The skill of observation

“The world is full of obvious things”

–  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Hound of the Baskervilles“

I noticed a while ago, that many of my colleague in academia (most of them engineers or scientists) have strong personal interests in creative activities like art, photography, writing, etc. I have been wondering what aspects are common between the creative process and knowledge work, such as academic research. This question comes up every now and then in the discussions of whether artistic training is meaningful for people of other professions (I think there is an implicit assumption that is different parts of the rain are responsible for intuitive and logical thought processes, the two ways of thinking are not generally applicable to the same problems).

I think the common skill that is important to both artists and scientists is the skill of observation. Learning to observe one’s environment and people within it is the core of the artistic training. There is a book by Alexandra Horowitz called “On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation,” which explores how thoughtful observation of trivial details reveals the world as seen through other people’s eyes.

Of course, observation alone is not sufficient. The process of creating an object of art also involves communicating the information crystallized through observation to the audience. The skills of observation, processing of information (identifying key elements) and communicating it to others easily translate to academic work, or most other activities, for that matter. So I would like to think that my taking photos or practicing kendo indirectly benefits my research. This seems to work for many prominent colleagues, so I am sticking with it.