Shallow celebrity view

April 19, 2008, 1:36pm,  110 views

Actress Cate Blanchett says artists can contribute just as much as scientists to Australia’s future.

“Science and art are siblings. Science and art are different outcomes of the same primal urge in us all to engage with, to detail, and to affect narratives and patterns,” she said.

She says a few years ago she met former US president Bill Clinton, who had an interesting take on the value of art to society.

“He said that he always read the latest airport novels, spy thrillers, unpublished manuscripts, unpublished screenplays because writers were often right on the money where the technology and ideology - a lethal combination - were heading,” she said.

“He listened assiduously to music coming up off the streets because he knew that those people knew their audiences needs and wants.

“The advances in cinema, virtual reality, shifts in the visual arts and trends in design all spoke to him of the future of where the world was heading and the problems and challenges that society would be facing in three or four years time.”

What can I say? Motherhood statements from a new mum, name dropping and regurgitated words from a populist politician.

“Science and art are siblings” stretches things a bit though. Religion and sport are too, I suppose.