DESMA 9 Event 3 ---- LASER

    Last week I attended Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) on Thursday, May 25th. In this event, artists and scientists were together to promote collaboration between two fields. There were six speakers, each with a five minute presentation, each of which gave me unique ideas of how art and science come together as something better. Here I will write about the ones that impress me the most.

{LASER website: http://artsci.ucla.edu/node/1321}

Claudia Schnugg: As an independent researcher in intersections of art and aesthetics with science, technology, and business, and producer of art and science collaboration, Dr. Schnugg's recent work focuses on intertwining artists and art projects with new technologies and scientific research. She has explored effects of artistic interventions on social settings, especially framing artistic interventions and art programs in organizations. According to Dr. Schnugg, the interest in what art can do and which role aesthetics and sensory perception play in creative and knowledge generation processes led her to explore art in these different settings. "How are recent developments in technology and science explored and pushed through artists? And how does this intersect with organizations, individuals and society?" Her talk helped me better clarify my understanding of art and science and how important it is in the community.

Picture I took of Dr. Schnugg talking about one of her projects "Sparks"--Agent Unicorn

Hans Barnard: Dr. Barnard is an archeologist. He recently analyzed a painting created on the skull of a cow by the Pan-grave people in Egypt. He used high tech machinery to analyze the painting to understand the letters painted on the skull and found that another group incorrectly identified one of the letters. His talk was very interesting because it highlights how science can be used to analyze and understand art, a topic that we have not covered in class.

Dr. Barnard's work on uncovering the inscription on a cow skull

Stefanie Volland: Dr. Volland is a postdoctoral researcher at the Stein Eye Institute. She is studying the regeneration of photoreceptors in the eye. She uses electron tomography to visualize the area where the plasma membrane folds to make discs that make up the portion of the photoreceptor that detects light. Her work was interesting to me because I could clearly see how her usage of imaging to observe these delicate processes in three dimensions could inspire an artist.

Dr. Volland's work: a 3D model (right) of discs of the photoreceptor based on 2D images (left)

David Ertel and Symrin Chawla: David and Symrin are two DESMA graduate students that collaborated on a project entitled Data Burial. They wanted to explore the idea of "ultimate privacy" and how even after someone is dead, they may still have a presence in the virtual world. They created a device that was solar powered and recorded its location and information about its local environment and took a picture looking upwards every half an hour. The device was placed at the base of a sand dune and was covered by the dune over time. Listening to David and Symrin’s presentation helped me understand how non-scientists are able to incorporate science into their work to explore deep and complex topics. I never knew that science could be used so creatively! Their project has showed me how I can think about science creatively myself as I begin to work on my final project.

Picture taken from David and Symrin's Exhibition: “Data Burial: In Living Dunes”

    I would highly recommend this event to anyone interested in the intersection of art and science because it provides the unique opportunity to hear from multiple people from a diverse group of fields. My only complain is that it is not well advertised. I mentioned the event to my friends at UCLA, and they were all intrigued by the idea of art and science and had no idea that such a thing existed. Better advertising of such events to the UCLA community can help LASER grow and will attract more people and prompt more collaboration between artists and scientists.

Proof of attendance: me and three of the speakers