Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous of July 2009

Constructive Interference of the Arts and Sciences

San Francisco, 13 july 2009
c/o University of San Francisco
2130 Fulton Street
SF, CA 94117
McLaren room #251

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: ZKM|Center for Art and Media and USF Dean's Office of Arts and Science


  • 6:30pm-6:45pm: Socializing/networking. We encourage you to interact with Leonardo ISAST board members.
  • 6:45-7:10:
  • Jamie McHugh of John Kennedy University and Tamalpa Institute on "Inner and Outer Landscapes" We are nature: our soma and psyche are reflections of the elements. This informs my work both as a "body conservationist" (somatic movement educator) and as a photographer of Nature's body. My images - Nature Being Art - transmit the living earth not as figurative landscape but as contemporary abstract art, reflecting the dynamic balance of movement and stillness found both in nature and in body. I will present my images of the natural environment as contemplative objects in tandem with an embodied approach to meditation.
  • 7:10-7:35: Daniel "Cosmo Kichman" Grupp (Artist in residence at DeYoung Museum) on "Yielding to Irony: Understanding the Illusion of Importance in Art and Science." Both art and science can attain levels of great importance in our lives. We start from a clear intention, and may end up in a place where the importance itself is what is important. In both art and science, we may present with magnified importance an idea or an object, completely without irony. In this talk I explore the joy we can experience when we yield to the irony of our seriousness.
  • 7:35-7:50: BREAK
  • 7:50-8:15: Rhonda Holberton, artist, on "Geopolitical Ruptures: How Science, Technology, and Repo-modernism will save the World" My discussion will address visual language and how it operates within a cultural paradigm to reinforce political ideology. Is it possible that cultural indexes are beginning to suggest the end of one imaginary totality and the beginning of another; Post-Industrial, Post-postmodernism, Post-materialism, Post-oil, Post-technology, Post-capitalism, Post-global warming, Post-cultural revolution, Post-autonomous, Post-democratic? How are the arts, sciences, and technology fields working together within the ruptures of our current system to prepare us for this ideological shift?
  • 8:15-8:45: Terrence Deacon (U.C. Berkeley) on "The Aesthetic Faculty" Why don't cats paint? The evolution of human capacity for symbolic communication, as distinct from indexical (e.g. symptomatic) and iconic (e.g. pictorial) communication, took place over the course of nearly 2 million years of hominid prehistory. In the process a complex co-evolution between brains and language-like processes significantly modified the way humans know and experience the world. This altered both cognition and emotionality. These changes reorganized our memory systems predisposing us to narrative cognition, created a compulsion to discover meanings behind appearances, and opened the possibility for human-unique emotions due to the symbolic ease of blending incongruous and dissonant cognitive and perceptual experiences. We are not only capable of these experiences, we are compelled to seek them.
  • 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:
  • Terrence Deacon, Professor of Biological Anthropology and Neuroscience at the University of California at Berkeley, Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from Harvard University and formerly a neurologist and anthropologist at Harvard Medical School, is the author of the seminal book "The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of language and the brain" (2007). His research combines Neurolinguistics, Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology, Semiotics and Complex Systems Theory. His work extends from laboratory-based cellular-molecular neurobiology to the study of semiotic processes underlying animal and human communication, especially language.
  • Rhonda Holberton is an interdisciplinary artist. Her recent installation work addresses the circuitry of power and investigates the game-like structures that direct systems of desire and control. The work relies on a displaced scientific/corporate language to question systems of commerce, capitalism, consumption, corporate futures, media, and resource supplies. Recently Rhonda co-organized the Rising Tide Conference, a joint effort between CCA and Stanford to bring together an international gathering of artists, scientists, policy-makers, and business professionals to engage in conversations about the intersections of ethics, aesthetics, and environmentalism.
  • Cosmo Kichman, nee Dr. Daniel Grupp, is a well-published and patented nanotechnology physicist and entrepreneur. Prior to making art, he was most recently a Visiting Scholar at Stanford in the Electrical Engineering department. His transistor technology is currently being developed at Sematech. He has always sought to maintain a sense of play, evident in activities from costuming to fire performances, to scientific innovation, and now to sculpture. His current work will be on exhibit and visitors can participate in creating art while he is the Artist in Residence for the month of March 2009 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
  • Jamie McHugh RSME (Registered Somatic Movement Educator) is a fine art photographer and a master teacher of somatics. He has taught body-based work internationally for over twenty-five years to people of all ages. Jamie has been on faculty in the Holistic Health Department at John F Kennedy University since 1991 and at Anna Halprin's Tamalpa Institute since 1988. Jamie divides his time between San Francisco and The Sea Ranch. www.SomaticExpression.com www.NatureBeingArt.org
  • 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. As a music historian, he has published ten books, the latest ones being "A History of Rock Music" (2003) 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.

