CHAIRED BY: Piero Scaruffi

Schedule:

7:00-7:25:  Kristina Dutton (Media Artist) on "A Musician Contemplates Gesture and Silence"

7:25-7:50:  Jonathan Moscone (Yerba Buena and Institute for the Future) on "Be a Creative Home for Civic Action"

7:50-8:10: 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.

8:10-8:35:  Allen Saakyan (Eureka! Science Comedy) on "The Greatest Story Ever Told"

8:35-9:00:  Meredith Drum (Video Artist) on "Effect/Affect: New and Old Media for Socially and Ecologically Engaged Art Projects"

Speakers:

Meredith Drum creates experimental cinema as fictions, essays and documentaries in the form of linear videos, interactive installations, printed books, place-based movement research and mobile media projects. Her work has been supported by grants and residencies from a range of institutions including the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, iLand, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Wassaic Project, the Experimental Television Center, Wave Farm Transmission Arts, ISSUE Project Room, HASTAC and the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. Meredith exhibits frequently in New York City, and has also recently been included in international exhibitions in Dubai, Mexico City, Rio, Brighton (UK), Manizales (CO), Paris, Copenhagen, and Valencia (ES).

Kristina Dutton (Media Artist) is a violinist, composer, and educator. Dutton works in a wide range of musical settings, moving freely between improvisation, new music, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Dutton began her musical studies on piano and violin at the age of three. Conservatory trained, she has performed on more than 30 albums of various genres, appeared with numerous orchestras, and a handful of internationally acclaimed rock groups. Her music has been featured on international labels ranging from pop to new music, experimental to indie. In recent years her interest has focused on composition inspired by science, the natural world, and visual works. Most recently she travelled to Iceland with producer Jason K Cupp to create a series of violin and vocal field recordings in various dome shaped settings including caves, a sound sculpture, and the Reykjavik Art Museum Dome. Her current work includes collaborative projects with geneticist Dr. Arnaud Martin of George Washington University, and the Sonya Rapaport Legacy Trust on a musical reimagining of the famed Bay Area artist's visual oeuvre. Recent film works include the UC Berkeley Integrative Biology Lab's short on the life stages of cephalopods showing at the Imagine Science Film Festival, and artist/filmmaker Kim Anno's upcoming trailer and feature-length film, 90 Miles from Paradise.

Jonathan Moscone Chief of Civic Engagement at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA). Through creative place-making, youth programming, community partnerships and political advocacy, Jonathan activates YBCA's mission in the public realm by creatively engaging the people of San Francisco in shaping the future of its schools, neighborhoods, and city. Prior to joining YBCA's leadership team, Jonathan served for 15 years as artistic director of the California Shakespeare Theater (Cal Shakes) in Berkeley and Orinda, California. He is the first recipient of the Zelda Fichandler Award, given by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation for "transforming the American theater through his unique and creative work." From 2000-2016, he served on the executive committee of the board of trustees for Theater Communications Group and was a 2016 Future for Good Fellow at Institute for the Future. Currently Jonathan serves on the boards of Californians for the Arts/California Arts Advocates, and Alice Waters' Edible Schoolyard Project.

Allen Saakyan is a polymath, empath, and science communicator propelling unconventional concepts like world peace & sustainable colonization of planets and stars. He hosts and produces Eureka! science comedy shows, Worlds Fair future festivals, and The Simulation - his newest series asking global leaders humanity's most thought-provoking questions. Allen mentors entrepreneurs around the world and is a sought after speaker, emcee, and life coach.

Piero Scaruffi is a cultural historian who has lectured in three continents and published several books on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, the latest one being "The Nature of Consciousness" (2006). He pioneered Internet applications in the early 1980s and the use of the World-Wide Web for cultural purposes in the mid 1990s. His poetry has been awarded several national prizes in Italy and the USA. His latest book of poems and meditations is "Synthesis" (2009). As a music historian, he has published ten books, the latest ones being "A History of Rock and Dance Music" (2009) and "A History of Jazz Music" (2007). His latest book of history is "A History of Silicon Valley" (2011). The first volume of his free ebook "A Visual History of the Visual Arts" appeared in 2012. His latest book is "Intelligence is not Artificial" (2013). He has also written extensively about cinema and literature.

SPONSORS:

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.