Toolbox Dialogue Initiative

"The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative provides a philosophical yet practical enhancement to cross-disciplinary, collaborative science. This enhancement comes primarily in the form of a dialogue-based “Toolbox workshop”, and it is intended for interdisciplinary and interprofessional teams of collaborators. Rooted in philosophical analysis, Toolbox workshops enable cross-disciplinary collaborators to engage in a structured dialogue about their research assumptions. This yields both self-awareness and mutual understanding, supplying cross-disciplinary research (CDR) collaborators with the robust foundation needed for effective collaborative research and practice."

Festival for the Earth

 

ABOUT FESTIVAL FOR THE EARTH

Festival for the Earth is a 2-day international gathering proposing...transformations, reflections and alternative modalities to reframe environmental issues.

Knowledge access and information flows are highly important as actual environmental emergencies urge a radical change of perspective and practices. To this end, the Festival for the Earth is conceived by the artist Maria Rebecca Ballestra as an art project for social transformation that aims to instigate creativeness directed at positive transformation processes in science, humanities, economy, ecology and art.

The conference’s location alternates between Venice and the Principality of Monaco, two cities that are already linked by strong historical ties, two symbolic places where the relationship between “water” and land (characterized by its scarcity) has shaped both the minds of their citizens and their history. In December 2018 the Festival’s third edition will return to Venice and will be hosted in the prestigious locations of Ca’ Foscari University Venice, Ateneo Veneto, the Natural History Museum of Venice and the Botanical Garden of Padova.

For more information about the Festival and requests for interviews:

Stefania Pensabene
+39 335 724 94 29
press@festivalfortheearth.com
www.festivalfortheearth.com
twitter: @Ffortheearth – istagram: ffortheearth – facebook: Festivalfortheearth

Monaco, 04 October 2018 – Festival for the Earth comes back to the most famous lagoon in the world for its 2018 edition, with a wide range of conferences, workshops, artist talks and events to be held in different locations around Venice on December 3 and 4.  In its third edition, however, the Festival will also expand its reach to the Botanical Garden of Padua, one of the most ancient and beautiful in the world, which will host film projections and discussions at its Auditorium.

Once again, Festival’s guest speakers will come from the top of the academia and professional world (Nobel, Pulitzer and Goldman Prize Winners will join us in Venice), but also members of influential international organizations. We are honored to announce that HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco and Mr. Youba Sokona, UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Vice-Chair will give the opening speeches of the Festival, followed among others by world renowned climatologist Nigel Tapper, who contributed to the IPCC study that resulted in the joint award of the Nobel Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC, by Pulitzer Prize Daniel Fagin and by Goldman Prize Rossano Ercolini.

Creativity and Collaboration: Revisiting Cybernetic Serendipity & Symposium

1. Creativity and Collaboration: Revisiting Cybernetic Serendipity

- and -

2. Role/Play: Collaborative Creativity and Creative Collaborations Student Fellows Symposium

National Academy of Sciences; Washington, DC
March 12-14, 2018

This unique interdisciplinary experience is two distinct but related events that include the Student Symposium on March 12 and the Colloquium on March 13-14.

* * *

1. Role/Play: Collaborative Creativity and Creative Collaborations Student Fellows Symposium 

March 12, 2018, Washington D.C.

Supported by the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation for the Arts, Sciences and Humanities and Google, Inc.
Organized by Liese Liann Zahabi and Molly Morin

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - DUE NOVEMBER 15

North American graduate students enrolled in masters and doctoral programs across all disciplines are invited to apply to participate in the Monday, March 12 Student Fellows Symposium and attend the Sackler Colloquium which follows on March 13-14, (please note that the selected students are expected to attend all three days of events). Approximately 50 graduate students will be selected to participate in a series of 15-minute and 6-minute talks and a creative exhibition/poster session that will take place during the Student Fellows Symposium.

Overview:
Scientists thinking like artists—artists thinking like scientists. When these traditionally defined roles mix together, how is the process of making work or conducting research altered? Does the play between disciplines benefit a designer’s practice, an engineer’s output, or a scientist’s data? What are the hazards and opportunities?

