainly taking inspiration from each other's disciplines. But they imagine and act on the world from different perspectives, with different goals. The relationship between the two has traditionally been perceived as one of love and hate, fascination and revulsion, symbiotic but antagonistic. Art is crucial to helping us understand our science legacy. And science is well served by applying an artistic lens. But exactly how has the ingenuity of science and technology been incorporated into artistic expression? And how has creative practice, in turn, stimulated innovation and technological change? The Art of Innovation is a history of the modern world through the lens of art and science, showing how artists and scientists are not two cultures but two poles of the same culture. Through fascinating stories exploring exciting relationships between famous artworks and significant scientific and technological objects - from Constable's Clouds and the chemist who measured changes in air pressure, to the introduction of photography and the representation of natural history in print - it offers a new perspective on how we interpret, study and explore the extraordinary world around us.