FACULTY
UCLA
Professor Victoria Vesna, Ph.D.
Art | Science center director
Victoria Vesna is a media artist, professor at the department of Design | Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts. She is also director of the recently established UCLA Art|Sci center and the UC Digital Arts Research Network. Her work can be defined as experimental creative research that resides between disciplines and technologies. She explores how communication technologies affect collective behavior and how perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation. Victoria has exhibited her work in 18 solo exhibitions, over 70 group shows, published 20+ papers and gave a 100+ invited talks in the last decade. She is recipient of many grants, commissions and awards, including the Oscar Signorini award for best net artwork in 1998 and the Cine Golden Eagle for best scientific documentary in 1986. She holds a PhD from the University of Wales, UK and is he North American editor of AI & Society and author of Database Aesthetics.
Science, Art & Technology
Studio | Nano / Biotech Lab 08
Organizers
Adam Stieg, Ph.D, scientific director, California Nanosystems Institute
Adam Stieg serves as the Scientific Director for the Art | Science Lab. Originally raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Adam received his B.A. from Drew University and Ph.D. in Physical-Inorganic Chemistry from UCLA where he continues to carry out nanoscience research as the Technical Director of Nano and Pico Characterization at the California NanoSystems Institute. This research is focused on the development and application of new experimental methods, specifically in the field of scanning probe microscopy, toward development of an integrated understanding of matter at the interfaces of traditionally defined boundaries. His direct involvement in a variety of collaborative, interdisciplinary research projects between the arts and sciences has provided both inspiration and motivation for bringing the power of such creative approaches to the forefront of education.
Stefanie Adcock, assistant director, Art | Science center
Stefanie Adcock is a dance theatre artist, educator, experimental filmmaker/collaborator and is currently working under the direction of Victoria Vesna at UCLA’s Art | Sci Center. Adcock completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa in Dance and Asian Studies. After completing three years in Japan, Adcock returned to the United States obtaining an M.F.A. at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures. Adcock’s work draws from Japanese movement aesthetics, Polish avant-garde theatre and an interest in the art of the moving image. Her work has been presented at Kobe Hall, the Kennedy Center, UCLA, Highways Performance Space, the Stella Adler Theatre, VideoDance 2007 in Athens, Greece and SUNY Potsdam. Adcock’s current artistic research and work experiments with cultivated microbes as scenographic elements for an original claymation film exploring the aesthetics of disease, body and decay.
Tara Zepel, coordinator, press
Instructors
Carlin Hsueh, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Carlin (pronounced Carlene) will be a third year graduate student at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. She hails from our own southern California area but spent four wonderful years up at Berkeley for her undergraduate career. She currently works in the Gimzewski group in the physical chemistry division working on AFM imaging of in situ cleavage of DNA for gene expression profiling. She hopes that the results of this study will have a promising application as an alternative approach to development of predictive, preventive and personalized medicine. Before attending graduate school, Carlin spent some time teaching both eager and reluctant high school students the joys of chemistry. She enjoyed getting to know her students and sharing how chemistry can be used and seen in their every day lives. Carlin herself is fascinated with merging both the artistic and practical perspectives of chemistry and looks forward to sharing that experience.
Heider Raisol, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Heider is a raduate student in Professor James K. Gimzewski’s research group in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He became interested in collaborative efforts of the Art | Science center through his interactions with Professor Gimzewski and close collaborator Professor Victoria Vesna. He is particularly interested in how current visual and audio art work relates to current emerging scientific technologies. His research project involves the development and prototyping of novel atomic force microscopes with the primary goal of increasing image resolution and acquisition speed. The ultimate hope of the project is to be able to observe biological systems with greater detail to understand how fundamental chemical interactions dictate global cellular response.
John Carpenter, Department of Design | Media Arts
John Carpenter is a graduate student in the Department of Design | Media Arts in the School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA. He works on biological data visualization and his current focus is virtually and physically modeling objects in motion through time and space. John graduated from the University of Arizona in 2001 with a B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology and minors in Studio Art and Psychology. He then worked with Dr. Scott Fraser, david kremers, and Wayne Waller in the Biological and Brain Imaging Centers at the California Institute of Technology(2001-2005). Following his research at Caltech, John worked at Morphosis Architects (2005-2007) and collaborated with designers to develop new visualizations for 3D program elements and conceptual systems.
Lis Evans, Department of Architecture
Lis holds a B.S. in architecture and a minor in neuroscience from MIT. Prior to pursuing a masters in architecture at UCLA, she gained a diverse background in design and research while working at several architecture firms, editing for an architectural book publishing house, and design writing for a San Francisco based magazine. She is particularly interested in how design can be used to further humanitarian causes.