In the first of three dialogues making up the first half of the symposium, Kiyoshi Furukawa of the TUA and Kazuo Okanoya of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute (BSI) talked about music and language. Okanoya explained that there are rules, referred to as song syntax, underlying chirp repetitions in songs of the Bengalese Finch. Furukawa responded by noting that cadence takes on a cohesive form in Western music, a form which, as he showed using actual data, the brain recognizes.
The second dialogue brought together Masaaki Miyasako, a professor of the TUA, and Junji Sugiyama of the RIKEN SPring-8 Center. Under the theme of ‘cultural assets’, Sugiyama introduced research results on the identification of wood in a wooden figure or sculpture based on analysis of a single piece of wood using the SPring-8 facility. He also explained the mechanism giving rise to spirals in plant vines, and noted that Miyasako often used the spiral form in his paintings. Miyasako went on to point out that various spiral shapes are also hidden in the work of the famous Japanese painter Ogata Korin, and the discussion turned to the deep relationship between spirals, the basic structural form of DNA, and beauty.
A third dialogue delved into this theme of ‘beauty’ in more depth. Hideto Fuse of the TUA and Shigeru Kuratani of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology both quoted Leonardo da Vinci in the introductions to their work. Fuse pointed out that da Vinci studied anatomy to augment his painting. Kuratani highlighted anatomical and developmental problems in the way that da Vinci drew the wings on the angel Gabriel in his work “The Annunciation”, and spoke about his own research on the turtle shell as an example of morphological evolution based upon a shared body plan.
The last half of the symposium featured a three-way dialogue between TUA President Ryohei Miyata, RIKEN President Ryoji Noyori and BSI Director Susumu Tonegawa. Again centering on similarities and differences between science and art, the speakers discussed issues such as reproducibility and objectivity in science versus subjectivity and individuality in the arts.
