CHAIRS: Julia Buntaine Hoel and Elizabeth Demaray

Rutgers New Brunswick LASER: “How do we design?”

November 14^th, 6-7:30pm, Zimmerli Art Museum, MAX Classroom

On November 14^th, 2018, the Zimmerli Art Museum will become a hub for art and science collaboration as the host of LASER, or Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous. These international meet-ups are a platform for cross-disciplinary exchange and collaboration across the arts, sciences, and technology. Rutgers’ LASER aims to illuminate the extraordinary research and applied practice taking place across New Jersey in our laboratories, art studios, and classrooms.

This LASER will explore the question “How do we design?” examining the ways in which design can affect applied practice and research, framing design as a multidisciplinary tool. Specifically, this LASER highlights the design practices that are unique to different fields, and considers the sorts of systems that may unite us across all fields. The evening will consist of a series of lightening talks and end with a Q&A conversation about the intersection of art, science, technology, and design.

Speakers for “How do we Design?” include:

Clinton Andrews (Director of the Center for Green Building)

Clinton is a professor of urban planning, director of the Rutgers Center for Green Building, and associate dean for research at Rutgers University’s Bloustein School. He was educated at Brown and MIT in engineering and planning, and worked previously in the private sector and at Princeton University. He teaches environmental planning and quantitative methods courses, and performs research on how people use the built environment. 

Mark Aakhus (Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Communication)

Mark investigates the relationship between communication and design, especially the uses of technological and organizational design, to augment human interaction and reasoning for decision-making and conflict-management. He uses multiple methods from discourse analysis and computational social science to examine language, argumentation, and social interaction in professional practice, organizational processes, and information infrastructures.

Gerry Beegan (Chair of the Art & Design Department, Associate Professor in Design)

Gerry is a writer, curator, and designer whose research explores the relationships between art, design, media, and audience. His writings on the history and theory of reproduction have been published internationally. His book The Mass Image was published in 2008 by Palgrave Macmillan, and he has contributed to a number of recent volumes including Visible Culture: Design Artifacts and Participated Meaning, Visions of the Industrial Age and (1968) Episodes of Culture in Contest. His current research projects deal with representations of art and design in the 1960s and the design practice of George Maciunas.

Sincerely, The Rutgers LASER Committee

Elizabeth Demaray (Associate Professor of Fine Arts RUC, advisor Art and Artificial Intelligence Lab, RUNB), Julia Buntaine Hoel (Innovator-in-Residence, RUNB), Remi Leibovic (student, RUC), & Katie Parrish (student, RUNB, director of Rutgers Sustainability Committee)

LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Talks is Leonardo's international program of evening gatherings that bring artists and scientists together for informal presentations and conversations. LASER Talks were founded in 2008 by Bay Area LASER Chair Piero Scaruffi and are in over 30 cities around the world. To learn more about how our LASER Hosts and to visit a LASER near you please visit our website. 

The mission of the LASERs is to provide the general public with a snapshot of the cultural environment of a region and to foster interdisciplinary networking.