The LASERs are a national program of evening gatherings that bring artists and scientists together for informal presentations and conversation with an audience. See the program for the whole series.
Leonardo ISAST and USF invite you to a meeting of the Leonardo Art/Science community.
The event is free and open to everybody.
Like previous evenings,
the agenda includes some presentations of art/science projects,
news from the audience, and time for casual socializing/networking.
See below for location and agenda.
Email me if you want to be added to the mailing list for the LASERs.
|
See also...
|
Program (the order of the speakers might change):
- 7:00-7:25:
Mitch Altman (Virtual reality pioneer and Noisebridge founder) on "The Hackerspace Movement: Socializing in the Post-Social World"
There are now thousands of hackerspaces in the world... Read more
- 7:25-7:50:
Peter Walter (UCSF/ Biochemistry and Biophysics) on "How Our Cells Cope with Strees and Why it Matters"
A large number of human diseases is tied to disrupted protein transport in cells... Read more
- 7:50-8:10: BREAK. Before or after the break, anyone in the audience currently working within the intersections of art and science will have 30 seconds to share their work. Please present your work as a teaser so that those who are interested can seek you out during social time following the event.
- 8:10-8:35:
Mary Tang (Stanford/ Nanofabrication) on "Concept to Construct: 'Creating' in the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility"
The Stanford Nanofabrication Facility is a vibrant community where researchers from different areas of study can come together to learn and share expertise... Read more
- 8:35-9:00:
Amy Balkin (Media Artist) on "Open to the Public"
Sited projects undertaken responding to climate change's bureaucracies... Read more
- Discussions, networking
You can mingle with the speakers and the audience
Bios:
- Amy Balkin is an artist whose work addressees property relations in the context of climate change, considering legal borders and systems, environmental justice, and the equitable sharing of common-pool resources. These include ongoing efforts to permanently open Public Smog, a clean air park in the atmosphere, and the invitation to contribute to A People's Archive of Sinking and Melting (Amy Balkin, et al.), a climate archive of the future anterior, or 'what will have been'.
- Mitch Altman is a hacker and inventor. While at the University of Illinois, Altman co-organized the first Hash Wednesday in Champaign-Urbana in 1977. Altman moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986 to work in Silicon Valley. Altman was an early developer of Virtual Reality technologies, working at VPL Research with Jaron Lanier. Altman left VPL Research in protest when it accepted contracts with the United States Department of Defense. Altman co-founded Silicon Valley start-up 3ware in February 1997 with Peter Herz and Jim MacDonald. Altman started Cornfield Electronics as a consulting company. In 2004 Altman released a one-button universal remote control called TV-B-Gone, to be used for turning off TVs in public places. Following extensive involvement in the "Maker" movement and Make magazine, Altman publicly parted ways with the Maker Faire in 2012 after the Maker Faire accepted contracts with the United States Department of Defense. Mitch Altman is an important figure in the international "hackerspace" and "maker" movements. While attending the 2007 Berlin Chaos Communication Camp, Altman and Jacob Appelbaum began discussing the idea of a San Francisco hackerspace, at which time there were no hackerspaces in the United States. In October 2008 he co-founded Noisebridge, one of the earliest hackerspaces in the USA.
- Piero Scaruffi is a cultural historian 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). His latest book of history is "A History of Silicon Valley" (2011). The first volume of his free ebook "A Visual History of the Visual Arts" appeared in 2012. His latest book is "Intelligence is not Artificial" (2013). He has also written extensively about cinema and literature. He founded the Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) in 2008.
- Mary Tang is the Managing Director of the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility, in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. The SNF provides nano- and micro-fabrication tools and know-how to over 400 researchers annually, supporting research and prototyping applications across engineering, physical and biological sciences, and medicine. SNF is open to all; in continuous operation for ~30 years, it has supported the work of thousands of students and has "graduated" hundreds of companies as well. SNF is a founding member of a network of University facilities across the country supported since 1994 by the National Science Foundation, with the mission of providing open, shared access to advanced fabrication and characterization technologies. Mary received an MS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford and then worked as a process engineer at Intel. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the UC Berkeley and San Francisco and began her career at SNF as a liaison for Bio/Engineering research. She has been in her current position since 2013.
- Peter Walter is currently a Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF and an HHMI Investigator. He graduated from the Free University of Berlin in 1976, and received his Masters of Science in Organic Chemistry from Vanderbilt University in 1977. In 1981 he obtained his PhD in Biochemistry at The Rockefeller University. In 1983, Peter joined the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, and served as Department Chair from 2001 until 2008. He is the current President-Elect 2016 of the American Society of Cell Biology. Peter's awards include the Eli Lilly Award, the Passano Award, the Wiley Prize, the Stein & Moore Award, the Gairdner Award, the E.B. Wilson Medal, the Otto Warburg Medal, the Jung Prize, the 2012 Ehrlich and Darmstaedter Prize, the 2014 Shaw Prize, the 2014 Lasker Award and the 2015 Vilcek Prize.
Address and directions:
University of San Francisco
2130 Fulton Street
SF, CA 94117
Fromm Hall - FR 115 - Berman Room
2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117-1080
Fromm Hall is behind the church, best accessed from Parker Ave.
|
Extended abstracts
Walter
Our research lays the groundwork for treating a range of human diseases related to defective protein folding and transport. Out work in cell biology has led to a fundamental understanding of important elements of the process by which proteins are ferried from their place of manufacture in cells to the final destinations where they function. A large number of human diseases is tied to disrupted protein transport in cells; treating such diseases requires a basic understanding of the underlying cellular processes that have gone awry.
Tang
The Stanford Nanofabrication Facility is, at its core, a silicon machine shop housing well over 100 tools used in the fabrication of micro- and nano- structures. As research shifts away from silicon electronics towards new materials and systems integration, this talk will address new technologies and how SNF is evolving to meet their needs. But beyond its collection of tools, SNF is a vibrant community where researchers from different areas of study can come together to learn and share expertise. This talk will also explore the process of creation, from a concept to its embodiment into a construct, in the context of a university research lab.
Altman
Mitch has traveled the world visiting hundreds of hackerspaces, and has helped people create many more. There are now thousands of hackerspaces in the world, and growing fast. What are hackerspaces? Why are they spreading so quickly? What are the personal, social, educational, and economic implications? Can they save the world? In this talk Mitch will explore possible answers to these questions, and pose many more than he attempts to answer.
Balkin
Sited and durational projects undertaken responding to climate change's bureaucracies including participatory projects addressing issues of public participation and equity.
Photos and videos of this evening
|