The computer world pretends to be finished, but never will be. In fact it simulates the past: computers for secretaries, as designed by Xerox in the 1970s, have become our working world. Today's "computer documents" (.doc and .pdf) simulate paper and the fancy printing of long ago. The Web added trivial one-way jumps, allowing pogo-stick travel between pages. But what of deeper connection?
We need deep, live documents of a very different kind for the interactive screen, as foreseen by Bush and Engelbart and others—for annotation and detailed discussion and scholarship, for organizing and decision-making, for lawmaking and litigation, and for entirely new forms of writing. Such profusely connected, living documents are still possible, but require a wholly different infrastructure. We will show some of these alternatives.
Ted Nelson is an idealistic troublemaker who coined the word 'hypertext' in the sixties, and continues to fight for a completely different computer world.
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A reception and book signing will follow the colloquium. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own copies to be signed. Ted Nelson’s new book Possiplex: An Autobiography of Ted Nelson and recent bookGeeks Bearing Gifts are available for purchase through lulu.com<http://lulu.com/> (links provided below). A few copies will also be available for purchase at the event.
The UCLA Center for Society and Genetics and The ACLU of Southern California present the panel discussion
Who Owns Your Genes?
Your Civil Liberties vs. Commercial Patenting of Human Genes
306 Royce Hall
(Reception to Follow)
Did you know that about 20 percent of human genes are patented? The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has granted thousands of patents on human genes. A gene patent holder has the right to prevent anyone else from studying, testing or even looking at a gene. As a result, scientific research and genetic testing has been delayed, limited or even shut down due to concerns about gene patents.
In May 2009, the National ACLU filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit charging that patents on two human genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer are unconstitutional and invalid. The case was filed on behalf of researchers, genetic counselors, women patients, breast cancer and women's health groups, scientific associations of geneticists, pathologists, and laboratory professionals. The suit charges that the patents on these genes stifle diagnostic testing and research and limit individuals' options regarding their medical care. In March, a federal district court issued a landmark ruling invalidating the patents. The ruling is now on appeal.
Join us for a discussion of gene patents, their effects on science and patient care, and the litigation and other advocacy. Speakers include:
* Sandra Park: Staff Attorney for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. Ms. Park is currently working on the lawsuit challenging the patents granted on two human genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer.
* Wayne Grody: M.D., Ph.D., Professor, UCLA School of Medicine Divisions of Medical Genetics and Molecular Pathology
* Deborah Heine: Attorney and Exec Director, Claire Altman Heine Foundation. Deborah Heine founded the Clair Altman Heine Foundation in memory of her daughter, Claire, who died of Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a genetic disease that involves a commercially patented gene.
* Debra Greenfield: Attorney and Adj. Asst. Prof with the UCLA Center for Society and Genetics who has previously worked on cases dealing with the implications of gene patenting and tissue ownership.
A roundtable discussion of the recently published paper: Reconstructing Indian Population History (Reich et al. 2009).
India has been underrepresented in genome-wide surveys of human variation. We analyze 25 diverse groups in India to provide strong evidence for two ancient populations, genetically divergent, that are ancestral to most Indians today. (Reich et al. 2009)
NISE Net partners and other guests, including Art|Sci Center's director Victoria Vesna, will gather to discuss the questions and challenges that we face in the field of nanotechnology education.
Join a group of artists from New York visiting Los Angeles for an exhibition downtown at the Outpost for Contemporary Art.
A discussion on participatory mapping with Lucy Hg from The League of Imaginary Scientists, media artists Andrea Polli and Chuck Varga, and xtine.
X, Y, Z, and U is an exhibition and series of discussions and workshops featuring the mapping projects of artists whose creative practices resemble field research and scientists who use DIY tactics and creative visualization to map scientific information. The exhibition and related community-based activities are scheduled throughout June at Outpost for Contemporary Art, and organized in partnership with apexart and The League of Imaginary Scientists.
Ecological concepts of continuity and interdependence are renegade forces. They not only transform existing patterns of material consumption and production, they destabilize social values and disrupt aesthetic conventions. Even the notion of beauty is overhauled by the ecological mandate to embrace all aspects of the life cycle – decay as well as growth. Artists who demonstrate radical beauty are renegade aestheticists. They demonstrate that the greening of society depends as much upon revising human values as reforming human behaviors.
The answer is most definitely the latter for the group of Nobel Prize winning scientists currently discussing climate change as part of the Nobel Laureate Symposium in London. But they are open to persuasion.
A distinct nod to art was given in the form of a cultural evening when the some of the world's greatest physicists and chemists encountered performance poets, cartoonists and architects in a bid to understand what art can contribute to the issue of climate change.
In the video above, the great and the good explain what science can learn from art.
In this informal gathering, UCLA Art | Science center director Victoria Vesna presents the concept, research and work of the recently established center housed in two locations – Broad Art center and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). She is joined by co-chairs of the Leonardo Education Forum, Ellen Levy, Andrea Polli, Nina Czegledy and guests. Together they will discuss some of the most recent activities, challenges and opportunities that this internationally oriented organization is involved in. After this, Victoria will lead a tour of the NANO exhibition she co-created with nanoscientist James Gimzewski, followed by tea reception mixer where ideas and contacts will be exchanged and the launch of the Filter magazine published by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT). The edition will be on Interdisciplinarity – specifically as such a practice relates to art and science collaborations.
1400 – Arrival at Science Center -- Science in the Café.
1430 – Presentation: UCLA Art | Science center & Leonardo Education Forum
1530 – Tour of NANO Exhibition by Victoria Vesna
1600 – Tea Reception
1630 - Filter launch
1800 – Departure from Science Centre
