Lissette Lorenz

***For an extended/modified version of this post, see 4S Backchannels’ report: Celebrating TrevorFest: Taking Trevor’s Legacy Forward with Amanda Domingues and Barkha Kagliwal

The weekend before Trevor Fest in Ithaca, New York, I paid a visit to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. More than any of the countless exhibits, what stuck with me most from that outing was a pair of messages I found printed on two different tote bags. The first, carried by someone near the planetarium, read, “The good thing about Science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it. – Neil Degras Tyson.”[1] Then a little later, slung over the shoulder of someone admiring dinosaur bones, I came across the second: “Art is what you can get away with – Andy Warhol.”

The myth of the two opposing cultures—Art versus Science—remains strong. Too bad, I thought, as there is so much work at their intersection—art-science—to be done.

When I attended Trevor Fest the following week, then, I was naturally excited to find myself engaging in several conversations about potential future research agendas in Art, Science, and Technology Studies (ASTS), an emerging field that Trevor, too, was excited to be a part of, being both an STS scholar and musician.

In fact, one of the last pieces Trevor published was the forward to the Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies. In it, he writes, “I am writing this foreword in the midst of a global pandemic. I do not know (in March 2020) if I, or we, will make it through….”[2]

The book was released in 2022, a few months after his passing from this plane of existence to the next. We missed him dearly at the (virtual, COVID-impacted) book release party.

Fast forward another year. After listening to his friends, students, and colleagues (some of us still masked yet happy to be re-united in person) reflect on Trevor’s interest in the material worlds of both scientific and musical instruments during the daytime panel sessions; followed by mixed-media performances using those very instruments during a tribute concert later in the evening; I thought, if only Trevor and Neil and Andy (and their legions of followers) had been with us this weekend, perhaps they would have enjoyed our art-science musings; at least in a polemical sort of way.

***

Feeling inspired by the art-science celebration that was Trevor Fest, and with an eye towards future directions in STS, I revisited Trevor’s words in the ASTS Handbook:

“What we have to overcome most of all are myths about both science and art enshrined in individual creativity and notions of purity. Art and science are both social enterprises…We must also jettison the hackneyed myth of the two cultures. Overlaps, blurring, and interdisciplanarity are the norm. Art, Science, and Technology share much as socially constructed practices…Boundary objects, boundary work, trading zones, the role of users, audiences, performativity, agency, and social worlds—the full gamut of STS concepts glitter before our eyes here.”[3]

I imagine Trevor’s eyes glittering over the revelry of Trevor Fest, over the future of (A)STS, and over the pale blue dot we all call home: “As our planet becomes increasingly bleak, we need the hope and inspiration that art can give us. We need to go to it right away.”[4] 

Post Script: Stay tuned for an excerpt of this piece, forthcoming in a 4S Backchannels‘ report on Trevor Fest. For previous reports on Trevor’s legacy to the social study of science, see “To Trevor, with Love” parts ONE and TWO

[1] Neil deGrasse Tyson is the television host of the reboot of Cornell professor and astronomer Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos.”  Trevor’s widow, Christine Leuenberger-Pinch, mentioned during the Fest’s opening remarks that she likes to imagine Trevor and Carl enjoying tea at the Lakeview Cemetery in Ithaca, where they are both buried.

[2] Rogers, H., Halpern, M., Hannah, D., & de Ridder-Vignone, K. (Eds.). (2021). Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies (1st ed.). Routledge. P. xxi.

[3] Ibid, p. xxiv.

[4] Ibid.