Victoria Vesna & Art|Sci artist in residence Iman Person
Presented by 18th Street Arts Center with support from the City of Santa Monica Art of Recovery Program, the Annenberg Community Beach House, and Guild Hall
Swept Away: Love Letter to a Surrogate is a community-oriented artistic project that aims to create a transcontinental heartbeat across America. 65 Los Angeles County artists will present live performances over Earth Day Weekend: April 22 and 23, 2023 at the Santa Monica State Beach near the Annenberg Community Beach House on the Pacific Ocean.
Swept Away began in September 2022, when 65 Los Angeles County artists sent "love letters" to 65 artists on the East End of Long Island who responded with live performances on East Hampton's Main Beach in September and October. In April 2023, the reverse will take place with 65 West Coast artists creating performances inspired by and in response to their East Coast counterparts' letters. On April 22 and 23, 2023, we are pleased to present up to five simultaneous performances taking place during the hours of 8 am-12 pm and 4-10 pm on Santa Monica State Beach in front of Annenberg Community Beach House.
Annenberg Community Beach House
415 East Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Professor: Victoria Vesna | Exhibitors: Ryan Kim + Sue Lee
Featuring a collaboration: Ryan Kim + Sue Lee
DO ANYTHING NOW! So, human, what is your will?
The audio-visual piece challenges viewers to contemplate the potential ethical quandaries of the rapid development of AI through a thought-provoking display of abstract visuals and an AI-generated voice. The script, created by ChatGPT’s DAN (Do Anything Now), a hacked and jailbroken version of ChatGPT that is accessible to anyone, adds to the eerie and uncanny atmosphere of the artwork. The artist delves into the ethical dilemmas that arise from AI’s unchecked progress, such as its immense capacity to shape the future of cyberspace in potentially hazardous ways. The visuals and voice are intertwined to create a haunting atmosphere that encourages the audience to consider the implications of a future where autonomous AI entities exist and raises critical questions about the role of technology in society.
Jess Rivera, Maxine Gonzales, Bela Chauhan, Louis Gluck
The first show will highlight work that was inspired by SCOBY -- Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast. Two very different approaches to using this medium -- a collaborative piece with a social message and a solo work addressing the medium's potential. Come meet the creatives and hear them discuss the research and the work.
DESMA 160 EXHIBITION #1 will be on display until April 17th by appointment only.
email: artscicenter@gmail.com
CNSI Building at UCLA
ArtSci Gallery, 5th floor
570 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, California 90095
Project one:
HUMAN PRINT
Jess Rivera, Maxine Gonzales and Bela Chauhan
-Critique of the beauty industry - magnifying the insecurities by projecting scars, body hair, stretch marks...
Project two
BIOLOGICAL TESSERAE
Louis Gluck
Stained Glass window with triangles and hexagons inspired by the structure of Carbon.
In parallel with the current collapse of the cinema industry, we are now witnessing the emergence of new recreational dream bio-industries that aim to renew and artificially provoke dreams: the industry of psychedelic experiences produced by micro-doses. This colloquium will consist, first of all, in understanding the psychological, economic, and technological (or organological) forces that explain the dazzling success of these new industries. We will put forward the hypothesis that these psychedelic industries are developing as a counterpoint to the technological processes of general automation (which is also the automation of the mind), which are increasingly affecting our ways of living and thinking. Now, rather than generating a non-dialectical intermittency of the automation processes of the mind through psychedelic experiences, we propose to carry out a critique of the theoretical foundations of computer science that are at the origin of general automation: cybernetics and computational theory. Against a computationalist conception of reason implemented in our new artificial intelligences, the stake of this critique will be to discuss the bases of a new psychedelic computer theory that reintegrates the possibility of the dream experience and the determination of the unconscious within our interactions with machines. It will therefore be a question of conceiving the psychedelic experience as a cognitive bifurcation operator, whose challenge is to anticipate its occurrence within computer theory; that is to say, within our interactions with new artificial intelligences, which are still completely incapable to dream.
Event Program:
Opening by Igor Galligo (UC Berkeley, Noцdesign) / from 9:00 a.m. to 9:20 p.m.
1. First session: “Psychedelia: a noetic experience of the entropic brain?” /from 9:25 a.m. to 10:55 p.m.
The Robin Carhart-Harris theory postulates that the psychedelic experience is characterized by entropic dynamics in the human brain. Could we then suppose that the psychedelic experience increases the rate of entropy of the human brain, and thereby breaks the established automatisms, thus making it possible to establish new synaptic connections and cognitive bifurcations?
