A symposium addressing how to enact a Science-Art Institute for Transformative Creativity
"ENFOLD SCI-ART will be closer to the Platonic version of a symposium where discussion and brainstorming dominate instead of our current definition with long talks. We will all first meet in an art workshop to initiate conversation on the value of a Science-Art Institute. We then propose a series of lightning talks by scientists, artists, academic administrators, museum directors, and foundation/industry leadership followed by breakout groups to model interacting for innovation and concluding with addressing how an Science-Art Institute could be actuated and sustained. The talks will not be about the speaker’s work/contributions. Instead, each talk should include their view and the value and challenges of establishing such an institute."
Enfold conference will be held September 21-22, 2023 at the campus of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (North Carolina, USA).
Day 1
09.21.2023
⏰ 2:00 - 2:30 | talks:
Day Jay, Arthur Miller, Ahna Skop, Michael John Gorman, Victoria Vesna, Mauro Martino
‘If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.’ – William Blake
The visualization of often encoded data is making new, previously hidden but nevertheless real worlds accessible to humankind. Art is taking up this new knowledge and transferring it into new dimensions through visualization.
This book brings together a wide spectrum of contributions on visualization in science, media, and art: notable experts and associates of the Science Visualization Lab at the University of Applied Arts Vienna present outstanding examples of innovative visualization and provide insight into their working methods. This publication gives insight into the ways of thinking and working of well-known scientists, media experts, and artists; an opulent publication with numerous illustrations and augmented-reality features
The publication features "Nano: Bottom Up and In Between" an essay by Dr. James Gimzewski and Dr. Victoria Vesna.
Edited by Alfred Vendl and Martina R. Fröschl, Science Visualization Lab, Digital Arts, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Welcome: Gerald Bast, Rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna
Book presentation:
Alfred Vendl and Martina R. Fröschl
This English-language publication appears with De Gruyter in the Edition Angewandte book series of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
The Next Renaissance panel discussion is set for Friday, September 8, 2023, 12-1 pm CET, and will be a featured conversation moderated by Victoria Vesna at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.
Chair:
Victoria Vesna (US)
Victoria Vesna is an Artist and Professor at the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts and Director of the Art Sci center at the School of the Arts & Architecture and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). At the UCLA Art Sci center, she organizes and hosts events and is busy co-curating with Anuradha Vikram Atmosphere of Sound: sonic arts in times of climate disruption for the Getty PST: Art X Science and is writing a book entitled: Vibrations Matter: Art & Science of Deep Listening (2024).
Speakers:
Lucia Ronchetti (IT)
Born in Rome in 1963, Lucia Ronchetti is a composer dedicated to music theater projects. In 2023, the opera Das fliegende Klassenzimmer made its debut at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Staatsoper Hannover produced the chamber opera Pinocchios Abenteuer and the choral opera Chronicles of Loneliness was premiered at the the ACHT BRÜCKEN in Köln. Two new opera productions will be presented in 2024, Searching for Zenobia for the Münchener Biennale/Staatstheater Braunschweig and Der Doppelgänger for the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele/ Staatstheater Luzern.
John Palmesino (IT)
John Palmesino is an architect and urbanist. Together with Ann-Sofi Rönnskog he is the founder of Territorial Agency, an independent organisation that combines contemporary architecture, science, art, advocacy and action. Recent projects include Plan the Planet, Sensible Zone, Oceans in Transformation, the Museum of Oil and Anthropocene Observatory. They are chief-curators of the Lisbon Triennale 2025. Territorial Agency are the recipients of the STARTS 21 Grand Prize of the European Commission honouring innovation in technology, industry and society stimulated by the arts.
Rachel Armstrong (IE)
I am ZAP (independent) professor of Regenerative Architecture at KU Leuven and co-ordinator for the “Microbial Hydroponics” EIC Pathfinder Challenges project. I am Vice Chair of Supervisory Board of the EIT C&C and a Senior TED Fellow. I develop an approach for the design of applications for next generation sustainable, or “regenerative” architecture that exists at the intersection of design, architecture, science & ecology
Alistair Hudson (GB)
Alistair Hudson is the Scientific-Artistic Chairman of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe since April 1, 2023. Hudson is a curator and museum director with broad-ranging international experience. He combines contemporary curatorial expertise with a profound knowledge of the relationship between art, technology and society. From 2018 to 2022 he served as director of two museums in Manchester: the Manchester Art Gallery and The Whitworth. The latter is the art museum of the University of Manchester, where he was also Professor of Useful Art. Alistair Hudson’s concept of a »useful museum« envisions artistic and cultural institutions as centres of social responsibility and transformation.Together with the artist Tania Bruguera he heads the international network Asociación de Arte Útil.
