Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous of December 7, 2016

Exploring the Frontiers of Knowledge and Imagination, Fostering Interdisciplinary Networking
UC Berkeley, December 7, 2016
Soda Hall (corner of Hearst and LeRoy), Room 310
NOTE: Use the WEST-entrance of SODA Hall entering from Etcheverry Plaza.
Chaired by Piero Scaruffi

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. The event is free and open to everybody. Email me if you want to be added to the mailing list for the LASERs. Like previous evenings, the agenda includes some presentations of art/science projects, news from the audience, and time for casual socializing/networking. This event is kindly sponsored by the Minerva Foundation.
Where: UC Berkeley
Soda Hall, Room 310
NOTE: Use the WEST-entrance of SODA Hall entering from Etcheverry Plaza.
Campus map
What (the order of the speakers might change):
  • 7:00-7:25: Philip Sabes (UCSF/ Neuroscience) on "Brain-Machine Interfaces" Brain-Machine Interfaces offer the promise of helping disabled patients... Read more
  • 7:25-7:50: Fyodor Urnov (UC Berkeley/ Genomics) on "Genetics and Society" Abstract forthcoming... Read more
  • 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: Stan Shaff (Audium) on "Exploring and expanding the language of space in music composition and performance" Audium, the only theater of its kind in the world, is a space built specifically for choreographing sound in space... Read more
  • 8:35-9:00: Adrien Segal (Sculptural Data Artist) on "Scientific inquiry, sensory experience, and the creative process" Making the unseen in the world around us visible... Read more
  • Discussions, networking You can mingle with the speakers and the audience

See also...
  • Other LASER series
  • Archive of past LASERs
  • Leonardo ISAST
  • Art, Technology, Culture Colloquia
  • Other LASER series
  • ScienceSchmoozer
  • LAST Festival
  • Other recommended events
    Bios:
    • Philip Sabes (UCSF/ Neuroscience) is a neuroscientist and neural engineer and a Professor of Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Sabes' laboratory works to understand how the brain controls movement, and in particular the role of sensory information and learning. His lab also applies their scientific findings toward the development of Brain Machine Interfaces to help people with severe sensory and motor loss, such as spinal cord injury. Dr. Sabes currently holds the Jack D. and DeLoris Lange Endowed Chair in Cell Physiology at UCSF.
    • 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.
    • Adrien Segal is a sculptural data artist and designer based in Oakland, CA. Her work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, and is published in several books and academic journals, including Boom: A Journal of California and Data Flow 2. She has been an Artist in Residence at Facebook, the Bunnell Street Art Center in Alaska, the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts in Portland, Oregon, and at Autodesk's Pier 9 Workshop in San Francisco. Adrien is the Fall 2015 Wornick Distinguished Visiting Professor at California College of the Arts, where she holds a BFA in Furniture Design. In addition to teaching, she pursues her creative practice out of her studio on the former Naval Base in Alameda, CA.
    • Stan Shaff started out in the 1950s as a trumpet player, composer and teacher. His friendship and collaboration with painter and sculptor Seymour Locks expanded his grounding in the arts. He explored the nature of sound in relation to movement with Ann Halprin's Dancers Workshop; curious about sound bereft of traditional tools and structure, he turned to tape composition, working and performing with composers involved with the Tape Music Center. By the late 1950s, Shaff's work with audio tape led to the need to externally realize sound in the way he conceived of it: as an energy in space. In 1959 Shaff met fellow musician and teacher Douglas McEachern, whose background in electronics enabled him to develop original equipment systems for live, spatial performances. From the first public presentation of these ideas in 1960 through succeeding decades of work with the co-creation and development of the sound theatre AUDIUM - constructed specifically for choreographing sound in space - Shaff has sought to explore and expand the language of space in music composition and performance.
    • Fyodor Urnov is Project Leader and Senior Scientist at Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. where he co-developed human genome editing with engineered zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs). Dr. Urnov previously led the company's research and development efforts in deploying genome editing for crop trait engineering (in partnership with Dow Agrosciences) and in generation of engineered cell lines for manufacturing, improved generation of transgenic animals and as research reagents (in partnership with Sigma-Aldrich). In his current role as Project Leader for the Hemoglobinopathies, Dr Urnov heads Sangamo's partnership with Biogen to develop genome editing as a one time, lasting treatment for beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease. Dr. Urnov is also an associate adjunct professor in the department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr Urnov received his Ph.D. from Brown University and holds a B.Sc. in Biology from Moscow State University. He is an author on more than 60 scientific publications and an inventor on more than 90 issued and pending US patents related to ZFP technology.

    Extended abstracts:

    Shaff
    Audium, the only theater of its kind in the world, is a space built in 1960 specifically for choreographing sound in space. Use of space as a compositional element in music has received wide attention for decades, especially among electronic and computer musicians. Shaff's contribution lies in his realization that, if one is truly serious about utilizing space in music, one must configure the performance environment in ways that are inconceivable in a typical concert hall. Shaff and McEachern created the AUDIUM theater as an interactive environment for the exploration of sound in space. AUDIUM enables Shaff to develop and produce his finely crafted compositions, utilizing the results of their research.
    Urnov
    Abstract forthcoming.
    Sabes
    Brain-Machine Interfaces offer the promise of helping disabled patients by allowing them to control prosthetic limbs, computer interfaces, or other devices directly from the neural signals in their brain. Two key challenges remain before these devices will be widely available in the clinic: the development of practical and reliable physical interfaces and the achievement of performance levels nearing those of natural movement control. The second of these will require not only effective "read-out" of intended movements, but also "write-in" of sensory feedback. I will talk about the basic science and recent technical advances in this field, including work from my lab.
    Segal

    Information becomes knowledge through experience - a direct sensory perception of the tangible world around us. By translating data into physical forms, a direct sensory experience can become the means by which information is communicated. Starting with data as a conceptual basis, my work incorporates scientific research, digital technology, material culture, and somatic experience into a practice that aims to manifest information in the realm of the physical.


    Photos and videos of this evening

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