Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous of April 2009

Constructive Interference of the Arts and Sciences

Mountain View, 8 April 2009
c/o SETI Institute
515 N. Whisman Road
Mountain View, CA 94043

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)
Part of a series of cultural events
Sponsored by: ZKM|Center for Art and Media


Leonardo ISAST and SETI Institute invite you to a meeting of the Leonardo Art/Science community. See below for location and agenda.

The event is free and open to everybody. Feel free to invite relevant acquaintances.

Please RSVP to p@scaruffi.com . Admission is limited.

Like previous evenings, the agenda includes some presentations of art/science projects, and time for casual socializing/networking.

In order to facilitate the networking, feel free to send me the URL of a webpage that describes your work or the organization you work for. I will publish a list on this webpage before the day of the event so that everybody can check what everybody else is doing. (Not mandatory, just suggested).

See also...

  • Art, Technology, Culture Colloquia
  • Art/Science Fusion at UC Davis
  • Audium concerts
  • Previous Art/Science Evenings
    When: April 8, 2009

    Where: SETI Institute

    515 N. Whisman Road, Mountain View, California, USA What:
    • 6:30pm-7:00pm: Socializing/networking. We encourage you to interact with Leonardo ISAST board members.
    • 7:00-7:30: Warren Sack (UC Santa Cruz) on "Software Studies, Software Art, Software Design" Since software design is a process of writing, the "computer revolution" can be understood as the rewriting of the world. One can identify a minor literature, within computer science, that has been premised on an understanding of software designers as writers, as essayists, as those who articulate ideas in code to communicate with other people. In other words, within this minor literature, computers are understood not just as tools but also as media that connect and separate people. Software studies is an emerging area in which code is examined as a digital medium.
    • 7:30-8:00: Hasan Elahi, San Jose State University's CADRE Lab for New Media, on "Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project" Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project builds on a series of installations, performances, and websites that use Elahi's self-surveillance to critique contemporary investigative techniques. Aspects of Tracking Transience include: a self-tracking device that constantly transmits and maps his exact location alongside his financial data, communication records and transportation logs; a database of thousands of images of airports Elahi travels through and sometimes sleeps in, food he consumes in transit, and public toilets he uses while traveling. Elahi has protected himself from unwanted scrutiny by making his entire life and whereabouts publicly accessible.
    • 8:00-8:30: BREAK
    • 8:30-9:00:
    • Chris McKay (NASA AMES) on "This Martian Life" 3 Short Stories of life on Mars, in pictures
    • 9:30: Piero Scaruffi on the next Leonardo Art/Science evening I will simply preview the line-up of speakers for the next Leonardo evening.
    • 9:30pm-10:00pm: Discussions, more socializing You can mingle with the speakers and the audience

    Bios:
    • Hasan Elahi is an assistant professor at San Jose State University's CADRE laboratory for New Media. He is an interdisciplinary artist whose work examines issues of surveillance, simulated time, transport systems, borders and frontiers. His work has been presented in numerous exhibitions at venues worldwide.
    • Chris McKay is a Planetary Scientist with the Space Science Division of NASA Ames. His current research focuses on the evolution of the solar system and the origin of life. He is also actively involved in planning for future Mars missions including human exploration. Chris been involved in research in Mars-like environments on Earth, traveling to the Antarctic dry valleys, Siberia, the Canadian Arctic, and the Atacama desert to study life in these Mars-like environments. His was a co-I on the Titan Huygen's probe in 2005, the Mars Phoenix lander mission in 2008, and the Mars Science Lander mission for 2011. He is the deputy program scientist for Constellation - the NASA program for future human exploration of the Moon and Mars.
    • Warren Sack is a software designer and media theorist whose work explores theories and designs for online public space and public discussion. He is Associate Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz and earned a B.A. from Yale College and an S.M. and Ph.D. from the MIT Media Laboratory. Warren's writings on new media and computer science have been published widely and his art work has been shown internationally.
    • 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.

    Address and directions: 515 N. Whisman Road, Mountain View, CA 94043.
    Phone: 650-961-6633
    Directions to SETI
    Confirmed so far:
    • Michael Ang
    • Roger Arno
    • Doug Bierce
    • Pam Bierce
    • Mark Carranza
    • Dixie Chan-Rich
    • Yvonne Clearwater (NASA)
    • Jim Crutchfield (UC Davis)
    • Rohit Das
    • Katja Degroot
    • Mike Degroot
    • Doreen Devorah
    • John Dooley
    • Robert Edgar (Stanford)
    • Hasan Elahi
    • Paul Fewel
    • Eva Fewel
    • Mary Flodin
    • Diane Gromala (Simon Fraser University)
    • Joe Jordan
    • Jim Keravala
    • John Mabey
    • Dan Das Mann ("Big Art" Artist)
    • Chris McKay
    • Luc Meier (swissnex)
    • Mami Honda-Meier
    • Roberto Miller
    • Mayu Morita
    • Jenna Murphy
    • Subba Obbineni
    • Steve Omohundro
    • Che Pressnall (Irresponsible Artist)
    • Trudy Myrrh Reagan
    • David Remus
    • Robert Rich
    • Isahia Roggow (Canada College)
    • Ksenya Ruban
    • Warren Sack
    • Piero Scaruffi
    • Atul Shinde
    • Gelena Sigenevich
    • Susan Stone
    • Thom Stone
    • Dawn Sumner (UC Davis)
    • Wim van Schooten
    • Doug Vakoch (SETI Institute)
    • Pei-Ning Wang
    • Rolf van Widenfelt
    • Corinne Whitaker
    • Catherine Wolf
    • Thomas Wolf

  • Photos