Franz Giessibl (DE)
Franz Giessibl was born in 1962 in Amerang, a small town in Bavaria, Germany. In1991, he finished his PhD work in experimental physics with Nobel Laureate and nanoscience pioneer Gerd Binnig. He then moved to Sunnyvale, California to work with Park Scientific Instruments, a manufacturer of atomic force microscopes as a director of vacuum products. In1995, he joined McKinsey&Company in Germany. While working as a management consultant, he established a laboratory in his home and invented the qPlus® sensor, an “eye” for the exploration of atoms and nanostructures that is used in hundreds of laboratories around the world today. In 2005, he obtained offers for chairs at the Universities of Bristol (UK) and Regensburg (D), establishing the Chair in Experimental Quantum Nanoscience at University of Regensburg in 2006. He is married to Birgit Giessibl, they raised two sons.
Charles Landry (DE/GB)
Charles Landry is the inventor of the Creative Bureaucracy concept and co-founder of the Festival in Berlin as well as the Creative City concept. He wrote a a series of nine short books including The Creative Bureaucracy; Psychology & the City,; The Digitized City: Influence & Impact; Cities of Ambition. See www.charleslandry.com. Charles helps cities assess their potential afresh. He sees himself as a ‚critical friend‘ to the cities he works with. He seeks to inspire, stimulate, challenge and facilitate. He combines a global perspective with an acute sense of what matters locally. He grounds ideas in practical projects.
COLOR, LIGHT, MOTION is an online series featuring media artists and scholars in dialogue about artworks from the Bermant Collection of media and kinetic arts. Each featured presenter will discuss selected artworks in history and context and in relation to their own work and connections. This series is produced in collaboration with Harvestworks NY and the David Bermant Foundation.
EPISODE 21:
George Quasha
The Syntax of Moving Awareness
RESPONDERS: Gary Hill and Toni Dove
George Quasha is a poet, artist, musician and writer working in diverse mediums to explore certain principles (e.g., axiality, ecoproprioception). For his primary medium poiesis he has invented the genre preverbs as a medium of axial language and “linguality at zero point.” He extends axiality & poiesis to art, music, performance, and conscience body practice.
His ongoing video work was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (2006), principally for art is/music is/poetry is (Speaking Portraits), for which during the last twenty-three years he has recorded over a thousand artists, poets, and composers in eleven countries saying what art, music, or poetry is (art-is-international.org)—represented in the book art is (Speaking Portraits) (2016).
For many years he has collaborated with Gary Hill and Charles Stein in performance. His sculpture (Axial Stones), drawings and video have been exhibited in various venues, including the Snite Museum of Art, the Manfred Baumgartner Gallery, White Box, the Samuel Dorsky Museum and biennials (Poland, Switzerland, New York). Axial Stones: An Art of Precarious Balance (foreword by Carter Ratcliff, 2006) explores the axial principle in his sculpture. Other writing on art includes An Art of Limina: Gary Hill’s Works & Writings (with Charles Stein, foreword by Lynne Cooke, 2009—now online at https://www.academia.edu/28928186/An_Art_of_Limina_Gary_Hills_Works_and_...).
His main work in axial language poiesis is preverbs, of which seven of the thirteen books have been published to date, including Not Even Rabbits Go Down This Hole and Waking from Myself. Poetry in Principle: Essays in Poetics (foreword by Edward Casey, 2019) contains recent writing on “the poetics of thinking.” Zero Point Poiesis: George Quasha’s Axial Art (2022) is a collection of writings on his poetry, art and thought by sixteen authors, edited by Burt Kimmelman, foreword by Jerome McGann. He was awarded the T-Space 10th annual Poetry Award in 2022.
Edited anthologies include America a Prophecy: A New Reading of American Poetry from Pre-Colombian Times to the Present (with Jerome Rothenberg, 1973/2012), Open Poetry: Four Anthologies of Expanded Poems (with Ronald Gross, plus Emmett Williams, John Robert Colombo, & Walter Lowenfels, 1973), An Active Anthology (with Susan Quasha, 1974), and The Station Hill Blanchot Reader (with Charles Stein, 1999).
He lives in Barrytown, New York, collaborating with Susan Quasha on photography/preverbs), and together they publish Station Hill Press.
It's been an intense summer with so much climate / social / political disruptions and we did our best to stay positive and continue our work to make this world a better place. High School students attending the Sci Art summer institute sessions gave us hope! We had a great group on site at the UCLA campus and online and are proud of their accomplishments! Now we're excited to share some news from our collective!
