Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous of 18 January 2023

Online Edition

Exploring the Frontiers of Knowledge and Imagination, Fostering Interdisciplinary Networking
Hosted from University of San Francisco
by prof. Tami Spector and Piero Scaruffi
During the covid pandemic, this online program replaces the physical L.A.S.E.R.s that were planned at Stanford University and University of San Francisco.
The USF LASERs are sponsored by the Dean of the College of Arts and Science.
See previous and future speakers and their videos.
(Note: All times are California time)
January 18 @ 7pm (California time)
Therese Lahaie (Media Artist) on "Analog and Digital Migration"
Annie Kritcher (Lawrence Livermore Lab) on "The State of Nuclear Fusion Research"
Primavera De Filippi (National Center of Scientific Research, Paris) on "Do blockchains dream of electronic flowers?"
Register here

Therese Lahaie (Media Artist) on "Analog and Digital Migration"
After the event, the video will be posted here.
If you missed this dialogue, you can view it by clicking on the image:
. Therese Lahaie studied glass technology at Massachusetts College of Art and had a BA in Fine Art from Emmanuel College, Boston, MA. Her light sculptural work is in the permanent collections of the Crocker Art Museum (CA), Corning Museum of Glass Contemporary Collection (NY), the DiRosa Collection (CA), and the Glassmuseet Ebeltoft (Denmark). In addition, she has been an artist in residence at the Kala Art Institute (CA) and had three honorary fellowships at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program (CA). She is the 2015 national award winner of the LuciteLux Just Imagine award for her Art in Public Places commission, Crossing Signal Mosaic, in Emeryville, CA. She lives and works at the 45th Artist Cooperative in Emeryville, CA.

Abstract: I’m a light installation artist using sunlight and mirrors to reflect “Lightbirds,” which fly with the sun's diurnal arc. Their analog flight pattern moves across the architectural sky canvases of building walls. When the sun has set, these “Lightbirds” take new forms from a second digital light source, as their video images are projected from optical mirrors onto building walls for an enchanted nighttime flight. Community response to keep the Lightbirds flying also suggests a spectrum of expression: X-rays, high-speed exposure, underwater photography: and similar subjects: animal, insect, and marine life, dream ambiguity suggesting life connections and beneficent celestials that fly from space to speak to us humans in soft voices and prompt us to look up from our mobile phones. As an open-water swimmer, I track the tides, sea life, and seabirds in San Francisco Bay. This series of moving “Lightbird” reflections began as an elegy for over a million Common Murres (diving sea birds) lost due to warming ocean currents/red tide that moved into the Pacific Northwest US coast. The elegy also touches our collective losses as a community.


Primavera De Filippi (National Center of Scientific Research, Paris) on "Do blockchains dream of electronic flowers?"
After the event, the video will be posted here.
If you missed this dialogue, you can view it by clicking on the image:

. Primavera De Filippi is a legal scholar at Harvard University, as well as an Internet activist and artist exploring the intersection between law and technology, focusing specifically on the legal and political implications of blockchain technology. Her artistic practice instantiates the key findings of her research in the physical world, creating blockchain-based lifeforms that evolve and reproduce themselves as people feed them with cryptocurrencies. Her works have been exposed in various museums, galleries and art fairs around the world including Ars Electronica (Austria), Furtherfield Gallery and Kinetica Art Fair (UK), Centre Pompidou, Grand Palais, Gaité Lyrique, and Le Cent Quatre (France), Fort Mason Center For Arts & Culture (San Francisco), as well as festivals such as Burning Man (Nevada) and Fusion Festival (Germany).

Abstract: Do blockchains dream of electronic flowers? Many of the discussions around blockchain or AI often end up with a dystopian vision of a world dominated by an overarching artificial intelligence seeking to exterminate the human race. But why would these technologies try to exterminate us, when they could actually use us? This talk will present the artistic project Plantoid, a blockchain-based lifeform that lives off cryptocurrency and employs humans to reproduce itself, using its own NFT seeds to support the capitalisation process.


Annie Kritcher (Lawrence Livermore Lab) on "The State of Nuclear Fusion Research"
After the event, the video will be posted here.
If you missed this dialogue, you can view it by clicking on the image:

. Annie Kritcher is the design lead for the first ever fusion ignition experiment in a laboratory at the National Ignition Facility in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). She is also team lead for integrated modeling and is part of the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) leadership team at LLNL. Annie received her BS from the University of Michigan Nuclear Engineering department in 2005, and MS and PhD from the UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering department in 2007 and 2009. Annie was first employed at the Lab as a summer intern in 2004, as an LLNL Lawrence Scholar during her time at UC Berkeley, as a Lawrence postdoctoral fellow in 2009 following completion of her Ph.D from UC Berkeley, and as technical staff in 2012. Annie has served on various committees such as the chair of the Strategic Initiative and Exploratory Research High Energy Density Science LDRD technical review committee, the Lawrence Fellow selection committee, Dynamic Compression Sector proposal selection committee, and the LCLS MEC peer review panel.
Photos and videos of this evening