Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous of August 10, 2016

Exploring the Frontiers of Knowledge and Imagination, Fostering Interdisciplinary Networking

Stanford, August 10, 2016
c/o Stanford University
Li Ka Shing Center, Room LK120
Chaired by Piero Scaruffi

The LASERs are a national program of evening gatherings that bring artists and scientists together for informal presentations and conversation with an audience. See the program for the whole series. The event is free and open to everybody. Email me if you want to be added to the mailing list for the LASERs. Like previous evenings, the agenda includes some presentations of art/science projects, news from the audience, and time for casual socializing/networking.
Where: Stanford University, Li Ka Shing Center, Room LK120
There should be ample parking in the structure on corner of Campus Drive West and Roth Way. (Stanford map)
Parking is mostly free at Stanford after 4pm.
What (the order of the speakers might change):
  • 7:00-7:25:
  • Rachel Haurwitz (CEO of Caribou BioSciences) on "The era of CRISPR - Precise DNA edits to advance biological research and human health" CRISPR is a new technology facilitates easy and precise changes to the DNA of cells... Read more
  • 7:25-7:50: Tina Seelig (Stanford, Faculty Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program) on "From Inspiration to Implementation" The Invention Cycle illustrates how imagination leads to entrepreneurship... Read more
  • 7:50-8:10: BREAK. Before or after the break, anyone in the audience currently working within the intersections of art and science will have 30 seconds to share their work. Please present your work as a teaser so that those who are interested can seek you out during social time following the event.
  • 8:10-8:35: Paul Payton (Chief Engineer of Visa Research) on "Pixtile Patterns: Science and Art - Two Sides of a Moebius Strip" A colorful romp through seemingly disparate fields of science yields aesthetically-pleasing art... Read more
  • 8:35-9:00: Adrien Segal (Sculptural Data Artist) on "Scientific inquiry, sensory experience, and the creative process" Making the unseen in the world around us visible... Read more
  • 9:00pm-9:30pm: Discussions, networking You can mingle with the speakers and the audience

See also...
  • Other LASER series
  • Leonardo ISAST
  • Art, Technology, Culture Colloquia
  • Other LASER series
  • ScienceSchmoozer
  • LAST Festival
    Bios:
    • Rachel Haurwitz is the President and CEO of Caribou Biosciences, a genome editing company she co-founded with UC Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna. In 2014, she was named by Forbes Magazine to the "30 Under 30" list in Science and Healthcare, and in 2016, she was named by the San Francisco Business Times to their "40 Under 40" list. She is also a co-founder of Intellia Therapeutics, a gene therapy company, where she is a member of the board of directors. Rachel is an inventor on several patents and patent applications covering multiple CRISPR-derived technologies, and she has co-authored scientific papers in high impact journals characterizing CRISPR-Cas systems.
    • Paul Payton joined Visa in January 2011 as Chief Data Scientist in the Technology, Strategy, and Innovation organization of Visa's Chief Technology Office. His areas of specialty are in geo-spatial and temporal data mining, visualization of complex data (in particular, graphical and time-series network patterns), and fusion of key technology enablers. Prior to joining Visa, he spent nearly thirty years with Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center, where he was principal software engineer. Paul holds ten patents. He was named 2014 Fellow of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. He received honors degrees in mathematics and computer science with departmental and all-university honors from San Francisco State University.
    • 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. His latest book of poems and meditations is "Synthesis" (2009). As a music historian, he has published ten books, the latest ones being "A History of Rock and Dance Music" (2009) and "A History of Jazz Music" (2007). His latest book of history is "A History of Silicon Valley" (2011). The first volume of his free ebook "A Visual History of the Visual Arts" appeared in 2012. His latest book is "Intelligence is not Artificial" (2013). He has also written extensively about cinema and literature. He founded the Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) in 2008.
    • Tina Seelig is Professor of the Practice in the Department of Management Science and Engineering (MS&E) at Stanford University, and a Faculty Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center at Stanford University's School of Engineering. She teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the dept of MS&E and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) at Stanford. In 2014, Dr. Seelig was honored with the SVForum Visionary Award, and in 2009 she received the Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, recognizing her as a national leader in engineering education. Dr. Seelig earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University Medical School in 1985 where she studied Neuroscience. She has worked as a management consultant, as a multimedia producer, and was the founder of a multimedia company called BookBrowser. She has also written 17 books and games, including Insight Out (2015), inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity (2012), and What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 (2009), all published by HarperCollins.
    • Adrien Segal is a sculptural data artist and designer based in Oakland, CA. Her work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, and is published in several books and academic journals, including Boom: A Journal of California and Data Flow 2. She has been an Artist in Residence at Facebook, the Bunnell Street Art Center in Alaska, the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts in Portland, Oregon, and at Autodesk's Pier 9 Workshop in San Francisco. Adrien is the Fall 2015 Wornick Distinguished Visiting Professor at California College of the Arts, where she holds a BFA in Furniture Design. In addition to teaching, she pursues her creative practice out of her studio on the former Naval Base in Alameda, CA.

    Extended abstracts:

    Segal

    Information becomes knowledge through experience - a direct sensory perception of the tangible world around us. By translating data into physical forms, a direct sensory experience can become the means by which information is communicated. Starting with data as a conceptual basis, my work incorporates scientific research, digital technology, material culture, and somatic experience into a practice that aims to manifest information in the realm of the physical.


    Seelig

    There is an insatiable demand for innovation and entrepreneurship to help individuals and companies thrive in a competitive and dynamic marketplace. However, the pathway from the seeds of an idea through implementation is often murky. This interactive workshop presents a new model, the Invention Cycle, that illustrates how imagination leads to entrepreneurship. The framework captures the attitudes and actions that are necessary to foster innovation and to bring breakthrough ideas to the world.


    Haurwitz.
    Recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies have given researchers a wealth of information about DNA changes that occur in different diseases, but we lack the precise tools to specifically make those DNA changes in cell and animal models of disease. Caribou Biosciences is developing a new technology, developed in the lab of Jennifer Doudna at UC Berkeley, that facilitates easy and precise changes to the DNA of cells in the laboratory. This technology, based on a protein called Cas9, allows researchers to make specific disease models, allowing the development of new and better therapeutics.


    Payton

    Pixtile Art (pixel + tile) fuses ideas of computer science, image processing, crystallography, abstract geometry, Boolean algebra, and color theory into variegated mosaics of ornate pointillist tapestries. This presentation will briefly discuss some of the principles and techniques employed in making Pixtile Art, beginning with how an accident led to the discovery of a breathtaking collection of algorithmic art. Intended for both engineer and layperson, the emphasis here will be on the artistic process and will feature copious pieces of `eye candy'.


    Photos and videos of this evening