Location: Art | Sci gallery at the California Nanosystems Institute
The Antmaster is an experiment in hybridizing Dynamic Media (projections) with Static Media (paintings.) Digitally projected images of live ants are superimposed onto painted surfaces to achieve a new amalgam of motion and still images. In addition, nanosounds of ants moving and communicating were recorded in a nanoscience lab to act as a soundtrack to the pieces.
GIL KUNO
Through experiments in sound and re-envisioning experiences common within everyday life, Gil's aim is to push people away from paradigmatic thinking. He takes a whimsical approach in subverting common perceptions of reality. By exaggerating perception and derailing reality, Gil redefines the familiarity we associate with the organic and social processes that surround us.
Gil has exhibited/performed at: The National Art Center Tokyo, The Hammer Museum (L.A.), Fuji Rock Festival (Naeba, Japan), Laforet Harajuku (Tokyo), The Melkweg (Amsterdam), Schouwburg (Rotterdam), The Sprawl (London), Liquid Room (Tokyo), Womb (Tokyo), Milk (Tokyo), New Wight Gallery (L.A.), Code (Shinjuku, Tokyo), Core (Roppongi, Tokyo), Warp (Tokyo), Heaven's Door (Tokyo), Rockets (Osaka), Loft (Tokyo), among others.
The Blue Morph Exhibit (overnight camping optional)
The Integratron is an acoustically perfect tabernacle and energy machine sited on a powerful geomagnetic vortex m in the magical Mojave Desert
BLUE MORPH is an interactive installation that uses nanoscale images and sounds derived from the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. This is a fusion of sound, light and interactive art/science. The Integratron's sound chamber will be transformed into a place where you can experience the powerful beauty of nanotechnology and art created at UCLA by Victoria Vesna and James Gimzewski. This is an evening event with optional overnight camping under the stars or inside the Integratron.
Pre-registration is required! The cost is $20 for the event, plus $35/person for optional overnight camping (9:00pm to 11am; includes a 10am sound bath!. To register or for more info, please send us an email: integratron@gmail.com, or call 760-364-3126.
Victoria Vesna is a media artist, professor and chair 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.
James Gimzewski, PhD, CPhys, FIoN, FInstP, FWIF, FREng, Distinguished Professor, UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry Department; Director, UCLA CNSI Nano & Pico Characterization Core Facility; Scientific Director, UCLA Art|Sci Center
On March 5 and 6, the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA will hold a joint symposium with the Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care (ASMeW) at Waseda University of Tokyo, Japan, on nano-scale research into biosenors, biomaterials, and nanotoxicology. Specific topics will include on-chip sensor devices for medical care and the risk assessment of engineered nanoparticles. These topics represent the research strengths of both institutions, and will be the basis for future collaborations in the biomedical area.
The symposium will be held in the auditorium of the new CNSI building at UCLA. This 188,000-square-foot facility located in the center of the campus is dedicated entirely to basic and applied nano-scale research in medicine, engineering, and the physical and life sciences.
This Symposium represents a commitment by both ASMeW and CNSI to the dissemination of their research findings to international audiences. It is also the highlight of a year long celebration marking the 125^th year of the founding of Waseda University.
Waseda University was founded in 1882 and has since become the top private university in Japan. ASMeW was established in 2004 by the Japanese government as a Super Center of Excellence to carry out cutting-edge research in the biomedical, life science, and health care fields. It incorporates the Institute for Biomedical Engineering and a Strategic Management Center for the governing of medical and science research. It will soon occupy a new research facility formally affiliated with the Tokyo Women's Medical University.
Professor Leonard H. Rome
Interim Director of CNSI, will serve as UCLA faculty sponsor for the symposium.
BLUE MORPH is an interactive installation that uses nanoscale images and sounds derived from the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
Nanotechnology is changing our perception of life and this is symbolic in the Blue Morpho butterfly with the optics involved -- that beautiful blue color is not pigment at all but patterns and structure which is what nano-photonics is centered on studying. The lamellate structure of their wing scales has been studied as a model in the development of fabrics, dye-free paints, and anti-counterfeit technology such as that used in monetary currency. Blue Morpho has intrigued scientists for generations because of its subtle optical engineering that manipulated photons. Today, its dazzling iridescent wings are giving rise to a market trying to mimic its wonder and create a counterfeit proof currency and credit cards. The optics are no doubt fascinating but the real surprise is in the discovery of the way cellular change takes place in a butterfly. Sounds of metamorphosis are not gradual or even that pleasant as we would imagine it. Rather the cellular transformation happens in sudden surges that are broken up with stillness and silence. Then there are the eight pumps or "hearts" that remain constant throughout the changes, pumping the rhythm in the background. During the transformation to emergence each flattened cell of the wing becomes a nanophotonic structure of black protein and space leading to iridescence.
Nano is not only making the invisible visible but also changing our way of relating to “silence” or making the in-audible audible. With all the noise of chattering technologies and minds, we propose the interactivity to be stillness for in this empty space of nano we can get in touch with the magic of continuous change. But most of all we embrace the absurd and in a surge of laughter recognize our limited human viewpoints.
The piece emerges in sound and pattern only when the viewer is
Science can prove that there are billions times a billion of atoms in a grain of sand and show that if we reduced our body to a solid mass of neutrons and protons it would result to a hundredth of a thickness of a human hair. Even there, string theories question this atomistic: view.
When we go beyond the visible realm, we enter into non-materialism and yet the interpretations can still be abstracted from the human condition and remain materialistic. At the same time, this space of “nothingness” is a natural meeting place for art, science, philosophy and spirituality. Join an extraordinary meeting of the minds to ponder how this new age of global communication systems, nano and biotechnology is transforming our perception of reality.
Chuni Lobsang Jinpa Rinpoche
Lama reincarnate, Gaden Shartse Monastic College
Roy Ascott
Theoretician, artist, director, Planetary Collegium, UK
Sigi Hale
Neuroscientist, co-founder Mindful Awareness Research Center, UCLA
Barbara Fields
Director, Association for Global New Thought
James Gimzewski
Nanoscientist, Pico Lab, UCLA
Ven Lama Phuntsho
Translator, Gaden Shartse Monastic College
Organized and moderated by: Victoria Vesna
media artist, director, Art | Science Center, UCLA
The following books will be available for sale at the UCLA Ackerman Book Store:
- Ascott, R. (ed). 2006. Engineering Nature: art & Consciousness in the post-biological era. Bristol: Intellect. ISBN 184150128X
- Roy Ascott Telematic Embrace.Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness
Edited and with an Essay by Edward A. Shanken. Berkeley: University of California Press ISBN 0-520-21803-5
- The Universe in a Single Atom : The Convergence of Science and Spirituality (Hardcover) by Dalai Lama XIV
Pre-registration is required! The cost is $20 for the event, plus $35/person for optional overnight camping (9:00pm to 11am; includes a 10am sound bath!. To register or for more info, please send us an email: 
