June 2009 YASMIN Discussion: Art and Atoms: Fission and Fusion

http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions

In 2011 we will celebrate the International Year of Chemistry. We plan to hold a number of YASMIN discussions over the next two years that address Artists and Atoms: the ways that artists engage with the science and technology of atoms. Organic chemistry, with its connections to living systems and modern biology is often addressed by artists, but inorganic chemistry and nuclear processes such as fusion and fission are rarely featured in cultural contexts. Nuclear Energy, both fission and fusion, are in the public eye again as our societies seek to find sustainable and alternative energy sources. In the Haute Provence, France the new ITER project is being established. ITER is a joint international research and development project that aims to demonstrate the technical feasibility of fusion power. http://www.iter.org/

In this discussion we are interested in discussing the ways in which the arts and humanities are engaging with nuclear energy, and the cultural context of nuclear fusion and fission. We include both peaceful and military uses of nuclear energy, as well as use of radio-isotopes in medicine and natural radio activity. We are interested in historical examples from the 50s and 60s as well as the engagement of artists, science historians and other researchers today.

Questions that can be discussed include:

1) What are examples of artists projects that engage with nuclear fission and fusion ?
2) What is a cultural history of nuclear fusion and fission ?
3) How have expressed ideas, sensations or intuitions about atoms and nuclear phenomena in their art.
4)What modifications of perception took place in their creative process? What sensorial and experiential environments did they create?
5)What are examples of instrumental languages and systems they developed ?
6)How do artists engage with worlds and pheonemena at very different scales than every day experience, or with phenomena that have no counterparts in everyday life or sensory experience.

Moderators: Roger Malina, Guillermo Muñoz

Roger Malina is an astronomer currently running the Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence, and Executive of the Leonardo Publications at MIT Press. He is co chair of Art-Science-Instrumentation-Language Wing of the new IMERA Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies. His PhD work was on white dwarf stars which are the atomic residue left of the core of a star after it has finished burning through atomic fusion.

Guillermo Muñoz is a physicist working on the field of Nanotechnology at Material Sciencie Institute of Valencia University. His currently research covers high time and space resolution optical spectroscopy over semiconductor quantum dots and wires. He is part of “Piratas de la Ciencia” science communication group, based at Valencia (Spain).

Invited Discussants:

Patrick McCray:

W. Patrick McCray is a Professor in the History Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a research group leader at the NSF-funded Center for Nanotechnology in Society..He has published books such as Giant Telescopes: Astronomical Ambition and the Promise of Technology. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004) and in 2008 by Princeton University Press. Keep Watching the Skies: The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age. He is currently writing a new book that explores the history of various exploratory technologies in the 1970s and 1980s including nanotechnology, fusion energy, and space exploration.

Gabrielle Decamous

Gabrielle Decamous is a visiting tutor and doctoral candidate in the department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her research focuses on the use of advanced technologies as artistic de-territorialisations with a special interest in space and nuclear technology. In 2005, she has been the recipient of the International Hilla Rebay Fellowship and worked within the curatorial departments of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museums of New York, Bilbao, and Venice. Decamous also lectured within the contemporary galleries of the Museum of Modern Art and PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, focusing on the body and contemporary art.

Jean Pierre Dautricourt

Former director of the Camargo Foundation, an interdisciplinary residential and cultural center. Member of the Art-Science-Instrumentation-Language group (ASIL) group of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMáRA) in Marseille. Composer, performer, and sound technology researcher. Current research interests include new sound transformations and high-resolution audio over networks. 20 years as R&D professional in music and media arts, biotechnology, visualization and knowledge management.

Brandon Ballengee

Has been exploring the boundaries between ecological art, research biology and environmental education. An area of focus has been the occurrence of developmental deformities and population decline in amphibians. He has conducted field and laboratory investigations throughout the Americas and in England and has attended several artist/ researcher in residency programs. In 2003, he was an artist in residence at the Natural History Museum in London and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2008 where he established a functioning amphibian research laboratory open to the public and regularly conducted field investigations with local participants. A lead authored paper will appear next month in the Journal of Experimental Zoology on the findings of his 2006-2008 English field and laboratory studies on potential etiologies for deformities in British anurans. A forthcoming book on his work with amphibians will debut in 2010 published by the Arts Catalyst, London England.

Subscribe/Post to YASMIN Discussion list:

http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions

Note: We also have a YASMIN announcements list which you need to subscribe to separately:

http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_announcements

The Discussion begins June 1 2009 and runs through the end of the month.