Knowledge Hacking: Opening Reception

Knowledge Hacking is an experimental research and exhibition project organized by the Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley, and the Berkeley Center for New Media, as a parallel program with ZER01: The Art and Technology Network. Knowledge Hacking invites artists to use the university research environment as raw material for their work. The three projects selected demonstrate a range of ways in which scientists and artists might share their expertise, to better investigate how we understand and engage with our world. Wonderarium is a proposal for a large-scale floating terrarium in Oakland's Lake Merritt (planned for 2012), for which the artists are developing a small-scale prototype and innovating techniques for plant cultivation under extreme conditions. Energy Harvesting as Public Art includes wearable objects, which incorporate nascent technologies in development at UC Berkeley to harness and make visible the kinetic energy of human movement. Limbique aims to facilitate the development of a three-dimensional, topographical understanding of the brain's neural architecture, visualizing cognitive activity in three dimensions to create the framework upon which a deeper knowledge of neural function and regional intercommunication can be built. The UC Berkeley Department of Art Practice, Berkeley Center for New Media and our campus partners support these projects by facilitating access to space and equipment, and providing a modest budget for the initial development phase.

Featured projects:

Wonderarium
Yvette Molina and Sarah Filley with Chris Carmichael, UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley

Energy Harvesting as Public Art
Stephen Wilson, SFSU Conceptual and Information Arts Program, and Liwei Lin, UC Berkeley Mechanical Engineering

Limbique
Pinar Yoldas, UCLA Art/Sci Lab and David J. Paulsen, Duke University Psychology & Neuroscience

Exhibit runs through 10/9.

Reception to be held in Worth Ryder Gallery/116