There is power in looking past the sometimes narrow confines of one discipline: possibilities emerge, allowing artists/designers/engineers/scientists to ask different questions and create innovations. However, this is difficult work. Navigating uncharted territory compounds the uncertainty and potential for missteps that are already a part of the creative, scientific, and engineering process. Emerging areas of research require academics and practitioners to occupy varied and hybrid roles, and to begin investigations within unmapped spaces of inquiry. How can we build stronger bridges that connect innovations in art and design to those in science and engineering?

This symposium will bring creative and scientific realms together, creating opportunities for thinkers to play within different spaces of inquiry to ask questions about the ways we embark upon this kind of research, to relay techniques and guidelines that have worked in the past, and to explore how we can better support each other in our endeavors. This one-day gathering will give attendees the chance to connect with each other, to create a network of like-minded thinkers, and to share stories of struggle and success. The understandings developed during the Student Fellows Symposium can contribute to the discussions during the March 13-14 Sackler Colloquium.

PLACES FOR EXPLORATION MIGHT INCLUDE:
big-data ... wearables ... ubiquitous computing ... navigation ... education ... medical practice ... health ... serious games ... information design ... ontologies ... cyborgs … actor network theory ... new materialism ... neuroscience ... ethnography ... artificial intelligence ... textiles ... robotics ... product design ... interface design ... biological systems ... sustainability ... tactical media ... cognition … mapping ... genetics ... bio art ... sci-art ... visualization ... molecular modeling ... quantified self ... smart homes ... surveillance ... public policy ... human-centered design ... privacy … generative art/design … cybernetics ... information visualization ... data journalism ... interaction ... immersive experiences ... integration ... social media ... citizen science

Student Fellow Symposium Agenda

Awards:
Awards will include registration for all three days for all awardees (includes some meals during the conference). West coast students will receive $800 in travel subsidy, students traveling from the Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast will receive $600 in travel subsidy. Local students in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia will receive registration for all three days, but no travel support.

Submission Instructions: Applications are accepted via email to roleplaysymposium@gmail.com by November 15th at 12 midnight Eastern Time. PDF document must include your name, phone number, email address, the University where you are an enrolled graduate student, and the name and email address of your faculty adviser who supports your application.

A 150-word abstract should indicate one or more of the following types of presentations for which you would like to be considered. The selection committee will then decide which format would work best for the schedule.

1. 15-minute talks: should be accompanied by a visual presentation of some kind, and present a specific project or collaboration. 
2. 6-minute talks: should be accompanied by a visual presentation, and will be an abbreviated format for sharing work; should present a specific project or collaboration. 
3. Creative exhibition/poster session: posters should present a specific project or collaboration and be 24 inches by 36 inches; posters will be exhibited on an easel and the student will be present during the poster session to give quick talks about the work. Pieces for the creative exhibition must either be standalone artifacts, or must be able to be shown in an easel; any artworks that require technology such as a laptop or iPad should be provided by the student for the session; the student will be present during the creative exhibition session to give quick talks about the work.

Selections will be finalized by December 1, 2017 and all applicants notified by email.

* * *

2. Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium Creativity and Collaboration: Revisiting Cybernetic Serendipity

March 13-14, 2018; Washington, D.C.
Organized by Ben Shneiderman, Maneesh Agrawala, Donna Cox, Alyssa Goodman, Youngmoo Kim, and Roger Malina

Colloquium Agenda

Registration - will open in December 2017

The Orchestra as Ecosystem: Symphony Symbiosis

From Carol Lafayette...

==================

2017-2018 Learning in Concert

The Orchestra as Ecosystem: Symphony Symbiosis 

© 2017 Terry Wolkowicz, All rights reserved 

So divinely is the world organized that every one of us, in our place and time, is in balance with everything else. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

Balance is defined as a condition in which various elements are in proper proportion or arrangement. Within an ecosystem, balance is key in maintaining a harmonious interaction among a biological community of interacting organisms and their environment. Balance is also a vital component in music. A composer’s concern for balance can be heard through the manipulation of many musical elements including form, melody, harmony, rhythm and texture.

