Tag Archives: ArtSci Salon

Fantastic Fungi Futures: a multi-night ArtSci Salon event in late November/early December 2019 in Toronto

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In fact, I have two items about fungi and I’m starting with the essay first.

Giving thanks for fungi

These foods are all dependent on microorganisms for their distinctive flavor. Credit: margouillat photo/Shutterstock.com

Antonis Rokas, professor at Venderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee, US), has written a November 25, 2019 essay for The Conversation (h/t phys.org Nov.26.19) featuring fungi and food, Note: Links have been removed),

…

I am an evolutionary biologist studying fungi, a group of microbes whose domestication has given us many tasty products. I’ve long been fascinated by two questions: What are the genetic changes that led to their domestication? And how on Earth did our ancestors figure out how to domesticate them?

…

The hybrids in your lager

As far as domestication is concerned, it is hard to top the honing of brewer’s yeast. The cornerstone of the baking, brewing and wine-making industries, brewer’s yeast has the remarkable ability to turn the sugars of plant fruits and grains into alcohol. How did brewer’s yeast evolve this flexibility?

By discovering new yeast species and sequencing their genomes, scientists know that some yeasts used in brewing are hybrids; that is, they’re descendants of ancient mating unions of individuals from two different yeast species. Hybrids tend to resemble both parental species – think of wholpins (whale-dolphin) or ligers (lion-tiger).

… What is still unknown is whether hybridization is the norm or the exception in the yeasts that humans have used for making fermented beverages for millennia.

To address this question, a team led by graduate student Quinn Langdon at the University of Wisconsin and another team led by postdoctoral fellow Brigida Gallone at the Universities of Ghent and Leuven in Belgium examined the genomes of hundreds of yeasts involved in brewing and wine making. Their bottom line? Hybrids rule.

For example, a quarter of yeasts collected from industrial environments, including beer and wine manufacturers, are hybrids.

…

The mutants in your cheese

Comparing the genomes of domesticated fungi to their wild relatives helps scientists understand the genetic changes that gave rise to some favorite foods and drinks. But how did our ancestors actually domesticate these wild fungi? None of us was there to witness how it all started. To solve this mystery, scientists are experimenting with wild fungi to see if they can evolve into organisms resembling those that we use to make our food today.

Benjamin Wolfe, a microbiologist at Tufts University, and his team addressed this question by taking wild Penicillium mold and growing the samples for one month in his lab on a substance that included cheese. That may sound like a short period for people, but it is one that spans many generations for fungi.

The wild fungi are very closely related to fungal strains used by the cheese industry in the making of Camembert cheese, but look very different from them. For example, wild strains are green and smell, well, moldy compared to the white and odorless industrial strains.

For Wolfe, the big question was whether he could experimentally recreate, and to what degree, the process of domestication. What did the wild strains look and smell like after a month of growth on cheese? Remarkably, what he and his team found was that, at the end of the experiment, the wild strains looked much more similar to known industrial strains than to their wild ancestor. For example, they were white in color and smelled much less moldy.

…

… how did the wild strain turn into a domesticated version? Did it mutate? By sequencing the genomes of both the wild ancestors and the domesticated descendants, and measuring the activity of the genes while growing on cheese, Wolfe’s team figured out that these changes did not happen through mutations in the organisms’ genomes. Rather, they most likely occurred through chemical alterations that modify the activity of specific genes but don’t actually change the genetic code. Such so-called epigenetic modifications can occur much faster than mutations.

…

Fantastic Fungi Futures (FFF) Nov. 29, Dec. 1, and Dec. 4, 2019 events in Toronto, Canada

The ArtSci Salon emailed me a November 23, 2019 announcement about a special series being presented in partnership with the Mycological Society of Toronto (MST) on the topic of fungi,

Fantastic Fungi Futures a discussion, a mini exhibition, a special screening, and a workshop revolving around Fungi and their versatile nature.

NOV 29 [2019], 6:00-8:00 PM Fantastic Fungi Futures (FFF): a roundtable discussion and popup exhibition.

Join us for a roundtable discussion. what are the potentials of fungi? Our guests will share their research, as well as professional and artistic practice dealing with the taxonomy and the toxicology, the health benefits and the potentials for sustainability, as well as the artistic and architectural virtues of fungi and mushrooms. The Exhibition will feature photos and objects created by local and Canadian artists who have been working with mushrooms and fungi.

This discussion is in anticipation of the special screening of Fantastic Fungi at the HotDocs Cinema on Dec 1 [2019] our guests:James Scott,Occupational & Environmental Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, UofT; Marshall Tyler, Director of Research, Field Trip, Toronto; Rotem Petranker, PhD student, Social Psychology, York University; Nourin Aman, PhD student, fungal biology and Systematics lab, Punjab University; Sydney Gram, PhD student, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology student researcher (UofT/ROM); [and] Tosca Teran, Interdisciplinary artist.

DEC. 1 [2019], 6:15 pm join us to the screening of Fantastic Fungi, at the HotDocs Cinemaget your tickets herehttps://boxoffice.hotdocs.ca/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=104145~fff311b7-cdad-4e14-9ae4-a9905e1b9cb0 afterward, some of us will be heading to the Pauper’s Pub, just across from the HotDocs Cinema

DEC. 4 [2019], 7:00-10:00PM Multi-species entanglements:Sculpting with Mycelium, @InterAccess, 950 Dupont St., Unit 1 

This workshop is a continuation of ArtSci Salon’s Fantastic Fungi Futures event and the HotDocs screening of Fantastic Fungi.this workshop is open to public to attend, however, pre-registration is required. $5.00 to form a mycelium bowl to take home.

During this workshop Tosca Teran introduces the amazing potential of Mycelium for collaboration at the intersection of art and science. Participants learn how to transform their kitchens and closets in to safe, mini-Mycelium biolabs and have the option to leave the workshop with a live Mycelium planter/bowl form, as well as a wide array of possibilities of how they might work with this sustainable bio-material. 

Bios

Nourin Aman is a PhD student at fungal biology and Systematics lab at Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan. She is currently a visiting PhD student at the Mycology lab, Royal Ontario Museum. Her research revolves around comparison between macrofungal biodiversity of some reserve forests of Punjab, Pakistan.Her interest is basically to enlist all possible macrofungi of reserve forests under study and describe new species as well from area as our part of world still has many species to be discovered and named. She will be discussing factors which are affecting the fungal biodiversity in these reserve forests.

Sydney Gram is an Ecology & Evolutionary Biology student researcher (UofT/ROM)

Rotem Petranker- Bsc in psychology from the University of Toronto and a MA in social psychology from York University. Rotem is currently a PhD student in York’s clinical psychology program. His main research interest is affect regulation, and the way it interacts with sustained attention, mind wandering, and creativity. Rotem is a founding member oft the Psychedelic Studies Research Program at the University of Toronto, has published work on microdosing, and presented original research findings on psychedelic research in several conferences. He feels strongly that the principles of Open Science are necessary in order to do good research, and is currently in the process of starting the first lab study of microdosing in Canada.

James Scott– PhD, is a ARMCCM Professor and Head Division of Occupational & Environmental Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of TorontoUAMH Fungal Biobank: http://www.uamh.caUniversity Profile: http://www.dlsph.utoronto.ca/faculty-profile/scott-james-a/Research Laboratory: http://individual.utoronto.ca/jscottCommercial Laboratory: http://www.sporometrics.com

Marshall Tyler– Director of Research, Field Trip. Marshall is a scientist with a deep interest in psychoactive molecules. His passion lies in guiding research to arrive at a deeper understanding of consciousness with the ultimate goal of enhancing wellbeing. At Field Trip, he is helping to develop a lab in Jamaica to explore the chemical and biological complexities of psychoactive fungi.

Tosca Teran, aka Nanotopia, is an Multi-disciplinary artist. Her work has been featured at SOFA New York, Culture Canada, and The Toronto Design Exchange. Tosca has been awarded artist residencies with The Ayatana Research Program in Ottawa and The Icelandic Visual Artists Association through Sím, Reykjavik Iceland and Nes artist residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland. In 2019 she was one of the first Bio-Artists in residence at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto in partnership with the Ontario Science Centre as part of the Alien Agencies Collective. A recipient of the 2019 BigCi Environmental Award at Wollemi National Park within the UNESCO World Heritage site in the Greater Blue Mountains. Tosca started collaborating artistically with Algae, Physarum polycephalum, and Mycelium in 2016, translating biodata from non-human organisms into music.@MothAntler @nanopodstudio www.toscateran.com www.nanotopia.net8 

A trailer has been provided for the movie mentioned in the announcement (from the Fantastic Fungi screening webpage on the Mycological Society of Toronto website),

You can find the ArtSci Salon here and the Mycological Society of Toronto (MST) here.

