SciArt Magazine Volume 34
December 2018
Table of Contents

Cover image: "Reef Grid" by Diane Burko. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Letter from the Editor

Dear readers,

From the beginning, SciArt set out to build a community of like-minded people. (Don't get me wrong, we love to argue, but all for the greater good of knowledge production and creative exploration.) It is around this time of year, when the holiday season hits, that a light shines on the value of community as we think about what we've accomplished this year, what our goals are for the next, and how we're going to achieve them. Nothing is done in a vacuum - and we are so grateful to our readers, writers, and guest artists and scientists for getting us to our 34th issue. We could not have done it without you!

When I think about the science-art community, I think about the nodes of cities and hotspots, and the network of the Internet that binds us. The Internet is not my favorite place in the world, but in the least, it's a powerful tool that enables the creation of a world-wide-web of folks interested in the science-art discourse in all of its varieties.

This December we feature the words and work of science-art practitioners from this world-wide-community, taking you from Arizona and the transdisciplinary work of Sha Xin Wei, then over to the U.K. for Leni Dothan's air pollution filtering sculptures, then down to Argentina for the creation of an object that is simultaneously art and science and something more, and then on from there. 

On a personal note, I recently moved from New York City to Cambridge, MA - it has been a joy to better get to know the vibrant science-art scene here, fueled by multiple branches at MIT, Harvard, and independent organizations like Catalyst Conversations and Swissnex. 

Happy holidays, and see you in the New Year!

Sincerely, 
Julia Buntaine Hoel | Founder, Editor-in-Chief

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STRAIGHT TALK
Sha Xin Wei & the Synthesis Center

||Joe Ferguson

"Well, ever since I was in high school I was interested across the board in everything from creative fiction and writing music to mathematics with history and linguistics as hobbies inherited from my parents. My formal (both undergrad and graduate) education, however, was in theoretical mathematics (differential geometry, analysis on manifolds, geometric measure theory). But I revelled in the oceans of learning available in college for exploration..."

QUICK VIEW
Glaciers and Reefs with Diane Burko

||Michal Gavish

Landscape paintings instigate in me a sense of long-lasting connection. They make me feel grounded. Yet, looking at the works of Diane Burko, I get a feeling of impermanence...

COLLABORATION
Creating a SciArt Object

||Laura G Olalde, Pablo E.  Rodriguez, Diego U. Ferreiro, & Alejandro D. Nadra

In the scientific field, the growing visualization of molecular structures on computer screens (mostly obtained by X-ray crystallography) has been restricted to a bidimensional layer as the symbolic representation form, losing its materiality and volume that they had in previous representations. Recent 3D printing technologies offer the possibility to gain a new materiality and scalable tridimensionality...

ON SCREEN from Labocine
Model Fifty-One Fifty-Six

||Allison Palenske

​Model Fifty-One Fifty Six, an experimental film by Josh Weissbach, explores the filmmaker’s heart condition and firsthand experience of medical technology. Tensions are explored through the film’s visuals and audio, casting an inquisitive eye on the increasingly blurred boundary between human and machine...

SPOTLIGHT
"Collisions" by Sarah Fischer

||Sarah Fischer

As both an artist and a biologist, I seek to combine my interests in science with my skills in printmaking... 

ON VIEW | INTERVIEW
John Peralta at George Billis Gallery

||Danielle McCloskey

The objects I choose in my work are typically early 20th century icons of utility and invention – picture your grandmother’s Singer sewing machine, the Underwood typewriter your grandfather used in the war, or the 8mm projector your parents showed their home movies on...

STRAIGHT TALK
Visualizing Pollution with Leni Dothan

||Marine Tanguy

"I was lucky enough to be born into a very creative family. My great grandparents were artists in Vienna before the war and my family is very artistic. We continuously challenge each other and communicate frequently about our artistic works..."

IN THE LAB
with Genspace's Kathryn Hamilton

||Julia Buntaine Hoel

"I began working on Brecht Forensics almost accidentally - visiting the Berliner Ensemble last year, I was given a soldier's hat that had been a costume piece and that had never been washed, as Brecht (the ensemble's director) wanted it to stink like the war. The hat is a kind of archive of the DNA of all the actors who have worn it..."

LISTENING
The Sound of Science 

The Sound of Science - the musical result of a collaboration between Graham Reynolds' Golden Hornet composer laboratory, world-renown cellist Jeffery Zeigler, and seven distinguished composers - is a collection of eight musical celebrations of science across the spectrum... 

STEAM
Opening up Neurosurgery to the World

||Alex Alamri & Cilein Kearns

When people think of brain surgery, they often think of scary operations, deep brain stimulation, and arrogant surgeons that are unapproachable. Neurosurgery is far more diverse than this​...

SPOTLIGHT
The Many Dimensions of Agar Art

||Katherine S. Lontok, Christine Marrizzi, and Tasha Sturm

Robert Hooke and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek discovered the world of microbes, living creatures (plus viruses) too small to see with the naked eye, in the 17th century. Hooke published the first image of a microbe, an illustration of fungal fruiting bodies, in his 1664 book Micrographia...

RESIDENCY
Piloting A New Art, Science, and Engineering Student Artist-in-Residency Program

||Mark B. Moldwin & Deb Mexicotte

We recently developed a new science/art residency program at the University of Michigan and hope that it inspires other such undergraduate artists-in-residence programs at other universities. This program is designed to offer fun and unique informal educational experiences, while encouraging interdisciplinary learning and creative production​...
SciArt Magazine, founded in 2013, is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States).
Email us at info@sciartmagazine.com for pitches, submissions, or content suggestions.

Editor in Chief: Julia Buntaine Hoel
Copy Editor: Kathryn Nock
Contributing writers: Danielle McCloskey, Joe Ferguson, Michal Gavish

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