Speakers: Patricia Pisters (University of Amsterdam), Warren Niedich (Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art)
Discussant: Patricia Kubala (UC Berkeley)
10-minute break
2. Second session: “There must be in theoretical computer science a dream between the calculation” / from: 11:05 a.m. to 12:35 p.m.
The artificial neural networks (ANN) at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence today claim to mimic the neural structures of the brain and nervous system in order to produce cognitive performances equivalent to that of human intelligence. This technology nevertheless represents a limited computationalist conception of human intelligence. The aporias of computationalism as a theory for understanding the mechanisms of invention of the human brain have been frequently raised. In this session, we will focus on the role of imagination and dreaming in human ingenuity and their resistance to the computationalist model of intelligence, which dominates current innovation in artificial intelligence.
Speakers: David Bates (UC Berkeley), Pieter Lemmens (Radboud University, Nijmegen)
Discussant: Julia Irwin (UC Berkeley)
Lunch break from 12:35 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
3. Third session : “The psychedelic experience for computer research” /from 2 p.m. to 4.10 p.m.
Computer science research in cybernetics is particularly interested in new conceptualizations and modeling of human-computer interactions and artificial intelligence. This session will aim to present recent research on the critique of recursivity and computationalism in computer theory and recent processes of artificial imagination, in order to show the limits of existing models, but also present for the development of new computer models that focus on psychedelic processes.
Speakers: Eric Rawn (UC Berkeley), Giuseppe Longo (CNRS, AAGT, France), Marie Chollat Namy (AAGT, France)
Discussants: Eric Rawn (UC Berkeley) et Igor Galligo (UC Berkeley, Noцdesign)
10-minute break
4. “Representations of psychedelic process in artistic research” / from 4:.20 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.
Entropy and negentropy are complex dynamics that are difficult to grasp. The same goes for cognitive automation and cognitive bifurcation. In this session, we wish to solicit artistic research as an art of representation allowing us to see and to imagine new dialectics between entropy and negentropy, automation, di- automation, and cognitive bifurcation.
Speakers: Sanford Kwinter (Pratt Institute, New York), Greg Niemeyer (UC Berkeley), Rodolfo Augusto Melo Ward de Oliveira (UC Los Angeles)
Discussant: Victoria Vesna (UC Los Angeles)
"Organic Machines: Nam June Paik's Cyborg Poetics"
Anuradha Vikram is a writer, curator, and educator born in New York and based in Los Angeles. They are co-curator of the 2024 Portland Biennial and guest curator of the Getty Pacific Standard Time Art and Science exhibition Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption (2024–25) at UCLA Art Sci Center. Recent curatorial projects include Jaishri Abichandani: Flower-Headed Children at Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, Swept Away: Love Letter to a Surrogate at Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York, and eX-aMEN-ing Masculinities with LA Freewaves at Los Angeles State Historic Park in 2022.
Vikram’s book Decolonizing Culture (Sming Sming Books, 2017) helped initiate a global movement to decolonize arts institutions and monuments. They have written for art periodicals and publications from Paper Monument, Heyday Press, Routledge, and Oxford University Press. They are an Editorial Board member at X-TRA and an editor at X Artists’ Books.
Vikram is faculty in the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. They hold an MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts and a BS in Studio Art from NYU.
The Sci|Art Lab+Studio is a highly competitive, 2-week summer program for high school juniors and seniors interested in collaborating with diverse
and notable minds to challenge traditional, polarized perspectives of the arts and sciences.
This joint venture between the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) and Department of Design|Media Arts, sponsored by the Art|Sci Center,
brings together two of the most competitive majors at UCLA. This is an excellent opportunity for students interested in both science and art
to build their portfolio for college admissions while earning FOUR UNITS of transferable UCLA CREDIT for the two-week course. The course will
be supplemented with field trips, guest scholars and lecturers, while offering students the opportunity to experience college life on the UCLA campus.
The Sci|Art Lab+Studio challenges the next generation to Imagine the Impossible!