Aesthetics and Colour Research—a November 28, 2019 talk about the tools and technology in Toronto, Canada

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From a November 19, 2019 ArtSci Salon announcement (received via email),\

I [Robin] am co-organizing a lecture on AESTHETICS AND COLOUR RESEARCH AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO’S PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY

by Erich Weidenhammer, PhD (University of Toronto)

The lecture is Thu Nov 28 [2019], 6-8pm at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at U of T [University of Toronto]. There will also be colour-related artifacts from the library collection on display.

Full details are here, with an eventbrite registration link for the talk (Free).

HTTPS://WWW.COLOURRESEARCH.ORG/CRSC-EVENTS/2019/11/28/LECTURE-AESTHETICS-AND-COLOUR-RESEARCH-AT-THE-UNIVERSITY-OF-TORONTOS-PSYCHOLOGICAL-LABORATORY

If you follow the link above, you’ll find this description of the talk and more,

Aesthetics and Colour Research at the University of Toronto’s Psychological Laboratory

…

This talk focuses on the tools and technology of colour research used in Kirschmann’s Toronto laboratory, as well as their role in supporting Kirschmann’s belief in a renewed science of aesthetics. [Between 1893 and 1908, the German-born psychologist August Kirschmann (1860-1932), led the University of Toronto’s newly founded psychological laboratory.] The talk will include a display of surviving artifacts used in the Laboratory. It will also include some colour-related artifacts from the University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services (UTARMS), and the Fisher Rare Books Library.

Erich Weidenhammer is Curator of the University of Toronto Scientific Instruments Collection (UTSIC.org), an effort to safeguard and catalogue the material culture of research and teaching at the University of Toronto. He is also an Adjunct Curator for Scientific Processes at Ingenium: Canada’s Museums of Science & Innovation in Ottawa. Erich received his PhD in 2014 from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST) of the University of Toronto for a dissertation that explored the relationship between chemistry and medicine in late eighteenth-century Britain.

Courtesy University of Toronto Scientific Instruments Collection

It turns out that this talk at the University of Toronto is part of a larger series of talks being organized by the Colour Research Society of Canada (CRSC). Here’s more about the society from the CRSC’s About page,

The CRSC is a non-profit organisation for colour research, focused on fostering a cross-disciplinary sharing of colour knowledge. seeking to develop and support a national, cross-disciplinary network of artists and designers, scholars and practitioners, with an interest in engagements with colour, and to encourage discourse between arts, sciences and industry related to colour research and knowledge.

The Colour Research Society of Canada (CRSC) is the Canadian member organisation of the AIC (International Colour Association)

The Nov. 28, 2019 talk is part of the CRSC’s Kaleidoscope Lecture Series.

The medical community and art/science: two events in Canada in November 2019

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This time it’s the performing arts. I have one theatre and psychiatry production in Toronto and a music and medical science event in Vancouver.

Toronto’s Here are the Fragments opening on November 19, 2019

From a November 2, 2019 ArtSci Salon announcement (received via email),

An immersive theatre experience inspired by the psychiatric writing of Frantz Fanon

Here are the Fragments.
Co-produced by The ECT Collective and The Theatre Centre
November 19-December 1, 2019
Tickets: Preview $17 | Student/senior/arts worker $22 | Adult $30
Service charges may apply
Book 416-538-0988 | PURCHASE ONLINE

An immigrant psychiatrist develops psychosis and then schizophrenia. He walks a long path towards reconnection with himself, his son, and humanity.

Walk with him.

Within our immersive design (a fabric of sound, video, and live actors) lean in close to the possibilities of perceptual experience.

Schizophrenics ‘hear voices’. Schizophrenics fear loss of control over their own thoughts and bodies. But how does any one of us actually separate internal and external voices? How do we trust what we see or feel? How do we know which voices are truly our own?

Within the installation find places of retreat from chaos. Find poetry. Find critical analysis.

Explore archival material, Fanon’s writings and contemporary interviews with psychiatrists, neuroscientists, artists, and people living with schizophrenia, to reflect on the relationships between identity, history, racism and mental health.

I was able to find out more in a November 6, 2019 article at broadwayworld.com (Note: Some of this is repetitive),

How do we trust what we see or feel? How do we know which voices are truly our own? THE THEATRE CENTRE and THE ECT COLLECTIVE are proud to Co-produce HERE ARE THE FRAGMENTS., an immersive work of theatre written by Suvendrini Lena, Theatre Centre Residency artist and CAMH [ Centre for Addiction and Mental Health] Neurologist. Based on the psychiatric writing of famed political theorist Frantz Fanon and combining narratives, sensory exploration, and scientific and historical analysis, HERE ARE THE FRAGMENTS. reflects on the relationships between identity, history, racism, and mental health. FRAGMENTS. will run November 19 to December 1 at The Theatre Centre (Opening Night November 21).

HERE ARE THE FRAGMENTS. consists of live performances within an interactive installation. The plot, told in fragments, follows a psychiatrist early in his training as he develops psychosis and ultimately, treatment resistant schizophrenia. Eduard, his son, struggles to connect with his father, while the young man must also make difficult treatment decisions.

The Theatre Centre’s Franco Boni Theatre and Gallery will be transformed into an immersive interactive installation. The design will offer many spaces for exploration, investigation, and discovery, bringing audiences into the perceptual experience of Schizophrenia. The scenes unfold around you, incorporating a fabric of sound, video, and live actors. Amidst the seeming chaos there will also be areas of retreat; whispering voices, Fanon’s own books, archival materials, interviews with psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and people living with schizophrenia all merge to provoke analysis and reflection on the intersection of racism and mental health.

…

Suvendrini Lena (Writer) is a playwright and neurologist. She works as the staff neurologist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and at the Centre for Headache at Women’s College Hospital [Toronto]. She is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Toronto where she teaches medical students, residents, and fellows. She also teaches a course called Staging Medicine, a collaboration between The Theatre Centre and University of Toronto Postgraduate Medical Education.

…

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), was a French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, revolutionary, and writer, whose works are influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and Marxism. Fanon published numerous books, including Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961).

…

In addition to performances, The Theatre Centre will host a number of panels and events. Highlights include a post-show talkback with Ngozi Paul (Development Producer, Artist/Activist) and Psychiatrist Collaborator Araba Chintoh on November 22. Also of note is Our Patients and Our Selves: Experiences of Racism Among Health Care Workers with facilitator Dr. Fatimah Jackson-Best of Black Health Alliance on November 23rd and Fanon Today: A Creative Symposium on November 24th, a panel, reading, and creative discussion featuring David Austin, Frank Francis, Doris Rajan and George Elliot Clarke [formerly Toronto’s Poet Laureate and Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate; emphasis and link mine].

You can get more details and a link for ticket purchase here.

Sounds and Science: Vienna meets Vancouver on November 30, 2019

‘Sounds and Science’ originated at the Medical University of Vienna (Austria) as the November 6, 2019 event posting on the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Faculty of Medicine website,

The University of British Columbia will host the first Canadian concert bringing leading musical talents of Vienna together with dramatic narratives from science and medicine.

“Sounds and Science: Vienna Meets Vancouver” is part of the President’s Concert Series, to be held Nov. 30, 2019 on UBC campus. The event is modeled on a successful concert series launched in Austria in 2014, in cooperation with the Medical University of Vienna.

“Basic research tends to always stay within its own box, yet research is telling the most beautiful stories,” says Dr. Josef Penninger, director of UBC’s Life Sciences Institute, a professor of medical genetics and a Canada 150 Chair. “With this concert, we are bringing science out of the ivory tower, using the music of great composers such as Mozart, Schubert or Strauss to transport stories of discovery and insight into the major diseases that affected the composers themselves, and continue to have a significant impact on our society.”

