LASER—Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous

The LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) series is an international program of evening gatherings where artists, scientists and researchers present art-science projects to the local community in a casual academic setting. These popular events provide the general public with a snapshot of the cultural environment of a region and foster interdisciplinary networking. Here we feature a selection of recent LASER presenters. For more information about LASERs: <www.leonardo.info/isast/laser.html>.

LASER@NYC

Presenter: Norman Ballard

Norman Ballard is an award-winning innovator in the use of laser technology and ray-path motion control “rayography” as an artistic medium in the visual and performing arts. His presentation, “Laser: The Ecology of a New Medium,” reflected on his exploration of the emergent path of this technology and its ongoing cultural assimilation. He discussed his breakthrough work over the past 3 decades driving the ascendancy of the laser medium into galleries and collections of fine art museums worldwide. Norman Ballard, Development Coordinator for Production Automation at the Metropolitan Opera: <nballard@metopera.org>, <rarefiedmedia@aol.com>.

Presented at LevyArts, 40 E 19th St #3-R, New York, NY, 12 April 2014, hosted by Ellen Levy on behalf of the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts and Patricia Olynyk on behalf of Washington University.

Norman Ballard, Volumetric Light Cone, coherent (laser) light, 2014. A live demonstration of the capability of laser technology for creating new media forms of freestanding light. (© Normal L. Ballard)

Tony Orrico, Penwald: 12: prone to stand (UB Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY) 2012. (Photo: Bill E. Meyers)

DASER@WASHINGTON, DC

Presenter: Nina Samuel

Nina Samuel presented The Islands of Benoît Mandelbrot and My Brain Is in My Inkstand, two interconnected and interdisciplinary exhibition projects of 2012–2013. Both investigate the hypothesis that creative processes in art and science share important features in the stage of discovery and invention. Departing from the question of the role of images in mathematics and chaos theory, the presentation focused on the importance of drawing as an engine for mental processes in contemporary art and other disciplines. Nina Samuel, Curator, Art and Science Historian and Post-Doctoral Researcher at Image Knowledge Gestaltung: An Interdisciplinary Laboratory, Cluster of Excellence, Humboldt University, in collaboration with Center for Literary and Cultural Research, Berlin, Germany: <samuel@zfl-berlin.org>; <samuel@bgc.bard.edu>.

Presented at DASER (DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous), 20 February 2014, Keck Center, 500 Fifth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. <www.youtube.com/watch?v=ockPmLYrMoQ>

LASER@STANFORD

Presenter: Patricia Burchat

In her visual presentation “What Is the Dark Energy in the Universe?” Patricia Burchat invited attendees to explore the evidence for dark energy and discussed some of the experiments being developed to investigate its fundamental nature. Patricia Burchat: <burchat@stanford.edu>; <https://physics.stanford.edu/people/faculty/patricia-burchat>.

Presented at Stanford University LASER, 3 April 2014. <www.scaruffi.com/leonardo/apr2014.html>

Patricia Burchat giving a presentation on dark matter, 2009. (Photo © Andrew Davis)