- Noise Aquarium traveled to Quebec with the OUR TIME ON EARTH exhibition - at the time of horrific fires
- Alien Star Dust traveled to Beijing with the COSMOLOGICAL ELEMENTS at the same time that the city was experiencing torrential floods
- Anuradha Vikram co-curator of the Getty PST Atmosphere of Sound: sonic arts in times of climate disruption, published a book that she penned during the pandemic. She will do a reading along with Mashinka Firunts Hakopian at the LA Art Book Fair this weekend!
- Assistant Director Ivana Dama and Aleksandra Jovanić received a grant from the Hyundai ArtLab!
- Maryam Razi, designer / event coordinator has contributed as a co-author to a recently published book by the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich.
- Alvaro Azcarraga created new bio works during his residency at Coalesce Center for Biological Art and had a show with Linda Weintraub at the Soil Factory!
- Rodolfo Ward presented his research at the Consulate General of Brazil!
This exhibition discusses the idea of cosmological elements through several lenses: the lens of science that questions what are the elements that constitute objects in the cosmos and the space in-between, elements that can also become central to study the universe and life on planet Earth. In that sense, a selection of cosmological elements also constitutes life on Earth as we humans know it. At the same time, we look at life on Earth and search for life in outer space based on several ideas that continuously built up throughout scientific and research endeavors of cultures throughout human history. Such culturally understood cosmological elements manifest in scientific studies, but also in human dreams and stories being told.
This exhibition discusses the idea of cosmological elements through several lenses: the lens of science that questions what are the elements that constitute objects in the cosmos and the space in-between, elements that can also become central to study the universe and life on planet Earth. In that sense, a selection of cosmological elements also constitutes life on Earth as we humans know it. At the same time, we look at life on Earth and search for life in outer space based on several ideas that continuously built up throughout scientific and research endeavors of cultures throughout human history. Such culturally understood cosmological elements manifest in scientific studies, but also in human dreams and stories being told.
Curated by the Barbican Center of London and co-produced by Musée de la civilisation
The Musée de la civilisation is partnering with London's prestigious Barbican Centre to co-produce this major international exhibition.
First presented in London in summer 2022, the exhibition will come in 2023 to the Musée de la civilisation, where it will be adapted to reflect local climate issues and solutions.
Through a dozen immersive contemporary artworks—most of which were created specially for the exhibition—Our Time on Earth focuses on the solutions to the crisis and encourages us to dream up a better world together. Biodiversity conservation, agriculture and food, energy, mobility and transportation, construction and consumption are some of the themes addressed.
Visitors of all ages and from all walks of life will feel challenged by this unique exploration that has the power to change perceptions. They will even be able to take action, right in the exhibition room, by committing to concrete steps now!
For UCLA Health psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Kenneth Wells, the inspirational true-life tale of his friend, USC professor Elyn Saks, was a perfect fit for his other job: opera composer.
Wells has written a new opera based on Saks’ acclaimed 2007 memoir, “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness,” which details her lifelong experience with schizophrenia, from her first psychotic experiences in high school to ascending the ranks of academia at a prestigious law school. The opera, which will be performed in June at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, is the fourth written by Wells and the second about Saks.
Dr. Kenneth B. Wells, M.D., M.P.H., received his M.D. from UCSF and his M.P.H. from UCLA. He is a psychiatrist, a Senior Scientist at RAND, Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine and Professor of Health Services at the UCLA School of Public Health. He directs the Health Services Research Center of the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, which focuses on improving quality of care for psychiatric and neurological disorders across the lifespan.
Dr. Elyn R. Saks is associate dean and Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Gould Law School, an expert in mental health law, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship winner. Saks lives with schizophrenia and has written about her experience with the illness in her award-winning best-selling autobiography, The Center Cannot Hold, published by Hyperion Books in 2007. She is also a cancer survivor.
This exciting conversation is scheduled to take place prior to the live workshop and performance dates on June 17, 23, and 25.
Claudia Schnugg is curator and artscience scholar. She holds a PhD in social and economic sciences with an additional focus on cultural sciences and media arts. Her practice is twofold: as scholar she is researching artscience collaborations by investigating effects, impact, and value of processes and the relevance of the outcome. As a curator, she supports and develops projects, programmes, and exhibitions at the intersection of art and science. Currently, she is curating projects at ESA/ESTEC, Institute of Stem Cells and Epigenetics at Helmholtz Center Munich, Science Gallery Berlin, works with Pro Helvetia, co-curator of Naturarchy Resonances IV of the SciArt Project at the European Commission’s JRC, and leads a project at Johannes Kepler University. Upcoming shows are CORALS at Science Gallery Berlin and Intersecting Realities in Timisoara.