Famous composers of the past are often seen as icons of classical music, but in fact, they were human beings, living under enormous physical constraints – perhaps more than people today, according to Dr. Manfred Hecking, an associate professor of internal medicine at the Medical University of Vienna.

“But ‘Sounds and Science’ is not primarily about suffering and disease,” says Dr. Hecking, a former member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra who will be playing double bass during the concert. “It is a fun way of bringing music and science together. Combining music and thought, we hope that we will reach the attendees of the ‘Sounds and Science’ concert in Vancouver on an emotional, perhaps even personal level.”

A showcase for Viennese music, played in the tradition of the Vienna Philharmonic by several of its members, as well as the world-class science being done here at UBC, “Sounds and Science” will feature talks by UBC clinical and research faculty, including Dr. Penninger. Their topics will range from healthy aging and cancer research to the historical impact of bacterial infections.

Combining music and thought, we hope that we will reach the attendees of the ‘Sounds and Science’ concert in Vancouver on an emotional, perhaps even personal level.
Dr. Manfred Hecking

Faculty speaking at “Sounds and Science” will be:
Dr. Allison Eddy, professor and head, department of pediatrics, and chief, pediatric medicine, BC Children’s Hospital and BC Women’s Hospital;
Dr. Troy Grennan, clinical assistant professor, division of infectious diseases, UBC faculty of medicine;
Dr. Poul Sorensen, professor, department of pathology and laboratory medicine, UBC faculty of medicine; and
Dr. Roger Wong, executive associate dean, education and clinical professor of geriatric medicine, UBC faculty of medicine
UBC President and Vice-Chancellor Santa J. Ono and Vice President Health and Dr. Dermot Kelleher, dean, faculty of medicine and vice-president, health at UBC will also speak during the evening.

The musicians include two outstanding members of the Vienna Philharmonic – violinist Prof. Günter Seifert and violist-conductor Hans Peter Ochsenhofer, who will be joined by violinist-conductor Rémy Ballot and double bassist Dr. Manfred Hecking, who serves as a regular substitute in the orchestra.

For those in whose lives intertwine music and science, the experience of cross-connection will be familiar. For Dr. Penninger, the concert represents an opportunity to bring the famous sound of the Vienna Philharmonic to UBC and British Columbia, to a new audience. “That these musicians are coming here is a fantastic recognition and acknowledgement of the amazing work being done at UBC,” he says.

“Like poetry, music is a universal language that all of us immediately understand and can relate to. Science tells the most amazing stories. Both of them bring meaning and beauty to our world.”

“Sounds and Science” – Vienna Meets Vancouver is part of the President’s Concert Series | November 30, 2019 on campus at the Old Auditorium from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

To learn more about the Sounds and Science concert series hosted in cooperation with the Medical University of Vienna, visit www.soundsandscience.com.

I found more information regarding logistics,

Saturday, November 30, 2019
6:30 pm
The Old Auditorium, 6344 Memorial Road, UBC
Box office and Lobby: Opens at 5:30 pm (one hour prior to start of performance)
Old Auditorium Concert Hall: Opens at 6:00 pm

Sounds
Günter Seifert  VIOLIN
Rémy Ballot VIOLIN
Hans Peter Ochsenhofer VIOLA
Manfred Hecking DOUBLE BASS

Science
Josef Penninger GENETICS
Manfred Hecking INTERNAL MEDICINE
Troy Grennan INFECTIOUS DISEASE
Poul Sorensen PATHOLOGY & LABORATORY MEDICINE
Allison Eddy PEDIATRICS
Roger Wong GERIATRICS

Tickets are also available in person at UBC concert box-office locations:
– Old Auditorium
– Freddie Wood Theatre
– The Chan Centre for the Performing Art

General admission: $10.00
Free seating for UBC students
Purchase tickets for both President’s Concert Series events to make it a package, and save 10% on both performances

Transportation
Public and Bike Transportation
Please visit Translink for bike and transit information.
Parking
Suggested parking in the Rose Garden Parkade.

Buy Tickets

The Sounds and Science website has a feature abut the upcoming Vancouver concert and it offers a history dating from 2008,

MUSIC AND MEDICINE

The idea of combining music and medicine into the “Sounds & Science” – scientific concert series started in 2008, when the Austrian violinist Rainer Honeck played Bach’s Chaconne in d-minor directly before a keynote lecture, held by Nobel laureate Peter Doherty, at the Austrian Society of Allergology and Immunology’s yearly meeting in Vienna. The experience at that lecture was remarkable, truly a special moment. “Sounds & Science” was then taken a step further by bringing several concepts together: Anton Neumayr’s medical histories of composers, John Brockman’s idea of a “Third Culture” (very broadly speaking: combining humanities and science), and finally, our perception that science deserves a “Red Carpet” to walk on, in front of an audience. Attendees of the “Sounds & Science” series have also described that music opens the mind, and enables a better understanding of concepts in life and thereby science in general. On a typical concert/lecture, we start with a chamber music piece, continue with the pathobiography of the composer, go back to the music, and then introduce our main speaker, whose talk should be genuinely understandable to a broad, not necessarily scientifically trained audience. In the second half, we usually try to present a musical climax. One prerequisite that “Sounds & Science” stands for, is the outstanding quality of the principal musicians, and of the main speakers. Our previous concerts/lectures have so far covered several aspects of medicine like “Music & Cancer” (Debussy, Brahms, Schumann), “Music and Heart” (Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner), and “Music and Diabetes” (Bach, Ysaÿe, Puccini). For many individuals who have combined music and medicine or music and science inside of their own lives and biographies, the experience of a cross-connection between sounds and science is quite familiar. But there is also this “fun” aspect of sharing and participating, and at the “Sounds & Science” events, we usually try to ensure that the event location can easily be turned into a meeting place.

At a guess, Science and Sounds started informally in 2008 and became a formal series in 2014.

There is a video but it’s in German. It’s enjoyable viewing with beautiful music but unless you have German language skills you won’t get the humour. Also it runs for over 9 minutes (a little longer than most of videos you’ll find here on FrogHeart),

Enjoy!

A biotech talk: Re – [Generating, Creating, Interpreting] on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 5:30 pm in Toronto, Ontario (Canada)

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[downloaded from https://artscisalon.com/re-generating-creating-interpreting-tuesday-april-30-530-pm-ocadu/]

This image is intriguing as it’s being used to illustrate an ArtSci Salon April 30, 2019 event about biotechnology (from the Re – [Generating, Creating, Interpreting] event webpage),

Re – [Generating, Creating, Interpreting]

Conversations about Life

We live in strange times. We mourn for the countless lives we are losing to extinction, famine, severe weather and disease; we celebrate the possibility that science may assist us in preserving what we have and in regenerating what is no more. We aspire to re-create long gone species and proceed to create new one. Biotechnologies both terrify and invigorate us. We are torn between creating risk free futures and taking exciting Promethean risks. We claim that biotech can create a more democratic society; yet, we are increasingly racist, sexist and classist.

What’s at stake? How can life unfold from here? How do we reinterpret and re-imagine it? Join us for a series of brief presentations and a following juicy discussion. There will be refreshments. …And juice

With:

Joana Magalhães
Institute of Biomedical Research, A Coruña (INIBIC)

Polona Tratnik
Research Institute for Humanities, Alma Mater Europaea, Ljubljana

Roberta Buiani
Centre for Feminist Research, York University, Toronto

Moderated by:

Dolores Steinman
Biomedical Simulation Lab (BSL)

Tuesday, April 30
5.30 pm
OCADU (Ontario College of Art and Design University)
DF Salon, Room 701K  (7th floor)
205 Richmond St W

RSVP  https://www.facebook.com/events/811144362603498/

For the curious, here are the bios (also from the Re – [Generating, Creating, Interpreting] event webpage),

Roberta Buiani (PhD Communication and Culture, YorkU) is an interdisciplinary artist, media scholar and curator based in Toronto. She is the co-founder of the ArtSci Salon at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences (Toronto) and co-organizer of LASER Toronto. Her recent SSHRC-funded research creation project draws on feminist technoscience and on collaborative encounters across the sciences and the arts to investigate emerging life forms exceeding the categories defined by traditional methods of classification. Her artistic work has travelled to art festivals (Transmediale; Hemispheric Institute Encuentro; Brazil), community centres and galleries (the Free Gallery Toronto; Immigrant Movement International, Queens, Myseum of Toronto), and science institutions (RPI; the Fields Institute). Her writing has appeared on Space and Culture, Cultural Studies and The Canadian Journal of Communication among others. With the ArtSci Salon she has launched a series of experiments in “squatting academia”, by re-populating abandoned spaces and cabinets across university campuses with SciArt installations. Currently, she is a research associate at the Centre for Feminist Research at York University. ArtSci Salon website: https://artscisalon.com Personal http://atomarborea.net

