SciArt Magazine volume 27
October 2017
Table of Contents

Cover image: A detail of the Dreamscape, “Nightfall at The Pond, Central Park, NYC” by Daniel Ambrosi.
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Letter from the Editor

Dear readers,
​
What can art-science-tech collaborations result in? How do we form new educational models for the 21st century? How do we bridge the gulf between art and science, and between art, science, and society? Like you, these are the questions that keep me up at night - and about a year ago after attending a conference which left lots of time for practiced presentations but little time for inspired discussion, I decided it was time to host my own conference in the style that can best get at these questions: deep, unscripted, unhurried dialogue.

"Science and Art: The Two Cultures Converging" is a three-day conference taking place this December in NYC. We are thrilled to announce the 36 amazing participants in attendance who will be responsible for investigating these questions over a series of roundtable discussions, breakout sessions, and artistic interludes.

​In partnership with The Helix Center, a fantastic organization dedicated to "an unhurried search for wisdom," we welcome you to join us in the audience and add your voice to the conversations. For those of you who can't make it in person, we'll be live-streaming the entire event, so we'll see you online!

As for now, I sincerely hope you enjoy our October issue where we have microbes taking selfies, poetry for NASA, the creative genius of Freeman Dyson, plants with heartbeats, AI-generated art, and everything between. 

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

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STRAIGHT TALK
Dr. Monica Lopez-Gonzalez

​||Joe Ferguson
When scientific ideas make their way through popular culture they often lose their intended meanings. It’s like the telephone game we played when we were kids. Someone whispers something to the first player, then that player whispers it to the next, and that continues, and by the time it reaches the final player the message hardly resembles the original...

COLLABORATION
The unlikely story of a SciArt collaboration involving a complex instrument of physics, a zebrafish embryo, and interactive art, all in the middle of the Canadian prairies.

​||Erin Prosser-Loose
For those who have never seen a synchrotron facility, it might be imagined through the lens of a sci-fi film, dark and cool, sterile and clinical, a sophisticated labyrinth of lasers and robotics...

REVIEW
Annet Couwenberg at the Baltimore Museum of Art

​||Michal Gavish
The tradition of crafts, peaking in Holland during the country’s 17th century Golden Age, was an early attempt to rationalize an increasingly complicated world. The boom of modern discoveries, unfamiliar geographies, and new species propelled a wave of attempts at explaining nature...

SPOTLIGHT
TIME's person of the year, Dr. David Ho

​||Julia Buntaine
To me new scientific pursuits or ideas are rooted in curiosity, but that curiosity must be shaped by posing the question from a new perspective, perhaps in a way that has not been previously asked. Asking the question in just the right way could lead to next set of logical studies, either in actual or thought experiments, that best address the challenge...

IN SHORT
"Dear NASA" by Hannah Star Rogers

​||Hannah Star Rogers
A poem about a first encounter.

DISCUSSION
"Arthur Singer: Master of Wildlife Art"

​||Alan Singer
Arthur Singer’s (1917-1990) career embodied a place where art and science could meet on equal terms and flourish. The timing was right for this American artist who grew up by coincidence on Audubon Avenue in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in the early 20th century. Arthur Singer was my father...

QUICK VIEW
​​"Dreamscapes" by Daniel Ambrosi

​||Anna Marks
...Ambrosi modifies a version of "DeepDream," Google’s vision program, which was developed to visualize the inner workings of artificial intelligence models. By utilizing and manipulating this technology, this results in Ambrosi constructing psychedelic and dazzling artworks...

SCIART CENTER
"The Void and the Cloud"

​||Marnie Benney
Quantum mechanics is founded on a duality; two contradictory descriptions, the mechanistic nature of reality must be described in both wave and particle terms. Human existence too is founded on a duality; coming out of nothingness, it is human nature to combat this state and evolve complexity, build civilizations, and imagine our futures. Yet the nothingness is always there, our universe ever-expanding into the uncharted void...

SPOTLIGHT
Geometrica by Giuseppe Bessero Belti

​||Giuseppe Bessero Belti
Geometrica brings together electronic and natural components, creating a dialogue between the natural and human world. Its rhomboidal structure with a frontal cut way, reveals a soft interior with a flower at the centre, representing its plant heart. By lightly touching it with our hands and gently pressing on its inner surface we can perceive a pulse through our fingers...

ON SCREEN
Pioneers: Freeman Dyson by Karol Jalochowski

​||Karol Jalochowski
Pioneers, At the Edge of Understanding is a documentary series devoted to remarkable contemporary scientists and humanists who had the courage to question current paradigms, go against “publish or perish” system, and remain (mostly) independent. It is a series of intimate encounters with those great minds of the modern world...

STEAM
Art Appreciation Through Modeling

​||Paul Fishwick
Modeling represents a way of understanding through representation. The practice of modeling occurs in most disciplines from fine arts to science and engineering. By employing model types that cross disciplines (e.g., concept maps, finite state machines), I describe one practical approach to investigating STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) integration...

ON VIEW: Norton Museum of Art
"Earth Works: Mapping the Anthropocene" by Justin Brice Guariglia

​||Tim B. Wride
Whether or not one accepts the premise that human impact is the primary cause of shifting climate, sea-level, and global temperature patterns, the visual markers of human activity on the planet are undeniable...

QUICK VIEW
"Microbial Selfies" by Leila Christine Nadir and Cary Peppermint

​||Anna Marks
Investigating experiences relating to memory, media, ecology and food, Leila Nadir and Cary Peppermint design inclusive situations aiming to facilitate the recovery from a cultural memory disorder they call “industrial amnesia.”...
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