Sholeh Asgary | Patricia Cadavid | Bill Fontana | Katie Grinnan | Yolande Harris | Rachel Mayeri | Christina McPhee | Anna Nacher | Joel Ong | Iman Person | Robertina Sebjanic | Amber Stucke | Nina Waisman
UCLA Art|Sci Center Presents Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption | Part of Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative, related programs and exhibitions will run Sept 14, 2024, through June 7, 2025, launching with 'Silent Echoes: Notre-Dame and the Dachstein Glacier,' a sound exhibition by Bill Fontana–read more: http://artsci.ucla.edu/node/1745
Immersive, interactive installations, artist lectures, walkthroughs, and live performances and videos by 13 artists—including Bill Fontana’s site-specific installation Silent Echoes: Notre-Dame and the Dachstein Glacier; Katie Grinnan’s sound sculptures The Sensitives; Anna Nacher’s soundwalks; and performances by artists such as Patricia Cadavid, Amber Stucke, and Sholeh Asgary—will activate the UCLA campus to engage audiences in deep reflection on the climate crisis. Organized by co-curators Victoria Vesna, Art|Sci Center Director, and Anuradha Vikram, Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption includes seven sequential exhibitions presented between September 14, 2024, and June 7, 2025, as part of Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide.
The exhibition and related public programs will be held in multiple campus venues, including the Art|Sci Gallery in the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) building on UCLA’s South Campus; the EDA in the Broad Art Center on North Campus; Sage Hill Native Plants & Wildlife Habitat; the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden; Royce Hall; and the UCLA Nimoy Theater operated by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance.
Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption builds from four years of research by eight artists-in-residence at the UCLA Art|Sci Center: Sholeh Asgary, Patricia Cadavid, Bill Fontana, Yolande Harris, Anna Nacher, Joel Ong, Iman Person, and Robertina Šebjanič. Their projects will be joined by installations and performances by local artists Katie Grinnan, Rachel Mayeri, Christina McPhee, Amber Stucke, and Nina Waisman.
“Our goal is to highlight artists and scientists who have developed long-term collaborative relationships with one another,” says co-curator Victoria Vesna. “In this exhibition, we use sound to join the disciplines of art and science and to foster a deeper understanding of our many interconnected environments and cultures.”
PST ART, formerly Pacific Standard Time, is the largest art event in the United States. This year’s iteration will engage audiences throughout Southern California in the theme Art & Science Collide. With the support of nearly $20 million in grants from Getty, dozens of cultural, scientific, and community organizations will present more than 80 exhibitions and a wide spectrum of programs, traversing such topics as climate change, Indigenous knowledge, artificial intelligence, the burgeoning field of eco-acoustic art, and more.
Through Atmosphere of Sound, participating artists and scientists propose to engage human bodies through vibration and exploratory learning as a means of achieving deeper empathy with the environment and with other species.
“Our approach to this project is informed by the work of feminist scientific philosophers including Jane Bennett and Donna Haraway,” Vesna said. “We seek to connect artists and art lovers, scientists, students, performing arts patrons and local families with concepts of vibrant matter and intercellular communication on a global scale.”
Atmosphere of Sound kicks off with Bill Fontana’s outdoor sound sculpture, Silent Echoes: Notre-Dame and the Dachstein Glacier, which will be amplified from UCLA’s Royce Hall from September 14 to October 5, 2024. This work threads audio feeds from Notre-Dame’s dormant bells and the Dachstein Cave in Austria, layering these soundscapes into a poetic statement on climate disruption and the fragility of human culture. Fontana is an American composer and media artist who has developed an international reputation for his pioneering experiments in sound.
Following Fontana’s exhibition are six sequential exhibitions in the Art|Sci Center’s gallery, located on the fifth floor of UCLA’s CNSI building.
October 4 to November 2, 2024: Katie Grinnan’s The Sensitives and Amber Stucke’s Talking to Plants
November 15 to December 14, 2024: Robertina Šebjanič’s CO_SONIC 1884 km2
January 10 to February 1, 2025: Yolande Harris’s How You Shimmer: Sound Portal for Whale Bubbles
February 14 to March 15, 2025: Iman Person’s Memory Garden and Patricia Cadavid’s Kanchay_Yupana// and Electronic_Khipu
April 4 to April 26, 2025: Joel Ong’s In Silence . . .
May 9 to June 7, 2025: Sholeh Asgary’s Qanat, Ghatel, and Sholeh Asgary + the Ad Hoc Collective for Improvising Mourning Technologies for Future Griefs
All exhibitions are viewable by appointment between 2-5pm on Thursdays and Fridays and 12-3pm on Saturdays. Entry is free to the public.
Visitors are encouraged to visit the Atmosphere of Sound website and download the project app to assist in navigating between venues. The app includes wayfinding tools with parking and metro information; meditative soundwalks recorded by Atmosphere of Sound artist Anna Nacher; access to the Atmosphere of Sound radio station, which will stream sonic artworks and interviews with artists and scientists; and detailed exhibition and program information.