Joana Magalhães holds a B.Sc. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of A Coruña, Spain, working in the field of regenerative medicine strategies for osteoarthritis. Previous positions include a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Spanish Networking Biomedical Center and a Marie Curie PhD Fellowship at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research. In parallel with her scientific career, she develops STEAM-for-health media strategies from a gender perspective that received several national and international awards (Science on Stage 2017 for Radio, Press and TV or SCI-DOC Festival Mention of honour Women in Science Category 2018). Currently, she is Correspondent for “Women in Science” at Efervesciencia Radio Program. Moreover, she was a scientist-in-residence at Fundación Luis Seoane and Artesacía Theatrical Company for “TRANSCÉNICA” – I Transmedia Creators Meeting (2015). She is the Spanish Representative at the Young Scientist Forum – European Society of Biomaterials and Board Member of the Association of Women in Science and Technology (AMIT) – Galician Node. http://jomagellan.tumblr.com

Dolores Steinman Biomedical Simulation Lab, University of Toronto.

Dr. Steinman’s involvement with the Biomedical Simulation Laboratory (BSL), at the University of Toronto, is based on her experience as an MD (Romania) and PhD in Cell Biology (Canada) that led her to contribute in situating the BSL’s “patient-specific” computer-based simulations in the socio-historical, ethical and aesthetic context of medical imaging and imagery.

Polona Tratnik, Ph.D., is Dean of Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Faculty and Research Institute for Humanities, Ljubljana [Slovenia], where she is a Professor and Head of Research as well. She also teaches courses at the Faculty for Media and Communication at Singidunum University in Serbia, at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Ljubljana, at the Faculty of Education of the University of Maribor and at the Faculty for Design of the University of Primorska. She used to be the Head of the Department for Cultural Studies at the Faculty for Humanities of the University of Primorska. In 2012 she was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar, as well as a Guest Professor at the University of California Santa Cruz. She was a Guest Professor also at the Capital Normal University Bejing (China), at the Faculty for Art and Design Helsinki TAIK (Finland), and at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México(Mexico City). She is president of the Slovenian Society of Aesthetics (since 2011) and an Executive Committee Member of the International Association of Aesthetics. She has authored seven monographs and one proceeding as single author, including the Hacer-vivir más allá del cuerpo y del medio (Mexico City: Herder, 2013), Art as Intervention(Sophia, 2017) and Conquest of Body. Biopower with Biotechnology (Springer, 2017). Polona Tratnik is a pioneer bio artist exhibiting worldwide at shows such as Ars Electronica festival and BEAP festival in Perth .http://www.polona-tratnik.si

It should be a stimulating discussion although I am curious as to about omission from this list: “… biotech can create a more democratic society; yet, we are increasingly racist, sexist and classist. ” What about age or, more specifically, ageism? Maybe next time, eh?

FrogHeart and the year ending/beginning—2018 into 2019

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I’m not sure I’m ready to take another look at my Friday, December 28, 2018 posting; at this point, I’m feeling embarrassed at being so cranky that I forgot to note how much I have appreciated WordPress software over the years. It should also be noted that the updated ‘linki’ function in WordPress 5.0 is easier to use. Unfortunately, that’s all I can find to praise but my fingers are crossed in hope that the issues I’ve identified are resolved or on the way to resolution at some point in the next six months or so. Meanwhile, I’m going to change things here and my first thought is: less frequent posting.

To be fair, I have been considering a change in frequency for some months now and this WordPress 5.0 imbroglio may be just what I needed to kickstart my vague plan into action.

2018 in review

Rough roundup of site statistics

For some reason readership from the Ukraine has skyrocketed into one of my top five countries for readers in December 2018. Over the last few years, Canadian readership has finally cracked into the top five although it doesn’t happen every month. The French have shown an unprecedented level of interest by creeping into my top five and the Brits after being a mainstay in my top five have become a little less interested thereby sliding out of a regular spot in the top five but remaining in the top 10. China and the US readerships after intermittently competing for the top position for several months have been overtaken, as noted earlier, by the Ukrainians with the Russians in second place. Meanwhile, China has slipped to the 10th spot in this last month of 2018.

Musings on the Canadian scene

I don’t have a lot to say about the Canadian science scene other than we seem to be getting better about making news about research more publicly available. Also, the Canadian art/science (also known as sciart) community taking form. Perhaps would be that there’s a nascent community that appears to be reaching a critical mass.

  • A Dec. 10, 2018 posting on the Science Borealis blog lists residencies for artists who want to work with scientists.
  • Beakerhead is an art/science/engineering festival held in Calgary, Alberta.
  • ArtSci Salon at the University of Toronto has organized a number of art/sci events.
  • Tech Art Fair being held at the Ontario Science Centre (see my December 20, 2018 posting about the call for submissions)
  • Curiosity Collider in Vancouver regularly holds art/sci events and they have a calendar of other local art/sci events. They are planning a larger than usual event, Collisions Festival (see more about the proposed festivel in my November 14, 2018 posting; scroll down)

There’s a lot more too. You can try ‘art/sci’ as a search term on this blog and there’s always Duck Duck, Bing, Google, etc. where I’d also use ‘art/sci’, ‘art/science’, ‘sciart’, and any other variant that I could imagine along with ‘Canada’ to find other Canadian organizations and events.

Happy New Year 2019!

Tech Art Fair (Ontario, Canada) call for submissions

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I received an email (Dec. 19, 2018) from the ArtSci Salon folks in Toronto (Canada) about this call for submissions. It’s a bit late but there’s still time (Jan. 14, 2019) to make the deadline, From a December 19, 2018 ArtSci Salon announcement,

OPEN CALL

Tech Art Fair

February 16 – 18, 2019 at the Ontario Science Centre

Juried Competition: Call for Applications to Participate in the Tech Art Fair

Are you a tech-focused artist who wants to showcase your work in a diverse and dynamic public venue? Do you enjoy face-to-face conversations about what you do? Would you like to expand your network and generate new synergies within a global like-minded community? The Tech Art Fair at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto will highlight creative processes and provide an opportunity for participants to launch and test-drive creative ideas during a three-day winter holiday event, anticipated to attract up to 10,000 visitors. The Tech Art Fair will be complemented by an online exhibition hosted by the New York-based SciArt Center.

The Opportunity

This is a call for applications to participate in the Tech Art Fair to be held in the Great Hall of the Ontario Science Centre from February 16 through to February 18, 2019. Up to 20 applicants will be selected through a juried competition to demonstrate and exhibit work and sell affordable items at the Tech Art Fair. In addition to participation in the Tech Art Fair, participants will be considered for the art studio residences at MOCA Toronto [Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto], leading to an exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre.

Eligible Art and Selection Criteria

This call is open to artists, artist collectives, innovative entrepreneurs and interdisciplinary makers. Original art projects made in classic or digital media will be considered. This could include installations, immersive 3D works, innovative craft projects, electronics, Internet of Things projects and wearables, decorative arts, furniture, functional glass, ceramics and textiles.

We’re seeking provocative and unconventional art with a connection to science and technology that reveals your creative process, inspires awe and excitement and sparks dialogue. We’ll also be looking for work which facilitates interaction, collaboration and creation with our visitors.

Participants will be provided with a designated space containing one 6-foot table, two chairs and electrical power. Additional vertical supports (up to 6 feet in height) will be available for a limited number of works. Opportunities for displaying large-scale art pieces, hanging installations or video projections will be limited. Applicants selected by the jury will be required to sign a participation agreement with the Ontario Science Centre to participate in the Tech Art Fair. Please review the agreement: your agreement to execute and fulfill the terms of this agreement is a pre-condition to consideration by the jury. As set out in the agreement, you must be in attendance at the Ontario Science Centre during the Centre’s working hours for the duration of the Tech Art Fair.

