Some 19th-century vestiges have led us to believe there is an inherent divide and a sort of inability to communicate between the humanities and scientific learning.
And yet knowledge holds within itself ‒ as was well known in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance ‒ various codes and types of expertise in a single infinite network of connections, conjunctions and associations.
Only when there is an exchange between different realities and languages does that magic glint appear, sparking new ideas and evolution in civilisation. Although science and art use different codes, they both endeavour to provide an interpretation and a vision of the world: science is based on objective data and information proven through scientific method, while art rests on subjective data and experiences that are reworked to the principles of artistic and philosophical aesthetics.
Hence, science and art are visionary disciplines in the highest sense of the term, in that they offer theoretical or imaginary images, models and scenarios that present prospects of possible futures.
Possible futures that are at the heart of the ‘Im-possible dialogue between science and art’, which sees a man of science (Franco Siccardi) pose crucial questions to a climatologist (Antonello Provenzale), an artist (Beppe Schiavetta) and an archaeology scholar (Lorenzo Verderame) on humankind’s relationship with nature regarding climate change and the evolution of our species.
The metaphor is that of Ur, one of the largest cities in Mesopotamia, destroyed by appalling desertification in the 21st century B.C. The testimonies of this climatic devastation have come down to us through the Lamentations of Ur: these writings in Sumerian express the pain and bewilderment when faced with this apocalyptic and unwarranted catastrophe.
What makes the ancient inhabitants of Ur so similar to those of our cities today?
What fears, emotions and human doubting emerge from this text in cuneiform script from the 2nd millennium B.C.?
What elements can science provide us with today to know and predict or prevent extreme climate events?
Can art draw on analogic thought and creative imagination to come up with new ways to face, govern and live through this change?
