“Before I sink
Into the big sleep
I want to hear
I want to hear
The scream of the butterfly”
(Jim Morrison, “When the Music is Over”, 1967)
Once an artist takes on the challenge of making the invisible visible, or the inaudible audible, s/he is almost immediately thrown into the realm of energy at the edge of art and science. The established art world based on visual culture finds it difficult to place this kind of work. The scientific community, used to working in this realm in a reductionist way, finds it hard to comprehend. Yet the public seems to be drawn to artwork residing “in between”, and there seems to be a universal need for a connection to the spiritual realm beyond what established religions offer. As many speculative ideas in the West circulate around ideas of energetic approach to matter in general, particularly the body and mind, alternative medicine and other Eastern philosophies are thriving. Nanotechnology mixing with the quantum fields, inexplicable to the rational reductionist minds, opens up new territories of vibration matters that brings us back to poetic expressions.
The Ancient Greek word for "butterfly" is ψυχή (psȳchē), primarily means “soul” and/or “mind” and the sensation of feeling “butterflies in the stomach” is most often experienced prior to important events, related to nervousness and can be experienced in situations of impending danger. It is possible that the condition, frequently felt by an oncoming new experience or relationship, is caused by a surge of adrenaline. One could look at the current condition of humanity as a collective state of nervousness, especially in relation to the current economic / ecological crisis that is global. The “butterfly effect” has been very much in the public imagination in the last two decades with numerous movies, Sci-Fi novels and even games, center plots around the idea that one butterfly could have a far-reaching ripple effect in the subsequent historic events.
……
Victoria Vesna is a media artist, Professor at the Department of Design | Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts and director of the UCLA Art|Sci center. Currently she is Visiting Professor at Art, Media + Technology, Parsons the New School for Design in New York and at the School of Creative Media in Hong Kong. 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. Her most recent experiential installations -- Blue Morph, Mood Swings and Water Bowls, all aim to raise consciousness around the issues of our relationship to natural systems. Other notable works are Bodies INCorporated, Datamining Bodies, n0time and Cellular Trans_Actions. She has long-term collaborations with a nanoscientist, a neuroscientist and Buddhist monks.
Victoria has exhibited her work in 20+ solo exhibitions, 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 Shanghai International Art Science exhibition award for best art work in 2008, the Oscar Signorini award for best net artwork in 1998 and the Cine Golden Eagle for best scientific documentary in 1986. Vesna's work has received notice in numerous publications such as Art in America, Nature, National Geographic, the Los Angeles Times, Spiegel (Germany), The Irish Times (Ireland), Tema Celeste (Italy), and Veredas (Brazil) and appears in a number of book chapters on media arts. She holds a PhD from the University of Wales and is the North American editor of AI & Society journal and author of Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow edited volume (Minnesota Press, 2007), and recently published Context Providers: Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts, co-edited with Margot Lovejoy and Christiane Paul (Intellect, 2011).
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.
NEW GENERATION SCIENTISTS SPEAK: SCI|ART CONNECTIONS + NETWORKS
November 3rd, 4:00-6:30pm
School of Creative Media, City University
Future Cinema room, 6th floor
It used to be common for a scientist to be an artist and vice versa. Somewhere
during recent history Two Cultures between the Arts and the Sciences emerged,
making it difficult to cross boundaries, creating the illusion that the gap between
them is unbridgeable. But a new generation of scientists and artists are emerging,
fostering dialog and innovating collaborations, thereby creating a new space where
technology blends with design, where scientific research is coloured with art.
In recent art/science dialogues, we tend to hear about artist’s experiences and
inspirations in relation to these kind of cross‐disciplinary collaborations. This panel
is made up of scientists who are active in their respective fields but also have long
term collaborative relationships with artists. They will discuss, from their point of
view, why it is important to engage these new research territories at this historical
juncture. In relation to this projects that they have been involved with will be shown,
including the current collaborative work on display at upcoming Microwave fectival.
Moderated by an artist, these scientists will discuss our experiences in melding (or
re‐melding) these two worlds – from a nanoscience, neuroscience and
biotechnology perspective merging with that of design media arts. In the process we
hope to engage the audience with thoughts about the future of Sci|Art, the process of
collaboration and how to nurture its growth.
Moderated by Victoria Vesna, Ph.D.
………..
Victoria Vesna
Victoria Vesna, Ph.D., is a media artist and Professor at the UCLA Department of
Design | Media Arts and Director of the Art|Sci center at the School of the Arts and
California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI). She is currently a Visiting Professor at SCM, City University, Hong Kong, Parsons Art, Media + Technology, New York, a senior
researcher at IMéRA – Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées in Marseille.
Her work can be defined as experimental creative research that resides between
disciplines and technologies. With her installations she explores how
communication technologies affect collective behavior and how perceptions of
identity shift in relation to scientific innovation.
Adam Stieg
Adam Stieg, Ph.D ‐ Director of the Sci | Art NanoLab Summer Institute. Originally
raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Adam received his B.A. from Drew University and
Ph.D. in Physical‐Inorganic Chemistry from UCLA. As Scientific Director of Nano and
Pico Characterization at the California NanoSystems Institute, his research focuses
on the design and application of physical methods toward characterization of
nanoscale systems, ranging from the physical to biological, through the development
of multi‐environment, high‐performance scanning probe microscopes. Numerous
ongoing, collaborative efforts involve the study of molecular machines and devices,
nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery, inorganic carbon‐based materials, and
tailored functional surfaces for stem cell differentiation. Recently established
research directions include the use of engineered, supramolecular protein
assemblies toward the construction of functional meso‐scale devices and the pursuit
of physically derived intelligent systems through neuromorphic computation. 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.