Jury Members

  • Rachel Birnberg and Cecilia Garcia, North York Arts
  • Julia Buntaine Hoel, SciArt Center
  • Andy Forest, STEAMLabs
  • Ana Klasnja, Ontario Science Centre
  • Megan MacLaurin, InterAccess
  • Vessna Perunovich, Fashion Art Toronto
  • Renn Scott, Daily Goods Design Lab

Apply by January 14, 2019!
NOTE: To submit materials, you’ll need a Google Account.

Key Dates

October 31, 2018, 9 a.m. – Call for Applications opens
January 14, 2019, 11:59 p.m. – Call for applications closes
January 14 – 17, 2019 – Juried competition underway
January 18, 2019 – The Centre begins notifying successful applicants
January 26, 2019 – Due date for signed participant agreements
February 15, 2019, 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. – Participant set-up complete
February 16, 2019, 10 a.m. – Tech Art Fair opens to the public
February 18, 2019, 5 p.m. – Tech Art Fair closes to the public

For further details, please contact us.

I have looked at the ‘agreement’ and given the constraints and apparent lack of any funding for travel, this call is probably more suitable for artists based in Ontario and/or in close proximity to Toronto.  You can find the original call for submissions here on the Ontario Science Centre’s site.

Paint to Programming: exploring the role of algorithms in SciArt; a Dec. 4, 2018 ArtSci Salon event in Toronto, Canada

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Here’s the latest from a November 20, 2018 ArtSci Salon announcement received via email,

Paint to Programming: exploring the role of algorithms in SciArt

Description

What is the role of programming in artwork creation? is programming preliminary a Medium to be hidden to an audience more interested in the interface rather than in its algorithmic content ? or is it both medium and content, revealing the inner working, the politics, and the tactical/strategic uses of code and algorithmic complexity in a culture increasingly withdrawn from its crucial implications?

Thanks to a collaboration between Art the Science and ArtSci Salon, this event is meant to initiate a conversation to understand the many uses of algorithms in artistic and scientific research, from ways to solve problems in fluid mechanics by drawing inspiration from the dripping technique of Jackson Pollock, to exploring and making visible the complex dynamics of the blockchain, to using algorithms to process and display data for science communication.

Join ArtSci Salon and Art the Science at Fields for an evening of presentation and discussion with:

Julia Krolik : Exploring algorithms in SciArt
Owen Fernley: Creative coding
Sarah Friend: Software as a medium
Bernardo Palacios Muñiz: Modern painting: A fluid mechanics perspective

Moderator: Roberta Buiani

December 4th | 6pm-8pm

The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
222 College Street | Room 230
Toronto ON | M5T 3J1
Please, RSVP here 

Bios

Julia Krolik is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Art the Science, an organization dedicated to uniting and empowering artists and scientists to collectively advance scientific knowledge. As an exhibiting artist, focusing on science, art and new media, Julia has created works for CBC, the Ontario Science Centre, the Toronto Urban Film Festival and the Scotia Bank Photography Festival. 

Owen Fernley is an engineer and experimentalist. He has experience programming computational engines in Fortran and C and is currently building front-end web tools in javascript to aid in exploration geology.He co-created Decomposing Pianos, an experimental music collective focusing on projects related to art, science, experimental music and new media. 

Sarah Friend is an artist and software engineer working at a large blockchain development studio. When not doing that, she creates games and other interactive experiences. Her practice investigates murky dichotomies – like those between privacy and transparency, centralization and decentralization, and the environment and technology – with playfulness and absurdist humour.

Bernardo Palacios Muñiz is a mechanical engineer and a researcher from Mexico City. His thesis at UNAM “Descifrando a Pollock: Arte y Mecánica de Fluidos” explored the technique inplemented by Jackson POllock through the perspective of fluid mechanics

Like so many of the events from the ArtSci salon, this is very timely. On a somewhat related note, there’s an art/AI emergence mentioned in my August 31, 2018 posting (scroll down about 70% of the way to this subhead ‘Artworks generated by an AI system are to be sold at Christie’s auction house’).

I’ve also mentioned ArtSci Salon’s presentation partner, Art the Science, in an October 23, 2017 posting. Amongst other programmes, they advertise and promote artist  residencies. I notice that their events are held exclusively in Ontario and the descriptions for participants in their 2018 online gallery exhibit feature a preponderance of Ontario-based artists. I’m sure they’d like to get more participation from across the country but that takes extra time and effort and volunteer organizations such as this one don’t have much of either to spare. Their three year life (they were founded in 2015) is quite an accomplishment.

As for a more national art/sci or sciart network, maybe it’s time to organize something, eh?

ArtSci Salon visits the Society for Literature, Science & the Arts 2018 Meeting in Toronto (Canada) while Vancouver’s Curiosity Collider provides a November 2018 update

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I have two art/sci (or sciart) announcements, one concerns an event and the other is a news update.

Toronto’s ArtSci Salon and the Society of Literature, Science & the Arts (SLSA) 2018 Meeting

How could I not have stumbled across SLSA until now? Better late than never but the 2018 meeting/conference in Toronto, Canada is the 32nd of this annual event. (sigh)

Getting on to the important points, the ArtSci Salon is hosting a special roundtable as part of the conference (from a November 14, 2018 announcement received via email),

ArtSci Salon has organized a special roundtable at the annual SLSA
(Society for Science Literature and the Arts) which will take place in
Toronto this week.

The roundtable is public and will be held at OCADU [Ontario College of Art and Design University] in the gallery on 49 McCaul Street.

Re-locating the rational: on the re-making of categories through art and science (or: the artist is out of mind!)

A roundtable and a mobile/pop-up exhibition organized by ArtSci Salon

The world always exceeds our conception of it (Shotwell, 2016)

Coinciding with this year’s SLSA “Out of Mind” conference in Toronto, ArtSci Salon is proposing a panel/roundtable on “out-of-mindedness” as a way to re-think categories, and to disrupt the disciplinary and methodological status quo through which we normally see science and the humanities unfolding in academic contexts. We plan to do it through a pop-up exhibition featuring the works of local artists and members of SLSA.

What to do when the sciences and the humanities loose [sic] their ability to fully grasp, and sometimes even speak of, phenomena that have inevitably become too complex, too diffuse to be simplified through a model or a formula, or to be seized and summarized by one discipline?

This initiative is not designed to propose a set of new categories, but to pose a series of open questions, highlighting the necessity to conduct collaborative research between artistic practices and scientific research. We interpret the idea of “out of mind” as a strategy. In fact, using the arts as our preferred mode of expression, we believe that we ought to step out of the traditional mind configurations and fixed wiring in order to seize new ways to come to term with the multiplicities characterizing current environmental transformations. These occurrences have proved to be connected with nature, culture, and society in too many intricate ways, to the extent that neither science, nor technological methods are able to fully comprehend them.

Roundtable Participants:

Roberta Buiani (Chair)

Erika Biddles

Jenifer Wightman

Stephanie Rothenberg

Adam Zaretsky

Kathy High

Dolores Steinman

Here’s the poster:

One more logistical detail,

[T]he roundtable will be at 10:30-12:00 noon [Friday, November 16, 2018] followed by a small tour of the mobile pop-up exhibition[.]

For the curious, here’s the SLSA website and the SLSA 2018 [Meeting]—Out of Your Mind website. Unexpectedly, the University of Toronto is not one of the conference hosts, instead we have the University of Waterloo [Waterloo, Ontario] and York University [Toronto, Ontario] as joint hosts with OCAD University—Canada’s oldest art and design institution—partnering with the Rochester Institute of Technology (New York state, US).

Vancouver’s Curiosity Collider

Coincidentally on the same day I received the ArtSci Salon event information, I received a November 14, 2018 update for Vancouver’s art/sci (or sciart) organization, Curiosity Collider. From the update received via email,

Collider Update

Next events (save-the-date), call for submissions, and other art+science in town

Collisions Festival:
Meet Up & Hang Out

Are you an artist working in the sci/art genre? A scientist interested in collaborating with artists? Or one who wears both hats?

In the fall of 2019, the Curiosity Collider will be hosting our inaugural Sci-Art festival The Collisions Festival; the first theme will be Invasive Systems. The call for submission will be open in spring, 2019. The theme is meant to be broad in scope and not limited to any specific scientific subject/discipline; participants are encouraged to suggest various interpretation of the theme.