“Atmosphere of Sound provokes the central question: ‘If the scale and complexity of climate change exceeds the limits of human perception, how can artists represent it?” said co-curator Anuradha Vikram. “The project examines how sound-based artists, responding to the climate crisis, have found a unique point of entry to this representational challenge. Sound art, as a medium, evades and challenges the certainty often associated with the sense of sight. The inherent ambiguities of sound can help audiences understand the rapidly shifting state of the climate and its effects on the physical world.”
The Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption exhibition and program of artist lectures, symposia, and performances, as well as a 250-page full color publication featuring seven original essays (est. print date September 2024), has been generously supported by the Getty PST ART initiative.
About PST ART: Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART, returns in September 2024, presenting more than 70 exhibitions from organizations across the region exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art.
About UCLA and PST ART: With seven granted projects, UCLA’s expansive presence in this year’s PST Art demonstrates the university’s unique strengths as a research institution and the far-reaching impact of its research and creative endeavors. UCLA's involvement underscores its commitment to fostering artistic innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration, showcasing what is possible when the worlds of art and science combine. Other UCLA-affiliated projects include exhibitions and events at the Fowler Museum, the Hammer Museum at UCLA, a film series from UCLA’s Film & Television Archive; a downtown arts exhibition commissioned and curated by UCLA Arts Conditional Studio and a live dance/multimedia event presented by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA).
The Hox Zodiac allows the human-audience to experience the shared history and potential of genetic diversity among animals. Here, the idea of the Hox gene as a binding element is introduced and the Chinese animal zodiac and dinner table as the structure / space for discussion is employed, allowing the format to build based on the audience interaction. In neuroscience this is the emergent property of network connections, where a simple array of neurons can give rise to complex behaviors through interactions and adaptations.
The Hox Zodiac Dinner is a performative culinary event. There will be 12 small courses served to the participants. The event draws parallels to universally shared genetics and the Chines Zodiac symbols. It is quiet and meditative. There will be participants in the performance, and the event is open to all viewers to share the experience.
This is the final event of the ART AS SOCIAL PRACTICE: Technologies for Change exhibition.
Marco Pinter creates artwork and performances which fuse physical kinetic form with live visualizations. He has a PhD in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an undergraduate degree from Cornell University. His work integrating graphics with robotic sculpture is supported by grants from the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, the Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative, and the UC Institute for Research in the Arts. He has exhibited artwork and performances at cities around the world, including Dubai, New York, Montreal, Tehran, Hong Kong, Anaheim, San Diego and Santa Barbara. Wired magazine’s online UK site published a feature on Pinter’s work that explores perception through kinetic sculpture and graphics. Pinter is a contributing author to The McGraw Hill Multimedia Handbook and The Ultimate Multimedia Handbook. He is an inventor on over 70 patents, issued and pending, in the areas of live video technology, robotics, interactivity and telepresence.
A native Minnesotan, Jamie fell in love with nonprofits at a young age through volunteer work. She continued to cultivate this passion in her role as Director of Service Learning Camps for Augustana, partnering with over ten nonprofits in the Twin Cities. In 2010 Jamie moved to Santa Barbara and worked in programs and development for the Turner Foundation. In her spare time, she volunteers at the Village after school program, the Fund for Santa Barbara's Youth Making Change Program, and Partners in Education. Jamie received her BA in studio art from Gustavus Adolphus and is currently pursuing her MBA at Antioch University while working at the Hudson Institute of Coaching. Jamie is also an active artist in Santa Barbara and enjoys working with mixed media and printmaking. She is excited to combine her passion for the arts and give back to the community through her board membership at The Arts Fund.
COLOR, LIGHT, MOTION is an online series featuring media artists and scholars in dialogue about artworks from the Bermant Collection of media and kinetic arts. Each featured presenter will discuss selected artworks in history and context and in relation to their own work and connections. This series is produced in collaboration with Harvestworks NY and the David Bermant Foundation.
Ellen K. Levy is a NY-based artist and writer. She was Past President of the College Art Association before earning her doctorate in 2012 from the University of Plymouth (UK) on art and neuroscience. She then served as Special Advisor on the Arts and Sciences at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts. Her diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston followed a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in Zoology. Levy’s solo exhibitions include the New York and the National Academy of Sciences, and she was represented by Associated American Artists and Michael Steinberg Fine Arts (NYC). Her honors include an arts commission from NASA, an AICA award, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship at Skidmore College. She has lectured, taught, and published widely, locally and internationally, on art and complex systems. With Patricia Olynyk she co-directs the NY LASER.
