August LASER Event

6:45pm-7:00pm: Socializing/networking. Anyone in the audience is welcome to describe in 30 seconds what they are working on.

7:00-7:30pm: Renetta Sitoy (artist) on "The Internet as Media"

Employing a range of strategies for acquiring, organizing, and re-contextualizing information found on the World Wide Web; exploring themes such as online communities (in which participants communicate through mediated, self-defined personas), "cyber-stalking," as well as using the Internet as a means of self-discovery and recollecting personal histories.

7:30-8:00pm: Shona Kitchen (San Jose State University, CADRE) on "Hyper-functional Landscapes and Art"

Airports are a work of art in themselves; an aesthetic framework for routing people through the microcosm of airline travel. Airports have what one might call a "captured" audience, creating a perfect place for art to take advantage and send the traveler on an alternative journey within a journey.

8:00-8:15: BREAK

8:15-8:45pm: Leila Takayama (Stanford Univ and Willow Garage) on "Throwing Voices"

Audio projection technologies in our everyday environments throw our voices to new locations in ways that influence our experiences of closeness, comfort, and dominance. Psychological experiments demonstrate several ways that the spatial locations of projected voices influence how well we perform on tasks, how psychologically distanced we become, and how we feel about each other.

8:45pm-9:15pm: Fred Kuttner (UC Santa Cruz) on "Can Quantum Mechanics Save Science from Newton's Sleep?"

Newtonian physics and its sequelae in the sciences including biology and psychology point to a comprehensible yet pointless universe. Quantum mechanics may offer a way out, but there are dangers.

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