We would like to invite all artists and scientists who are interested in participating or potentially submitting a proposal to join us at this meet up event, chat about possible collaborations, and learn more about projects and details on “collaborative work” proposals we are looking for.

RSVP now so we know how many to expect.. This is a casual drop in event; feel free to stay, or just stop by and say hi!

Notice that RSVP? Taken with the next announcement, something becomes evident,

Join the Collider Team!

Are you passionate about art and science? Want to be part of the awesome Curiosity Collider team to help create new ways to experience science? 

We are now inviting applications for the following positions:

Read more on our volunteer page. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions!

In the old days a ‘development director’ was a ‘fundraiser’. That RSVP? Likely, they’re trying to establish the size of their potential audience so they can get government grants. Audience size is important to corporate or ‘other’ funders but if you want a government grant you need numbers.

Getting back to the update, this is a grouping of Curiosity Collider’s latest hits,

#ColliderCafe: Art. Science. Cadence.

Did you miss our most recent Collider Cafe event? You can now chek out the talks by Singer-songwriter Devon More, Biologists Wayne Maddison and David Maddison, as well as Integrated Media Artist Victoria Gibson on our YouTube Channel.

Check out the talks now.

Et al 3: Collaboration Process for Quantum Futures

Nerd Nite, Science Slam, and Curiosity Collider joined forces for the 3rd edition of Et al: the ultimate bar science night event. During the event, Quantum Physicist James Day and our Creative Managing Director Char Hoyt gave attendees an overview of the collaboration process that made Night shift: Quantum Futures, an event curated by CC and hosted at the Museum of Anthropology, possible.

Missed the show? Watch the presentation on our YouTube channel now.

While they don’t seem to have any details, there is a date for the next Collider Cafe,

Save the Date:
Next Collider Cafe

Our next Collider Cafe will be on Wednesday, January 23 at Cafe Deux Soleils. #ColliderCafe is a space for artists, scientists, makers, and anyone interested in art+science. Meet. Discover. Connect. Create.

Are you curious? Join us to explore how art and science intersect in the exploration of curiosity.

Finally, a miscellaneous listing of related events being held in Vancouver, mostly, this November,

Looking for more art+science in town?

  • November 17 (Victoria) Science Writers and Communicators of Canada is hosting a workshop on science writing in an age of reconciliation: What science writers can learn from indigenous community members about better representation and relationships. Only a few spots left! Register now.
  • November 15-18 CC friend Dzee Louise will open her studio during the East Side Cultural Crawl! Drop by at studio #5 just at the top of the stairs of the William Clark Building at 1310 William Street (on the corner of Clark).
  • November 21 Natural History (Paleoart) Illustrator Julius Csotonyi will present a public lecture at the Vancouver Public Library (Kits branch) on the mutually beneficial affair between science and art.
  • November 21 Our friends at Nerd Nite Vancouver is hosting another awesome event next week, including a presentation by artist Michael Markowsky who will talk about how he ends up “Painting on the Moon”. Get your tickets now!
  • Until December 15 Vancouver Biennale’s CURIOUS IMAGININGS continues…check out the exhibition that will “challenge us to explore the social impacts of emerging biotechnology and our ethical limits in an age where genetic engineering and digital technologies are already pushing the boundaries of humanity.”

For more Vancouver art+science events, visit the Curiosity Collider events calendar. Let us know about your art+science events by emailing info@curiositycollider.org.

I did write a preview (June 18, 2018) for the last event on the list, Curious Imaginings, which included some of the latest science on xenotransplantation and chimeras (i.e., examples of  emerging biotechnology). That’s all folks!

All about gene editing, sexual reproduction, and the arts (an October 27, 2018 ArtSci Salon event in Toronto, Canada)

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This ArtSci Salon event is part of the third world congress, GeNeDis (Genetics, Geriatrics, and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research). GeNeDis 2018 was organized by The Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Human Electrophysiology, Department of Informatics of the Ionian University (Corfu Greece) in cooperation with the Fields Institute (for Research in Mathematical Sciences) at the University of Toronto (Ontario, Canada) and Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo Ontario).

The ArtSci Salon will be presenting (from the ArtSci Salon GeNeDis event page) Note: Read carefully as this is a multi-pronged event,

GeNeDis Panel and Exhibition – Gene Editing, sexual reproduction and the arts: Oct 27, 2018

ArtSci salon is proud to present an event to explore the entangled issues of sex and sexual fantasy, sexual reproduction and sexual regulation, fertility and sexual technologies. We invited artists and scholars to address these themes using their preferred approach: the result is a thought provoking series which interrogates and imagines these issues through human/non-human sexual fantasies, interrogates them by means of modified gynaecological instruments, rewrites potential scenarios as enhanced and/or elderly humans, or offers unexpected ways to hack sex right here, right now.

Our goal is not just to imagine how media, technological enhancement, gene editing and medical treatments will transform our idea of sex and our sexuality as human beings and as part of the wide non-human world that surrounds us. It is also to think of how creative/critical initiatives may facilitate a sustained dialogue to help us cope with unresolved issues in the present. Interdisciplinary so!

The event will be accompanied by an exhibition on display Oct 18-Nov.8 in the Koffler Students Centre Cabinets, University of Toronto

Panel discussion

Gene editing, sexual reproduction and the arts: the present, the future and the imagined

ArtSci Salon will participate in the scientific conference GeNeDis (Genetics, Geriatrics, and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research) with a special panel addressing the topic of gene editing and sexual reproduction from a sciart perspective. The discussion will be preceded by the official opening of an exhibition illustrating how present issues in gynaecology and sexual regulation, hormonal management, human enhancement and sexual and cultural identity may be addressed, redressed, hacked and reimagined through the arts.

The Panel will be followed by a reception

Chair: Roberta Buiani, ArtSci Salon, Fields Institute
Speakers: Byron Rich, Samira Daneshvar, Adam Zaretsky & Dolores Steinman.

Saturday, Oct 27,
18:00-19:30

Lennox Hall
77 Adelaide Street W.

please, RSVP here 

For a little more detail about the event, you can check an Oct. 19, 2018 news item in Clot magazine,

On October 27th [2018], interdisciplinary group ArtSci Salon will present a panel discussion addressing the topic of gene editing and sexual reproduction from a sciart perspective. Preceding the discussion will be the official opening of an exhibition featuring the work of four of the speakers; a show that reimagines issues relating to gynaecology, sexual regulation, hormonal management and cultural identity through the arts.

During the conversation itself, the panel will focus on the current status of genome editing, presenting a nuanced alternative to sensationalist media narratives that often frame genome editing as a set of dichotomized future predictions, either utopian or dystopian. Stepping back into the present, the speakers will rethink the implications of genome editing through a creative lens, exploring the intersection of scientific and artistic interventions as they relate to human enhancement. Both panel and exhibition will approach these topics with an emphasis on their social implications, exploring in particular issues relating to sexual reproduction, fertility and sexual technologies – simultaneously raising awareness of sexual politics and the medicalization of the body.

…

The news item goes on to briefly describe the panelists.

The sense of beauty: an art/science film about CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in Vancouver, Canada; art/sci September in Toronto (Canada), a science at the bar night in Vancouver (Canada), and a festival in Calgary (Canada)

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Compared to five or more years ago, there’s a lollapalooza of art/sci (or sciart) events coming up in September 2018. Of course, it’s helpful if you live in or are visiting Toronto or Vancouver or Calgary at the right time.  All of these events occur from mid September (roughly) to the end of September. In no particular date order:

Sense of beauty in Vancouver

The September 10, 2018 Dante Alighieri Society of British Columbia invitation (received via email) offered more tease than information. Happily, the evite webpage for “The Sense of Beauty: Art and Science at CERN” (2017) by Valerio Jalongo filled in the details,

The Dante Alighieri Society of British Columbia

Invites you to the screening of the documentary

“The Sense of Beauty: Art and Science at CERN” (2017) by Valerio Jalongo

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2018 at 6:30 pm

The CINEMATHEQUE – 1131 Howe Street, Vancouver

Duration of film: 75’. Director in attendance; Q&A with the film director to follow the screening

Free Admission

RSVP: info@dantesocietybc.ca

Director Jalongo will discuss the making of his documentary in a seminar open to the public on September 24 (1:00-2:30 pm) at UBC  [University of British Columbia] (Buchanan Penthouse, *1866 Main Maill, Block C, 5th floor*, Vancouver).

