Scientific Delirium Madness 1.0 Gallery

Djerassi Resident Artists Program Executive Director Margot H. Knight describes the genesis and ultimate success of the inaugural edition of Scientific Delirium Madness, a collaborative initiative of Leonardo/ISAST and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. At the heart of Scientific Delirium Madness is a month-long residency that brings together artists and scientists at the Djerassi 585-acre retreat in the coastal Santa Cruz Mountains to explore and transform the boundaries of art and science.

Three years ago, when I had just landed at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (DRAP), I met performance artist Nina Wise and mathematician Ralph Abraham---alumni of the program who had incubated their play on Johannes Kepler while in residence together in 2006. I also met the late Carl Djerassi, the program’s co-founder, who coupled his knowledge of science and writing. He had coined a term: “science in theater.” A snowball of an idea formed: What if we devoted a 30-day live/work residency to bringing artists and scientists together to live, work and explore the universe? What would happen? What could happen? Because of Carl Djerassi’s work in art and science, this sort of collaboration had happened a few times in the program’s history. In addition to Wise and Abraham, Nobel Laureate and theoretical chemist Roald Hoffmann once wrote dozens of poems while in residence. But what if we deliberately selected a group of scientists with demonstrated interest in art and artists whose muses were informed by science?

Meetings with Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) founder and cultural historian Piero Scaruffi [1] and an introduction, via Leonardo Executive Editor Roger Malina, to the extraordinary work of Leonardo/ISAST sealed the deal. With the perfect partner in Leonardo, Scientific Delirium Madness was born.

We formed a project steering committee and developed criteria for selecting artists and scientists. We recruited a prestigious group of nominators from across the country. Over 200 artists and scientists applied or were nominated. Twelve scientists and artists said “yes” to our experiment [2]. Leonardo/ISAST secured a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts via the agency’s new Science and Art initiative. We announced the participants at a D.C. Art and Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER) [3], organized by the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences, in the spring of 2014.

On 1 July 2014 the experiment began. Some residents had previously partnered on projects, but most were strangers to one another. On 30 July, they left as friends and, even more importantly, as professional colleagues. They not only shared what they did with one another but how they worked out problems and thought about the big questions. The dinner table levitated nightly with ideas. Residents bonded over chaos theory, life on Mars, acoustics, pattern recognition, dance and the possibilities of 3D television. During the residency, they shared their work with the public at our annual Open House and through blog entries posted on Leonardo On-Line [4].

So, what’s next? Our admission panel has selected the 2015 residents from over 225 applicants. Joining us with will Natalie Jeremijenko, Simona Zompi, Rachel Mayeri, Karl Schaffer, Eathan Janney, Eleni Sikelianos, Allison Cobb, Caroline Wellbery, Luca Forcusi, Guillermo Munoz and Tami Spector---artists and scientists from three countries and five states. Who knows what will happen? What could happen . . .

Margot H. Knight
Executive Director, Djerassi Resident Artists Program
Email: <margot@djerassi.org>
Web: <www.djerassi.org>

Acknowledgment
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Leonardo/ISAST thanks the NEA for its support which has enabled LASER series events, publication of the Leonardo Gallery, the Leonardo On-Line blog and documentation of the Scientific Delirium Madness residency.

References and Notes
1. Piero Scaruffi founded the Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous series on behalf of Leonardo/ISAST in 2008. LASER events in 2014 and 2015 have featured Scientific Delirium Madness residents.

2. The 12 participating artists and scientists were: Sasha Petrenko, media artist (Richmond, CA); Meredith Tromble, media artist (Oakland, CA); Donna Sternberg, choreographer (Santa Monica, CA); Ari Frankel, composer (New York, NY); Charlotte Jacobs, writer (Stanford, CA); Pireeni Sundaralingam, poet and cognitive scientist (San Francisco, CA); Devavani Chatterjea, biologist (Saint Paul, MN); Jim Crutchfield, physicist (Davis, CA); Curtis Frank, chemical engineer (Stanford, CA); Budi Prakosa, industrial engineer (Bogor, Indonesia); Andreas Siagian, industrial engineer (Bogor, Indonesia); and Dawn Sumner, geobiologist (Davis, CA).

3. DASER is a monthly forum on art-science projects in the national capital region and beyond. DASER is co-sponsored by Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and Leonardo/ISAST and is a “sister” event series to LASER.

4. To view the Leonardo blog posts, see <www.leonardo.info/blogs/>.

 

Updated 27 August 2015