Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous of November 8, 2010

Constructive Interference of the Arts and Sciences

San Francisco, 8 november 2010
c/o University of San Francisco
See below

An event about Artists and Scientists who work/think/imagine/engage at the intersections of the Arts and Science.

Chaired by Piero Scaruffi (p@scaruffi.com) and Tami Spector
Part of a series of cultural events
Sponsored by:
School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
the University of Illinois' eDREAM Institute,
the University of Calabria's Evolutionary Systems Group,
Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology,
and USF Dean's Office of Arts and Science.


Leonardo ISAST and USF invite you to a meeting of the Leonardo Art/Science community. See below for location and agenda.

The event is free and open to everybody. Feel free to invite relevant acquaintances but please RSVP to p@scaruffi.com . Admission is limited.

Like previous evenings, the agenda includes some presentations of art/science projects, and time for casual socializing/networking.

In order to facilitate the networking, feel free to send me the URL of a webpage that describes your work or the organization you work for. I will publish a list on this webpage before the day of the event so that everybody can check what everybody else is doing. (Not mandatory, just suggested).

See also...

  • Wonderfest Nov 6-7
  • Art, Technology, Culture Colloquia
  • Art/Science Fusion at UC Davis
  • Previous Art/Science Evenings


    Program:
    • 6:30pm-6:45pm: Socializing/networking. During the evening anyone in the audience is welcome to present their work in 30 seconds.
    • 6:45-7:10:
    • Ken Eklund on "Massively Seeking Susan: Connecting Strangers Through Gameplay / ZOROP" Don't believe those who dismiss it as some sort of game. Zorop is real, and so is the Great Zoropathetic Warp - the fabric of human connection woven whenever strangers find something in common.
    • 7:10-7:35:
    • Tom McKeag (BioDreamMachine) on "How Would Nature Do That?" Teaching science through design to natural-born inventors
    • 7:35-7:50: BREAK
    • 7:50-8:15:
    • Robert Lang (Origami Artist) on "From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes" Origami, the ancient Japanese art of has undergone a renaissance over the last few decades, in part due to the contributions of scientists and mathematicians to the art. Mathematical techniques can give rise to both artworks of remarkable beauty as well as real-world applications in medicine, space, and more.
    • 8:15-8:45:
    • Robert Edgar on "The Simultaneous Opposites Engine" In the context with earlier work involving reexamination of mediated artifacts, the Simultaneous Opposites engine is a performance/navigation system for real-time traversal of existing video files, sorting through the audio and video a single frame at a time, in an arrhythmic spiraling motion. The engine is driven using a MIDI guitar and other computer interfaces.
    • 8:45: Piero Scaruffi on the next Leonardo Art/Science evening I will simply preview the line-up of speakers for the next Leonardo evening.
    • 8:45pm-9:30pm: Discussions, more socializing You can mingle with the speakers and the audience

    Bios:
    • Robert Edgar is a digital media producer presently living in the Bay area. Robert creates and employs software engines to examine mediated artifacts forged at his zone of proximal development. His engines include Memory Theatre One (1985), Living Cinema (1988), Sand, or How Computers Dream of Truth in Cinema (1992), Memory Theatre Two (2003), and Simultaneous Opposites (presently under development). He holds an MFA from Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts, presently works at Stanford University, and teaches at the Art Institute of Sunnyvale.
    • Ken Eklund is a game designer and a thought leader in the area of serious games and collaborative gameplay for the social good. He is the creator of World Without Oil, a landmark massively collaborative alternate reality game, and currently team lead on EVOKE, "a ten-week crash course on changing the world." Ken has long been interested in the positive social effects of games and open-ended, creative play. Ken and his partner on ZOROP, Annette Mees, both seek ways to use technology to create new narrative forms and experiences - he approaches it as a game designer, she is a director of immersive theater in London. Both believe "participation through play can make stories more personal, meaningful and adventuresome." Zer01 Artist in Residence.
    • Robert Lang, after a 15-year career doing research and development in semiconductor lasers and optoelectronics, became a full-time origami artist devoted equally to the art of origami and its practical applications. He is the author, co-author, or editor of 9 books on origami and his work has been exhibited in shows worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Zer01 Artist in Residence.
    • Tom McKeag is the founder of BioDreamMachine, a nonprofit educational institution dedicated to bringing bio-inspired design education to K12 schools (www.BioDreamMachine.org). He established the nation's first public elementary school course in biomimicry in 2006, and still teaches the subject through the State of California's Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program in the Dixie school district, Marin County, California. Tom teaches bio-inspired design to graduate and undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley and the California College of the Arts in San Francisco where he is a Senior Lecturer. He is a member of the Biomimicry Institute's Educational Advisory Board. He writes a regular blog about biomimicry at www.greenerdesign.com.
    • Piero Scaruffi is a cognitive scientist who has lectured in three continents and published several books on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, the latest one being "The Nature of Consciousness" (2006). He pioneered Internet applications in the early 1980s and the use of the World-Wide Web for cultural purposes in the mid 1990s. His poetry has been awarded several national prizes in Italy and the USA. His latest book of poems and meditations is "Synthesis" (2009). As a music historian, he has published ten books, the latest ones being "A History of Rock and Dance Music" (2009) and "A History of Jazz Music" (2007). He has also written extensively about cinema, literature and the visual arts. An avid traveler, he has visited 121 countries of the world.

    Address and directions:


    University of San Francisco
    2130 Fulton Street
    SF, CA 94117

    See the campus map and directions

    FROMM Hall Maraschi Room


    Confirmed so far:


    Photos