The Sense of Beauty is the story of an unprecedented experiment that involves scientists from throughout the world collaborating around the largest machine ever constructed by human beings: the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). As the new experiment at CERN proceeds in its exploration of the mysterious energy that animates the universe, scientists and artists guide us towards the shadow line where science and art, in different ways, pursue truth and beauty.

Some of these men and women believe in God, while others believe only in experiment and doubt. But in their search for truth they are all alert to an elusive sixth – or seventh – sense: the sense of beauty. An unmissable opportunity for lovers of science, of beauty, or of both.

Rome-born Valerio Jalongo is a teacher, screenwriter and director who works in cinema and TV, for which he created works of fiction and award-winning documentaries. Among them: Sulla mia pelle (On My Skin, 2003) and La scuola è finita (2010), starring Valeria Golino, on the difficulties facing public schools in Italy.

This event is presented by the Dante Alighieri Society of BC in collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy in Vancouver and in association with ARPICO (www.arpico.ca), the Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada.

RSVP: info@dantesocietybc.ca

I searched for more information both about the film and about the seminar at UBC. I had no luck with the UBC seminar but I did find more about the film. There’s an April (?) 2017 synopsis by Luciano Barisone on the Vision du Réel website,

From one cave to another. In prehistoric times, human beings would leave paintings in caves to show their amazement and admiration for the complexity of the world. These reproductions of natural forms were the results of an act of creation and also of mystical gestures which appropriated the soul of things. In another gigantic and modern den, the immense CERN laboratory, the same thing is happening today, a combination of enthralled exploration of the cosmos and an attempt to control it. Valerio Jalongo’s film tackles the big questions that have fascinated poets, artists and philosophers since the dawn of time. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? The scientists at CERN attempt to answer them through machines that explore matter and search for the origins of life. In their conversations or their words to camera, the meaning of existence thus seems to become a pure question of the laws of physics and mathematical formulae. If only for solving the mystery of the universe a sixth sense is necessary. That of beauty…

There’s also a February 5, 2018 essay by Stefano Caggiano for Interni, which uses a description of the film to launch into a paean to Italian design,

The success of the documentary The Sense of Beauty by Valerio Jalongo, which narrates the ‘aesthetic’ side of the physicists at CERN when faced with the fundamental laws of nature, proves that the yearning for beauty is not just an aspect of art, but something shared by all human efforts to interpret reality.

It is no coincidence that the scientists themselves define the LHC particle accelerator (27 km) as a grand machine for beauty, conceived to investigate the meaning of things, not to perform some practical function. In fact, just as matter can be perceived only through form, and form only if supported by matter (Aristotle already understood this), so the laws of physics can be glimpsed only when they are applied to reality.

This is why in the Large Hadron Collider particles are accelerated to speeds close to that of light, reconstructing the matter-energy conditions just a few instants after the Big Bang. Only in this way is it possible to glimpse the hidden fundamental laws of the universe. It is precisely this evanescence that constitutes ‘beauty.’

The quivering of the form that reveals itself in the matter that conceals it, and which – given the fact that everything originates in the Big Bang – is found everywhere, in the most faraway stars and the closest objects: you just have to know how to prove it, grasp it, how to wait. Because this is the only way to establish relations with beauty: not perceiving it but awaiting it. Respecting its way of offering itself, which consists in denying itself.

Charging the form of an object with this sensation of awaiting, then, means catalyzing the ultimate and primary sense of beauty. And it is what is held in common by the work of the five Italian designers nominated for the Rising Talent Awards of Maison & Object 2018 (with Kensaku Oshiro as the only non-Italian designer, though he does live and work in Milan).

…

There’s a trailer (published by CERN on November 7, 2017,

It’s in both Italian and English with subtitles throughout, should you need them.

*The address for the Buchanan Penthouse was corrected from: 2329 West Mall to 1866 Main Maill, Block C, 5th floor on Sept. 17, 2018.

Toronto’s ArtSci Salon at Nuit Blanche, Mycology, Wild Bees and Art+Tech!

From a Tuesday, September 11, 2018 Art/Sci Salon announcement (received via email),

Baba Yaga Collective and ArtSci Salon Present:
Chaos Fungorum

In 1747, Carl Linnaeus, known as the “father of taxonomy”, observed
that the seeds of fungus moved in water like fish until “..by a law of
nature thus far unheard of and surpassing all human understanding..,”
they changed back to plant in their adult life.

He proceeded to include fungi in the new genus of “Chaos”. But why
delimiting fungi within categories and boundaries when it is exactly
their fluidity that make them so interesting?

Chaos Fungorum draws on the particular position occupied by fungi and
other hybrid organisms: neither plant nor animal, fungi extend across,
and can entertain, communications and collaborations between animal,
human and industrial realms.

Mixing different artistic practices and media, the artists featured in
this exhibition seek to move beyond rigid comprehensions of the living
by working with, rather than merely shaping, sculpting and manipulating
plants, microorganisms and fungi. Letting the non-human speak is to move
away from an anthropocentric approach to the world: it not only opens to
new rewarding artistic practices, but it also fosters new ideas of
sustainable coexistence, new unusual life collaborations and
adaptations, and new forms of communications and languages.

THE EXHIBITION
September 26 – October 7, 2018

Baba Yaga Collective 906 Queen Street West @Crawford, Toronto

info@babayagacollective.ca

FEATURING

BIO.CHROME COLLECTIVE
Robyn Crouch • Mellissa Fisher • Shavon Madden
Tracy Maurice • Tosca Teran • Alexis Williams

SPECIAL GUEST
Whitefeather Hunter

SPECIAL NUIT BLANCHE OPENING RECEPTION
September 29
6:00 – 9:00 pm

6:30pm: Artsci Salon introduction with Roberta Buiani and Stephen Morris
rethinking categories and the “non-human” in art and science

Followed by artist remarks.
Scientists from the University of Toronto will act as respondent.

9:30pm onward: Tosca Teran & Andrei Gravelle of Nanotopia [emphasis mine]

BIO-SONIFICATIONS: NON-HUMAN COLLABORATIONS Mycelium to MIDI •

Midnight Mushroom music live performance

This Special program is co-presented by The Baba Yaga Collective and
ArtSci Salon. For more information contact artscisalon@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/events/1763778620414561/

 All the Buzz on Wild Bee Club!
Summer Speaker Series

Wed Sept 19 at 7pm
High Park Nature Centre,
All the Buzz on Wild Bee Club! – Summer Speaker Series

The speaker series will feature the club’s biologist/leader SUSAN FRYE.
A major component of this club will use the SONIC SOLITARIES AUDIO BEE
CABINET  – an observable nest site for bees in OURSpace – to encompass a
sensory experience with stem nesting bees and wasps, and to record
weekly activity at the cabinet. Pairing magnified views in tandem with
amplified sound via headphones, the cabinet facilitates an enhanced
perception of its tiny inhabitants: solitary bees and wasps and other
nest biota in action, up close. As citizen scientists, we can gather and
record observations to compile them into a database that will contribute
to our growing understanding of native bees, the native (and non-native)
plants they use for food and nest material sources, their co-evolution,
and how pollination in a park and restored habitat setting is
facilitated by native bees.

Fri, Sept 21, 8pm
Music Gallery, 918 Bathurst (their new location) –
Trio Wow & Flutter
with Bea Labikova, fujara, saxophones,
Kayla Milmine-Abbott, soprano saxophone,
Sarah Peebles, shō, cracklebox, amplifiers.

Call for Participants: Art+Tech Jam

ChangeUp’s Art+Tech Jam
September 21-23

This three days event will unite a diverse group of artists and
technologists in an intensive, collaborative three-day creation period
and culminating showcase (public exhibition and interdisciplinary rave).

ChangeUo is currently accepting applicants from tech and arts/culture
spaces of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels.
Limited spots available.
For more information and to apply
https://tinyurl.com/changeup-artsorg

I looked up Nanotopia and found it on SoundCloud. Happy listening!