Siddharth Ramakrishnan
Siddharth Ramakrishnan, PhD. is a Neuroscientist currently working in the field of
Bioelectronics at Columbia University in New York. He works on designing
microchips to record from brain cells and using proteins to create bio‐batteries and
biosensors. As a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA (2006‐2009) he studied the
development and physiology of reproductive neurons in the zebrafish brain. His PhD
dissertation (UIC, 2005) addressed pattern generating networks in snails and how they
were modulated to elicit various behaviors. He co‐teaches the Hybrid
Worlds: Nano_biotech + Art course with Victoria Vesna at the New School of Design, New York. In 2011, he was invited to speak at DASER, at the National Academy of
Sciences in Washington, D.C. His collaborations with artists and architects have led
to exhibitions and documentaries that blend the worlds of art and science. Currently
he has been appointed Fellow of the UCLA Art|Sci center.
Romie Littrell
Romie Littrell’s research is focused on the exchange of tools and methods between
artists and scientists. In the present he is a graduate student in the Biomedical
Engineering Dept. at UCLA. He received his BA in Molecular and Cell Biology from
UC Berkeley. Since then he has engaged in a wide array of biological research
including maize genetics, cornea tissue engineering, microfluidic bioreactors, and
cell‐chip interfaces. His current research focuses on creating non‐institutional
laboratories and abstracting biological techniques to facilitate those in unrelated
fields to perform advanced biology. Romie is also very interested in synthetic
biology, is the founder of SoCal DIYBio, and was a grad advisor to the 2007 MIT
iGEM team.
Chico MacMurtrie was born in New Mexico in 1961. He received his B.F.A. from the University of Arizona and an M.F.A. in New Forms and Concepts from the University of California at Los Angeles. Since 1989, MacMurtrie has exhibited in more than 20 countries worldwide, receiving support from more than 15 national, local, and international granting agencies, and 30 corporate sponsors. His awards include five grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his work has been the subject of numerous international broadcasts and texts including the BBC’s Pandemonium, the Discovery Channel’s The Next Step, and Mark Dery’s book Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century.
Chico acts as the Artistic Director of Amorphic Robot Works (ARW), a collective he founded in 1991, consisting of artists and engineers who help in the realization of his work. Since that time, his investigations have resulted in the creation of more than 250 mechanical sculptures that assume anthropomorphic and abstract forms. Amorphic Robot Works is a collaborative group of artists, technicians, and programmers who create multi-faceted machine-sculptures that interact in their uniquely designed environments. The work involves a kinesthetic inquiry into the human condition, which has resulted in the creation of more than 250 mechanical sculptures that assume anthropomorphic and abstract forms. Collaborators include Brian Kane whose work on this exhibition marks 20-years of collaboration with ARW; Tymm Twillman who has been developing the sensing and Aurduino based code over the last two years; and Frank Hausman who continues his 20 years of contribution on electronics and Show control.
Working in collaboration with scientists and engineers, science photographer Felice Frankel's images have been published in over 300 journal articles and/or covers and various other publications for general audiences. She will take us through her process of how she creates communicative representations of scientific research and discuss the hurdles and ethical questions confronted by all those representing scientific data and concepts.
Colleen Macklin focuses on creating new games, simulaltions and playing experiences which encourages experimental learning and investigation into social and global issues. She is the director of PETlab (prototyping, evaluation, teaching and learning lab) and has led social media learning projects with partners such as the UN and Open Society Institute. She will be exploring the development of science games while in residence at the Art Sci Center. Associate Professor, Parsons the New School for Design.
"The Lifeification of Games: some thoughts about science, games and saving the world"
4:00PM Talk, CNSI Auditorium
5:00PM Reception and Games, CNSI Presentation Space.
Location: CNSI Building 570 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles
Ellen Levy's installation, Norms of Behavior, addresses the cultural issues involved in adjudicating health and illness and in confronting the limits of our perception. She integrates these concerns in Cultural Epidemiology an annotated and transfigured reworking of Jan Steen's The Village School, and Stealing Attention which reflects on Carravagio's The Cardsharps.
Morten Søndergaard is a researcher working in media art, media art awareness, technology and art. His current projects include explorations on BIOTOPIA - Art in the Wet Zone, research on sound and culture, and history and theory of sound and media art. Aalborg University, Copenhagen Institute of Technology.
Location: California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) Auditorium
Marko Peljhan is active in numerous arts and technology communities. His ongoing mobile laboratory project Makrolab, focusing on telecommunications, migrations and weather systems, finds an intersection between art and science, as do his microgravity and space art experiments in the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. Associate Professor, UCSB, Co-Driector UCIRA.
Location: California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) Auditorium
Lecture by media artist developing new technologies and interaction design that may improve the lives of people who live with long-term chronic pain. Simon Fraser University. [Art | Sci fall 2011 artist in residence]
Location: EDA, Broad Art center.
Diane Gromala teaches in the graduate Information Design and Technology program at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her work pushes art beyond the traditional canvas and computer graphics domains into Virtual Reality and Physiological Computing. She is the founding director of the multidisciplinary Transforming Pain Research Group exploring the silent epidemic of chronic pain.
