Interdisciplinary Imagination Project [Due March 11/12]

For this project you will work in groups of three to four. The project is due the last week of the quarter but you will have to work on it throughout the quarter.

Together you will explore either:

1. A specific scientific inquiry wich you are introduced to by attending a lecture in any science department at UCSB. You choose a lecture with your group and go to it together. Pick any lecture in any science department that seems interesting to you for any reason.

2. A project/research by a presenter in the Alliance of Women in Media Arts and Technology Conference "Integration: Applying Art and Science" Feb. 5-7 at UCSB (your name is on the guest list).

Using the talk as inspiration, your group will create an imaginary project proposal. You will not actually make the project. The imagined project could be conceptual, digital, sculptural, performative, visual etc. Since you are not physically making a project you can have big, wild, impossible ideas. Avoid illustrating the issues talked about in the lecture.

It is very likely that the lectures are about topics that you don't know anything about. Don't let that discourage you. Just find some way to relate to the material presented in the lecture and let it inspire you. Don't get frustrated if you don't understand what is said. Just hang on to the bits that make you think about something interesting. Take notes, start thinking of a creative way of approaching whatever catches your interest.

Look through the readings before you go to the science lecture so that you can more easily imagine how to approach the subject from an artistic point of view. The readings provide ways in which to think about how art can participate in and enrich scientific inquires.

Make a webpage with your project proposal. The proposal should include:

1. Description of the project, how it will look/function, what materials it is made out of, how it is constructed, how do the audience experience or interact with the project etc.

2. Description of how the project relates to the project/topic/idea presented in the science or AWMAT talk. Include at least two references to something said by the presenter. Link to info/images about the specific research or project you are responding to.

3. Description of the conceptual significance of the project. In the readings below you find many different ways that art projects can contribute to a scientific/technological inquiry. Describe how your project does it. Include at least one explicit reference (with quotations) to something in one of these texts.

• Jonah Lehrer "The Future of Science is Art?" (Seed, 2007)
• Ariane Koek "Cern: Where Art and Science Collide", The Art Newspaper (Oct. 2011)
• Natalie Jeremijenko and Lawrence Krauss Interview (Seed Magazine, 2007) *
• Sian Ede "Ambiguities and Singularities" (excerpt from Art & Science, I. B. Tauris, 2006) *
• Hans H Diebner "Performative Science" (excerpt from Performative Science and Beyond - Involving the Process in Research, Springer Vienna Architecture, 2006) *
• Stephen Wilson "Elaboration on the Approach of Art as Research" (excerpt from Information Arts, The MIT Press, 2001) *

You can use these readings, which have a lot of examples of art projects, as a way to get ideas:

• Stephen Wilson "Artists Working with Microbiology" (excerpt from Information Arts, MIT Press, 2001) *
• Stephen Wilson "Plants and Animals" (excerpt from Information Arts, The MIT Press, 2001) *
• Carsten Höller "The Baudouin Experiment: A Deliberate Non-Fatalistic Large Scale Experiment in Deviation", 2000 (in Participation, edited by Claire Bishop, The MIT Press, 2006) *
• Tom Vanderbilt "The Body Electric: Tom Vanderbilt on Christian Nold" (Artforum, March 2007) *

4. Images such as charts, illustrations, sketches, and other materials such as sound files if relevant.

Link to the web page from all the group members' home pages.

Your group will present the project in our last lecture. You will have approximately 2 minutes to present. Its a very short time. Be prepared. You will NOT use your webpage for the presentation. You will make 3 slides specifically for the presentation.

3 slides:

• Make slides with images (and maybe a small amount of text) in any photoshop or other software.
• The slide should be 1000 px high and 1500 px wide.
• Make sure the text is readable at a distance if you use text.
• The slides should be concise, informative and evocative.
• The slides should be saved as jpg files.
• Name the slides 1.jpg, 2.jpg, 3.jpg
• Put them in a folder called 'imagination' in one of your group members folders.
• In the same folder, put a file called info.txt
• Write your project title on the first line in info.txt
• Write your names on the second line in info.txt separated by commas
• example of an 'imagination' folder with slides and text files

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UCSB Science Departments Events Websites (You might be able to find other ones):

Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology
Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology

Bren School of Environmental Science
Earth Science Department Colloquium Schedule
Geography Event Calendar
Geography Colloquium

Electrical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering

Physics Seminars
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics Public Lectures
Cafe KITP

California Nano Systems Institute

Chemistry
Chemical Engineering
Materials

Computer Science
Math
Statistics and applied probability
Economics
Broom Center for Demography Events
Communication
Political Science
Psychology
Sage Center For The Study of The Mind

Texts marked with * require login.