Et Al III (the ultimate science bar night in Vancouver) and more

A September 12, 2018 Curiosity Collider announcement (received via email) reveals details about the latest cooperative event/bar night put on by three sciencish groups,

Curiosity Collider is bringing art + science to Vancouver’s Ultimate Bar Science Night with Nerd Nite & Science Slam

Do you enjoy learning about science in a casual environment? This is the third year that Curiosity Collider is part of Et al, the Ultimate Bar Science Night where we bring together awesome speakers and activities. Come and enjoy Curiosity Collider’s segment on quantum physics with Spoken Word Poet Angelica Poversky, Physicist James Day, and CC’s own Creative Director Char Hoyt.

When: Drinks and mingling start at 6:30pm. Presentations start at 7:30pm.
Where: Rio Theatre, 1660 E Broadway, Vancouver, BC V5N 1W1
Cost: $15-20 via Eventbrite and at the door. Proceeds will be used to cover the cost of running this event, and to fund future science bar events.

Special Guest talk by Dr. Carin Bondar – Biologist with a Twist!

Dr. Carin Bondar is a biologist, author and philosopher. Bondar is author of the books Wild Sex and Wild Moms (Pegasus). She is the writer and host of an online series based on her books which have garnered over 100,000,000 views. Her TED talk on the subject has nearly 3 million views. She is host of several TV series including Worlds Oddest Animal Couples (Animal Planet, Netflix), Stephen Hawking’s Brave New World (Discovery World HD, National Geographic) and Outrageous Acts of Science (The Science Channel). Bondar is an adventurer and explorer, having discovered 11 new species of beetles and snails in the remote jungles of Borneo. Bondar is also a mom of 4 kids, two boys and two girls.

Follow updates on twitter via @ccollider or #ColliderCafe. This event is part of the Science Literacy Week celebration across Canada.

Head to the Facebook event page – let us know you are coming and share this event with others!

Looking for more Art+Science in Vancouver?
For more Vancouver art+science events, visit the Curiosity Collider events calendar.

Devoted readers 🙂 will note that the Vancouver Biennale’s Curious Imaginings show was featured here in a June 18, 2018 post and mentioned more recently in the context of a September 11, 2018 post on xenotransplantation.

Finally for this section, special mention to whomever wrote up the ‘bar night’ description on Eventbrite,

Et Al III: The Ultimate Bar Science Night Curiosity Collider + Nerd Nite Vancouver + Science Slam Canada

POSTER BY: Armin Mortazavi IG:@Armin.Scientoonist

Et Al III: The Ultimate Bar Science Night

Curiosity Collider + Nerd Nite Vancouver + Science Slam Canada

Special Guest talk by Dr. Carin Bondar – Biologist with a Twist!

6:30pm – Doors open
6:30-7:30 Drinks, Socializing, Nerding
7:30pm-945pm Stage Show with two intermissions

You like science? You like drinking while sciencing? In Vancouver there are many options to get educated and inspired through science, art, and culture in a casual bar setting outside of universities. There’s Nerd Nite which focuses on nerdy lectures in the Fox Cabaret, Curiosity Collider which creates events that bring together artists and scientists, and Science Slam, a poetry-slam inspired science communication competition!

In this third installment of Et Al, we’re making the show bigger than ever. We want people to know all about the bar science nights in Vancouver, but we also want to connect all you nerds together as we build this community. We encourage you to COME DRESSED AS YOUR FAVOURITE SCIENTIST. We will give away prizes to the best costumes, plus it’s a great ice breaker. We’re also encouraging science based organizations to get involved in the show by promoting your institution. Contact Kaylee or Michael at vancouver@nerdnite.com if your science organization would like to contribute to the show with some giveaways, you will get a free ticket, if you don’t have anything to give away, contact us anyway, we want this to be a celebration of science nights in Vancouver!

BIOS

CARIN BONDAR
Dr. Carin Bondar is a biologist, author and philosopher. Bondar is author of the books Wild Sex and Wild Moms (Pegasus). She is writer and host of online series based on her books (Wild Sex and Wild Moms) which have garnered over 100,000,000 views. Her TED talk on the subject has nearly 3 million views. She is host of several TV series including Worlds Oddest Animal Couples (Animal Planet, Netflix), Stephen Hawking’s Brave New World (Discovery World HD, National Geographic) and Outrageous Acts of Science (The Science Channel). Bondar is an adventurer and explorer, having discovered 11 new species of beetles and snails in the remote jungles of Borneo. Bondar is also a mom of 4 kids, two boys and two girls.

Curiosity Collider Art Science Foundation promotes interdisciplinary collaborations that capture natural human curiosity. At the intersection of art, culture, technology, and humanity are innovative ways to communicate the daily relevance of science. Though exhibitions, performance events and our quarterly speaker event, the Collider Cafe we help create new ways to experience science.

NERD NITE
In our opinion, there has never been a better time to be a Nerd! Nerd Nite is an event which is currently held in over 60 cities worldwide! The formula for each Nerd Nite is pretty standard – 20 minute presentations from three presenters each night, in a laid-back environment with lots to learn, and lots to drink!

SCIENCE SLAM
Science Slam YVR is a community outreach organization committed to supporting and promoting science communication in Vancouver. Our Science Slams are informal competitions that bring together researchers, students, educators, and communicators to share interesting science in creative ways. Every event is different, with talks, poems, songs, dances, and unexpected surprises. Our only two rules? Each slammer has 5 minutes, and no slideshows are allowed! Slammers come to share their science, and the judges and audience decide their fate. Who will take away the title of Science Slam champion?

That’s a pretty lively description. You can get tickets here.

Calgary’s Beakerhead

An art, science, and engineering festival in Calgary, Alberta, Beakerhead opens on September 19, 2018 and runs until September 23, 2018. Here’s more from the 2018 online programme announcement made in late July (?) 2018,

Giant Dung Beetle, Zorb Ball Racers, Heart Powered Art and More Set to Explode on Calgary Streets!

Quirky, fun adventures result when art, science and engineering collide at Beakerhead September 19 – 23, 2018.

In just seven weeks, enormous electric bolts will light up the sky in downtown Calgary when a crazy cacophony of exhibits and events takes over the city. The Beakerhead crew is announcing the official program lineup with tickets now available online for all ticketed events. This year’s extravaganza will include remarkable spectacles of art and science, unique activities, and more than 50 distinct events – many of which are free, but still require registration to get tickets.

The Calgary-born smash up of art, science and engineering is in its sixth year. Last year, more than 145,000 people participated in Beakerhead and organizers are planning to top that number in 2018.

“Expect conversations that start with “wow!” says Mary Anne Moser, President and Co-founder of Beakerhead. “This year’s lineup includes a lot of original concepts, special culinary events, dozens of workshops, shows and and tours.”

Beakerhead events take place indoors and out. Beakernight is science’s biggest ticketed street party and tickets are now on sale.

Highlights of Beakerhead 2018:

  • Light up the Night: Giant electric bolts will light up the night sky thanks to two 10-metre Tesla Coils built by a team of artists and engineers.
  • Lunch Without Light: This special Dark Table dining experience is led by a famous broadcaster and an esteemed neuroscientist.
  • Beakereats and Beakerbar: Dining is a whole new experience when chef and bartender become scientist! Creative Calgary chefs and mixologists experiment with a new theme in 2018: canola.
  • Four to Six on Fourth: Blocks of open-air experimentation including a human-sized hamster wheel, artists, performers, and hands-on or feet-on experiences like walking on liquid.
  • Beacons: This series of free neighbourhood installations is completely wild! There’s everything from a giant dung beetle to a 3.5 metre lotus that lights up with your heart beat.
  • Workshops: Learn the art of animation, understand cryptocurrency, meet famous scientists and broadcasters, make organic facial oil or a vegan carrot cake and much more.
  • Zorbathon: Get inside a zorb and cavort with family and friends in an oversized playground. Participate in rolling races, bump-a-thons, obstacle courses. Make a day of it.

Beakerhead takes place September 19 – 23, 2018 with the ticketed Beakernight on Saturday, September 22 at Fort Calgary.

Here’s a special shout out to Shaskatchewan`s Jean-Sébastien Gauthier and Brian F. Eames (featured here in a February 16, 2018 posting) and their free ‘Within Measure’ Sept. 19 – 23, 2018 event at Beakerhead.

That’s all folks! For now, that is.