August LASER (corrected date and location)

Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous of August 2012

6:45pm-7pm: Socializing/networking.

7pm - 7:25pm: Sydell Lewis on "Why Upside Down? Paintings that Rotate"

Sydell Lewis's abstract paintings, mounted on rotating devices, allows the viewer to examine and interpret a work to its full potential. Her thesis is that we do not totally perceive an abstract work unless we view it from more than one position. She analogizes this to how we look at sculpture. We walk around the work to grasp it fully. In the case of paintings or prints she mounts her work on rotation devices so that the audience is still and the work moves thereby giving the viewer access to the complete work. This concept was born of a chain of connecting experiences that started in her early career with an amusing incident in her studio and later developed after attending an exhibition in Aix-en-Provence. She also raises the following questions: Is it essential to view an abstract work as the artist originally intended? Does the viewers interpretation count as much as the artists if they differ? She hopes that after her presentation the audience will never look at a work of abstract art without considering it upsidedown, sideways and possibly on the diagonal. She believes that the process of looking at many perspectives is a creative and effective tool for promoting cultural understanding and problem solving as well as looking at art.

7:25-7:50pm: Shamit Kachru (Stanford Physics Dept) on "Dark Energy and Dark Matter"

7:50-8:05: BREAK

Before or after the break, anyone in the audience currently working within the intersections of art and science will have 30 seconds to share their work. Please present your work as a teaser so that those who are interested can seek you out during social time following the event.

8:05-8:30pm: Indre Viskontas on "Music that Moves: the Art and Neuroscience of Effective Performance"

We are constantly bombarded by a cacophony of sounds and yet music still has the power to influence us, often outside our awareness. What is it about this art form that draws people in? What distinguishes a performance that is technically accurate but unmusical from one that elicits the chills? We will explore how music engages the brain and why it continues to be a worldwide addiction.

8:30pm-8:55pm: Christine Peterson (Foresight Institute) on "The Nanocentury: Bringing Digital Control to the Physical World"

Throughout human history, our species has worked to control the matter surrounding us -- building larger and larger, smaller and smaller, more and more precise. The payoffs from these efforts are starting to accelerate, as we move toward the ability to build physical objects with atomic precision, just as we program information with bit-level precision. What will this mean for our bodies, our minds, our families, our nations, our culture, our planet? There's good news and bad news, but one thing's clear -- we are in for a wild ride!

Stanford University
Building/Room: Geology Corner room 105 (Stanford map)

Parking is mostly free at Stanford after 4pm.