CHAIRS: Ellen Levy and Patricia Olynyk
NY LASER is a series of lectures and presentations on art and science projects, in support of Leonardo/ISAST’s LEAF initiative (Leonardo Education and Art Forum). Former LEAF Chairs, Ellen K. Levy, former IDSVA Special Advisor in the Arts and Sciences and Patricia Olynyk, Director, Graduate School of Art, Washington University co-direct these presentations to promote dialogue at the highest level among artists, scientists, scholars, and historians. Space is limited, so please rsvp by sending an email to levy@nyc.rr.com or olynyk@wustl.edu. There will be feature presentations by Betsy Damon, Eve Andrée Laramée and Tyler Volk, Alison B. Hirsch and Aroussiak Gabrielian.
Betsy Damon’s work embodies a complexity that is both accessible and empowering. For the past three decades, her work has focused on a central subject, water and its essential function: creating. Water has taught her critical lessons about herself as a human being sharing this planet. From her performance work, The 7,000-Year-Old Woman (1976) to the six-acre Living Water Garden (1998) in Chengdu, Sichuan, China, she has evolved visual language and public spaces that invite the public to engage and to act. Her awards include the Bush foundation, UN Habitat, Society of landscape architects. She has also received Top Honors from the Waterfront Center, Heinz endowment and others. Damon will present the hypothesis that water is a quantum coherent ( this is still conjecture) and that the health of all life is dependent upon bio-dynamic forces working throughout the bio-sphere and beyond.
Eve Andrée Laramée’s work explores the historical and social dimensions between artistic practice and scientific inquiry. The four primary themes she explores include: the history of science, nuclear legacy issues, environment/ecology, and the social conditions that are related to these themes. Laramée has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues that include the Venice Bienalle, MassMoCA, MIT, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work is in collections that include the MacArthur Foundation, Museum of Modern Art MCA Chicago, and others. She is a Professor at Pace University.
Tyler Volk is professor of biology and environmental studies at New York University. After completing an undergraduate degree in architecture and studies with Soleri at Arcosanti in addition to drawing inspiration from Bucky Fuller, he obtained a Ph.D. for research on the global carbon cycle. His books include Metapatterns Across Space, Time, and Mind (1995), and Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be (2017, Columbia U. Press). Volk will present graphical material from Quarks to Culture and his notebooks that chart his struggles to visually represent a special sequence of fundamental levels of things that link the simplest particles of the universe to the complexities of culture. Volk hopes this architecture-like logic can be used to generate ideas toward making better art.
Alison B. Hirsch and Aroussiak Gabrielian are co-founders of foreground design agency in Los Angeles. They were recipients in 2017 of the Prince Charitable Trusts/Rolland Rome Prize. Hirsch is a landscape architectural designer, as well as urban historian and theorist Assistant Professor of Landscape. Her design interests focus on public histories and politics of urban settlement, as well as how corporeality and human movement can inform the design process. Gabrielian is an architectural and landscape architectural designer with a background in visual arts. An Annenberg Fellow at the University of Southern California, she is focused on innovative applications of new cinematic media within landscape visualization and design. Her current research utilizes expanded cinematic media to develop new ways of reading and visualizing the spatial, situational, temporal, and tactile phenomena of landscape to interpret and structure sites.
SPONSORS:
NY LASER is a series of lectures and presentations on art and science projects, in support of Leonardo/ISAST’s LEAF initiative (Leonardo Education and Art Forum). Former LEAF Chairs Ellen K. Levy and Patricia Olynyk co-organize these presentations on behalf of the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts and Washington University in St. Louis, respectively.
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.