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Roundtables are streamed live our website and the recording remains available after the event events.
This is a past event that happened on December 1-3, 2017.
Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientist do, each in his own fashion. Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way the peace and security which he cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.
—Albert Einstein
We have every reason to believe that different disciplines and dedications have much to gain from each other. Imhotep, one of the earliest polymaths, was a physician, astronomer, and an engineer—but, as an architect, he also had a gift for design, and as a poet, a penchant for the art of writing. Far away, millennia later, Zhang Heng became noted in the histories of the Han Dynasty as an early scientist and scholar, although this was not at any expense for talent of art, as his contemporary wrote that “the splendour of his art were one with those of the gods.” Likewise, from the works of Da Vinci and Hildegard de Bingen, to geniuses of our time, the bond between the sciences and art is observed across the world and throughout the ages.
This is not just true within individuals or a phenomenon seen in great thinkers alone. Our quotidian experience tells us so, abundant with the evidence of each field’s dependence on, and advancement of, the other: from the drawing of star maps and anatomical sketches to the math and physics of optics and perspective, to the latest technological advances in computer design.
Two cultures converge as we discuss the significance of art and science in this three day series.
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Presented by the Helix Center for Interdiscplinary Investigation and SciArt Center
Schedule:
December 1, Friday:
6:30-7:30pm: Conference kick-off reception & opening remarks (snacks and refreshments will be served)
7:30-9pm: Science-Art Collaboration Roundtable #1
(Mark Rosin, Shane Mayak, Tyler Volk, Noah Hutton, Jame McCray, and Monica Aiello)
December 2, Saturday:
9am: Doors open
9:30-11am: STEAM & the Future of Education Roundtable #1
(Roger Malina, Ashley Bear, Nirav Patel, Elizabeth Waters, Tarah Rhoda, and Tyler Aiello)
11-11:15am: Artistic Interlude curated by Cynthia Pannucci of Art & Science Collaborations
11:15am-11:30am: Coffee break
11:30am-1pm: Science, Art & Society Roundtable #1
(Erik Hoel, Alana Quinn, Ben Lillie, David Grinspoon, Elizabeth Demaray, and Stuart Firestein)
1-2:15pm Lunch on your own
2:15-3:45pm: Science-Art Collaboration Roundtable #2
(Daniel Kohn, Edgar Choureiri, Tega Brain, Patricia Olynyk, Karen Ingram, and Alexis Gambis)
3:45-4pm: Artistic Interlude curated by Jame Mcray
4-4:15pm: Coffee break
4:15-5:45pm: STEAM & the Future of Education Roundtable #2
(Harvey Seifter, Jill Bargonetti, Paul Fry, Cynthia Pannucci, Daniel Grushkin, and Ellen Levy)
7-9:30pm: Art night out!
Art reception & refreshments at UES Gallery, 208 E 73rd St, New York NY*
*This reception is the opening night of “The Void and the Cloud,” a science-based art exhibition hosted by SciArt Center in
tandem with this conference. The reception is open the public and will include music and refreshments. Conference participants
are encouraged to attend.
December 3, Sunday:
9:30am: Doors open
10-11:30am: Science, Art & Society Roundtable #2
(Natalie Jeremijenko, Daniel Hill, Amelia Amon, Paul Browde, Nancy Princenthal, Suzanne Anker, and Farzad Mahootian)
11:30-11:45am: Artistic Interlude by Dr. Shirley Mueller
11:45am-12:15pm: Wrap Up – Science-Art Futures: What does the future hold for science, art, technology, education, and society? How do we move forward from here? All participants will take part in this session.
12:15-12:30pm: Closing remarks
12:30-1pm: Make your own Polyhedra Nightlight (courtesy of Eurekus)
1pm: End
Participants:
Monica Aiello
Denver-based duo Monica and Tyler Aiello are award-winning artists and pioneering STEAM specialists recognized for their work uniting art, science, and engineering. For more than a decade, they have collaborated with NASA and the scientific community to create fine art and public practice initiatives that galvanize transdisciplinary collaboration and community engagement. As co-founders of Eurekus,... read more! »Amelia Amon
Amelia Amon is a solar designer with an aesthetic approach to integrating sustainable energy into the built environment. Her design company develops products and installations, including a solar awnings with architects, solar signage for wayfinding, dark-sky compliant solar LED lights for SolarOne Solutions, solar sculptural trackers for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), interpretive... read more! »Suzanne Anker
Suzanne Anker is a visual artist and theorist working at the intersection of art and the biological sciences. She works in a variety of mediums ranging from digital sculpture and installation to large-scale photography to plants grown by LED lights. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally in museums and galleries including the... read more! »Jill Bargonetti
Jill Bargonetti is a Full Professor at The City University of New York (CUNY) at Hunter College and The Graduate Center in the PhD Programs of Biology and Biochemistry. In 2015 she joined the Cornell Medical Center Hunter College Belfer Research team as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology. In 1997 she... read more! »Ashley Bear
Dr. Ashley Bear is a Program Officer with the Board on Higher Education and Workforce at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In this capacity, Dr. Bear manages a portfolio of projects dealing with critical issues in higher education. She is currently the study director for a National Academies consensus study tasked with... read more! »Tega Brain
Tega Brain is an artist and environmental engineer making eccentric engineering. Her work intersects art, ecology and engineering, addressing the scope and politics of emerging technologies. It takes the form of site specific public works, dysfunctional devices, experimental infrastructures and information systems. Brain is a fellow at Data & Society and is an Assistant Professor... read more! »Paul Browde
Psychiatrist, teaching faculty in the Department of Narrative Medicine, Columbia University
Paul Browde is a psychiatrist and teaching faculty in the Department of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. The ethical stance of Narrative therapy shapes his clinical work. He works with both individuals and couples exploring the relational space and the reciprocal relationship between listening and telling. Paul is co-creator and performer of Two Men Talking,... read more! »Edgar Choueiri