Directions:

University of San Francisco 2130 Fulton Street SF, CA 94117

Traveling South From the Golden Gate Bridge/North Bay: After crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, stay in the right lane and take the 19th Avenue exit. Turn right on Cabrillo Street and then left onto 14th Avenue. Proceed to Fulton Street and turn left. At the top of the hill, turn left onto Parker Avenue and then right onto Golden Gate Avenue. USF main campus in on the right.

Traveling West From the Bay Bridge/East Bay: After crossing the Bay Bridge, take the "101 North, Golden Gate Bridge" exit to the Fell/Octavia Streets exit (434B). Proceed straight 5 signals and turn left onto Fell Street. Travel approximately 1 mile to Masonic Av. Turn right on Masonic and travel 3 blocks. Turn left onto Fulton and continue 4 blocks to Parker Avenue (St Ignatius Church will be on your right.) Note: during rush hours you cannot make a left turn onto Fulton from Masonic, hence continue on Fell Street one block past Masonic, and turn right on Ashbury, on to Fulton and turn left. Turn right onto Parker, go one block to Golden Gate Avenue. Turn right onto Golden Gate. USF lower campus in on the right.

Traveling North on 280 from the Peninsula/South Bay: Take Highway 280 Northbound. Take the 19th Avenue exit and stay in the left lanes. Stay on 19th Avenue for approximately three miles. Turn right onto Fulton Street. At the top of the hill, turn left onto Parker Avenue and then right onto Golden Gate Avenue. USF lower campus in on the right.

Traveling North on 101 From the Peninsula/San Jose/South Bay: Take Highway 101 Northbound. Once in San Francisco, stay in the left lane and follow "101 North, Golden Gate Bridge" then take the Fell/Octavia Streets exit (434B). Proceed straight 5 signals and turn left onto Fell Street. Travel approximately 1 mile to Masonic Av. Turn right on Masonic and travel 3 blocks. Turn left onto Fulton and continue 4 blocks to Parker Avenue (St Ignatius Church will be on your right.) Note: during rush hours you cannot make a left turn onto Fulton from Masonic, hence continue on Fell Street one block past Masonic, and turn right on Ashbury, on to Fulton and turn left. Turn right onto Parker, go one block to Golden Gate Avenue and turn right. USF lower campus in on the right.

The room for the LASER is McLaren room #251. The easiest way to get to the room is to walk onto campus at the main entrance (there is a guard shack) on Golden Gate (indicated with arrow on the map). As you walk up the drive just as it starts to curve to your right you will see right in front of you two buildings joined in an L. They are Phelan Hall and Mclaren Conference Center. The bookstore will be right in front of you where the two building meet down a short flight of steps and through some glass doors. The stairs up to Mclaren are to the right past the women's bathroom. If stairs are an issue, there is a grade level entrance at the west end of McLaren (to the right beyond the bookstore): the meeting room is then straight ahead, down the hall, with the door on the right. Parking is probably easier on Golden Gate Ave.

Campus Map

Note: due to construction, enter the McLaren building through the stairwell near the bookstore. People needing wheel-chair access, let us know in advance so we can request use of the elevator.


Confirmed so far:


Photos