THE ARTS
Letter to the Editor
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ingenia
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The Kiss, August Rodin (Musée
Rodin, Paris)
Reclining Figure: Draped 1975,
Henry Moore (outside the European
Court of Justice, Luxembourg).
Bound Slave, Michelangelo
(Academia, Florence)
Vertical Form, Michael Gillespie
(Private Collection)
Bird in Space, Constantin Brancusi
(Peggy Guggenheim Collection,
Venice)
Horizontal Spines, Alexander Calder
(Phillips-Andover Academy,
Andover, Massachusetts)
Two Spheres within a Sphere,
Alexander Calder (Private
Collection)
Mobile Structure, George Rickey
(Kröller-Müller Rijksmuseum,
Otterlo)
Kinetic Sculpture, Standing Wave,
Naum Gabo (Private Collection)
Linear Construction, Naum Gabo
(Private Collection)
The Babylonian Gift, Arthur Bourne
(Private Collection)
Raumplastik y = ax3 – bx2 + cx,
George Vantongerloo
(Kunstmuseum, Basel)
Arthur Bourne is a Director of Orbic
Limited. He is a writer with a
background in both the sciences and
the arts and has scripted and
designed industrial and scientific
exhibitions, as well as produced and
advised on video and television
programmes. He is ‘an occasional’
sculptor through
which he expresses
his fascination for
mathematics, physics
and engineering. The
idea for his articles on
‘engineering and the
artist’s eye’ came from his
experience as Chairman of the Space
Education Trust when a number of
applicants wishing to attend the
International Space University were
artists. Their interest and inspiration
were for the engineering.
Dear Editor
The article by Sir Robert Malpas in Issue 18 on dialogue
between academia and business illuminates a matter
which has been of concern for a long time. The scenario
which Sir Robert discusses is one where there is the
potential for a step change in a product or a completely
new invention or where research offers a novelty and
where business and academia try to make an interface.
We have seen how exploitation of research has been
achieved in another way by the academics turning into
entrepreneurs; the spin-offs into Silicon Valley or Silicon
Fen are familiar examples. Beyond this there has to be
recognised that in industry there are also many
opportunities for introducing the results of research into
the improvement of a product or into a new product
which are not at the root of the concept but without
which the product would fail to perform.
Most of my career has been spent in the role of
middleman interpreting research to industry. The
opportunities for acquiring the initial understanding of the
research and its developments and then being placed in
a position where this can be transferred are very limited.
In my field of welded joint performance there has been a
small group of individuals of various origins who have
exercised this role. Its pursuit requires both the
knowledge of our discipline and a skill at consultancy,
one fundamental of which is identifying what the client
needs to know and not what he says he needs! We have
our regular clients, as well as casual ones, alongside
whom we work whilst topping ourselves up with the
latest research findings. However what we are finding
now is that there appears to be a new generation in
industry which is less willing than their predecessors to
seek advice from outside of their firms; perhaps they fear
that to do so would be seen as displaying a weakness.
This is perhaps another aspect of Sir Robert’s
suggestion 4 which identifies the unwillingness to admit
ignorance or to identify where it exists. In my scenario its
effect is not to inhibit the generation of research
programmes but to potentially inhibit product
performance or confidence in it.
John Hicks FREng