Professor of Applied Physics, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Associated Faculty, Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Program in Plasma Physics, Princeton University
Professor Edgar Choueiri is Director of Princeton University’s Program in Engineering Physics, and Director of Princeton’s Electric Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Laboratory (EPPDyL). He is tenured Full Professor in the Applied Physics Group at the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, and associated faculty at the Astrophysical Sciences Department/Program in Plasma Physics at Princeton University. He... read more! »Elizabeth Demaray
Elizabeth Demaray is a fine artist whose research area is the interface between the built and the natural environment. Working in sculpture, digital media and eco-art, she designs listening stations for birds that play human music, cultures lichen on the sides of skyscrapers in New York City, and manufactures alternative forms of housing for hermit... read more! »Stuart Firestein
Former Chair of Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University
Stuart Firestein is the former Chair of Columbia University’s Department of Biological Sciences, where he studies the vertebrate olfactory system. Aside from its molecular detection capabilities, the olfactory system serves as a model for investigating general principles and mechanisms of signaling and perception in the brain. Dr. Firestein’s laboratory seeks to answer that fundamental human... read more! »Paul Fry
William Lampson Professor of English, Yale University
Paul H. Fry is the William Lampson Professor of English and has taught at Yale since 1971. He received his BA from the University of California, Berkeley and his Ph. D. from Harvard. His primary areas of specialization are British romanticism, the history of literary criticism, contemporary literary theory, and literature in relation to the... read more! »Alexis Gambis
Alexis Gambis is a filmmaker and a biologist whose interdisciplinary work aims at transforming the way science is communicated to the public through film and visual arts. His first feature film The Fly Room has toured festivals and academic institutions worldwide ending with a theatrical release in New York, Paris, and Berlin in the fall... read more! »David Grinspoon
David Grinspoon is an astrobiologist and prize-winning author. He is a Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. His research focuses on climate evolution on Earth-like planets and potential conditions for life elsewhere in the universe. He is involved with several interplanetary spacecraft missions for NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency.... read more! »Daniel Grushkin
Daniel Grushkin is co-founder and Executive Director of Genspace. He is also the founder of the Biodesign Challenge. Daniel is a Fellow at Data & Society. From 2013-2014, he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars where he researched synthetic biology. He was an Emerging Leader in Biosecurity at the UPMC... read more! »Daniel Hill
Daniel Hill is an abstract painter and sound artist whose work has been included in numerous exhibitions exploring the relationship between painting, sound, and science. Recent exhibitions include: Brattleboro Museum of Art (2016/17), NurtureArt (2016/17), Holland Tunnel Gallery- Greece (2016), Pace University (2015), Margret Thatcher Projects (2014), and McKenzie Fine Art (2012, 2013). Collections that... read more! »Erik Hoel
Erik Hoel received his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University. His family owns Jabberwocky Books, an independent bookstore anchored for more than 40 years in Newburyport MA. He is the co-founder of YHouse, a non-profit here in New York City that hosts events which... read more! »Noah Hutton
Noah Hutton is a film director and founder of the website The Beautiful Brain. He has presented on art and neuroscience at the Venice Biennale, Impakt Festival, Society for Neuroscience, Wellcome Collection, Rubin Museum of Art, and elsewhere. In 2015 he was named a Salzburg Global Fellow in Neuroscience & Art, and created Brain City,... read more! »Karen Ingram
Karen Ingram is a creative director, designer, and artist who uses her skill set to promote scientific awareness. As a Synthetic Biology LEAP fellow, she is recognized as an emerging leader in synthetic biology. Karen co-authored “Biobuilder: Synthetic Biology in the Lab” (O’Reilly, 2015), a synbio curriculum in which she crafted visual elements. Since 2012... read more! »Natalie Jeremijenko
In 2014 VIDA Art and Artificial Life International Awards Pioneer Prize was awarded to Natalie Jeremijenko “for her consistently brilliant portfolio of work over the past two decades.” (a prize only awarded once before to Laurie Anderson). Awarded the 2013 Most Innovative People, named of the most influential women in technology 2011, one of the... read more! »Daniel Kohn
Born in 1964 in Ahmedabad, India to French and American parents, Daniel Kohn was raised in France. He has lived in Brooklyn, New York since 1996. His artistic work can be seen as an ongoing attempt to integrate this diverse background into an evolving point of view. In his early career this led him to... read more! »Ellen Levy
Ellen K. Levy, a New York-based artist and writer is Past President of the College Art Association (2004-2006) and received her PhD from the University of Plymouth (UK) (2012) on the art and neuroscience of attention. With Patricia Olynyk she co-directs the NY-based LASER (Leonardo Art and Science Evening Rendezvous). Until recently she was Special... read more! »Ben Lillie
Ben Lillie is a high-energy particle physicist who left the ivory tower for the wilds of New York’s theater district. He has a B.A. in physics from Reed College, a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and a Certificate in improv comedy from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. He is the Co-founder and Director... read more! »Farzad Mahootian
Faculty of Liberal Studies, New York University
Farzad Mahootian is a Clinical Associate Professor of Global Liberal Studies at New York University since 2010. He has an interdisciplinary background (PhD Philosophy, Fordham; MS Chemistry, Georgetown). His research focuses on interactions between philosophy, science and society within the mythological imagination of technoscience and with guidance from process philosophy, biomimicry, artificial intelligence, and premodern... read more! »