The 2017-2018 Learning in Concert program will explore the concept of balance in music and ecology. The children will explore various ecosystems to analyze whether it demonstrates elements of stability or imbalance. By focusing on ecological instability threatening salt marshes, rain forests and wetlands, the children will identify specific actions or ideas that could help restore ecological balance to these areas. In music, the children will explore balance in classical music—hear how composers achieve balance through the orchestration of musical parts among musical instruments. They will develop a strong understanding of the various instruments of the orchestra and hear how individual instruments, sections and families interact to achieve balance within a piece of music. Children will analyze balance cross-disciplines by determining niche (the musical part’s role in creating balance within a piece of music and the organism’s role in creating balance within an ecosystem), population (number of the same species within an ecosystem or number of same instruments playing within a piece of music), and biodiversity (how many different musical parts transpire and interact throughout a piece of music or how many different species exist within an ecosystem).

In the classrooms, the children will analyze various ecosystems that are in some state of ecological imbalance. Using a large magnetic “Ecostration” board, animal and plant life magnets and sound recordings of various orchestral instruments as their tools, they will orchestrate a section of music that demonstrates the instability found in their selected environment. The children will first determine what level of stability exists in the base with microbes and represent that stability through the selection and scoring of a bass line for their music. They will then analyze the balance of the plant life in the ecosystem and select supporting harmonic material to represent the plant life’s stability. Lastly, the students will add melodic lines to represent the population and diversity of species within the ecosystem. Through classroom discussions and research, the children will identify potential actions or interventions that might begin to restore balance to this environment. With these actions in mind, the children will adapt and change their orchestration to demonstrate the ecosystem moving from a state of imbalance towards a state of balance.

Students will have also have an opportunity to interact with the NBSO Salt Marsh Model. They will work through several scenarios to explore a salt marsh food web and how development, pollution and tidal restriction effects the balance within a New England salt marsh...

Contact Terry Wolkowicz to bring the “Learning in Concert” program to your school!
email: twolkowicz@nbsymphony.org
phone: 508-493-4288

More...

a2ru Newsletter and Best Practices

a2ru has some interesting things happening next month, including the 2015 conference, and the publication of the Mellon Guide to best practices in the integration of arts practice in US research universities.

You can already read the interim reports from this process. These reports are directly relevant to FSML programs, and might help you get out in front, and/or find support within your university administration.

• Mellon Round I Interim Report, Curricular Integration, by Anthony J. Kolenic, PhD 
• Mellon Round I Interim Report, Collaborative Research, by Bruce M. Mackh, PhD 
• Mellon Round II Interim Report, Co-Curricular Programs, by Bruce M. Mackh, PhD

Here's the latest newsletter.

Art as Cultural Diplomacy

This expired Call For Papers by Cassandra Sciortino, University of California - Santa Barbara is a fascinating example of seeking problem solution through art.

This idea is a strong theme in FSML art programs that seek to enhance fundamental discovery and push scientific knowledge through to social policy and action.

The CFP was for a panel of the recent Re-Inventing Eastern Europe (The Fourth Edition) conference in Kraków, Poland. Presented topics included some information that is philosophically interesting and highly pertinent to ambitious FSML art programs, including:

• The Artist-in-Residence as Cultural Mediator: "...As well as being sources for inspiration, this global web of residencies can have a wide-ranging ethical and mediating effect through contact between visiting artists and their host cultures." Download paper.
• David Loewenstein: Art Intervention as Social Practice: "...It is a basic tenet of Loewenstein’s approach that for a community art project to have integral value, the needs it addresses must emerge from, and be articulated by, the members of the community themselves."
• Non-Aligned Modernism: Yugoslavian Modernist Art and Cold War Cultural Diplomacy: "...the 1956 MoMa exhibition of Abstract Expressionism...legitimized modernist ethos as an accepted political, social, and cultural form during Yugoslavia’s transition from a hard-line Soviet-style state, to a more open, humanist-socialist one."
• More here.

=======================

CFP: Art as Cultural Diplomacy (Krakow, 24-26 Apr 2015)

Krakow, April 24 - 26, 2015
Deadline: Mar 23, 2015

Call for Papers for the Panel: Art as Cultural Diplomacy: (Re)Constructing Notions of Eastern and Western Europe

(As part of the Fourth Euroacademia International Conference ‘Re-Inventing Eastern Europe’, to be held in Krakow, Poland in 24th - 26th of April 2015, including a visit to Auschwitz – Birkenau on 26th of April 2015)

Deadline: 23rd of March 2015

Art as Cultural Diplomacy: (Re)Constructing Notions of Eastern and Western Europe Panel Proposed by: Cassandra Sciortino, University of California, Santa Barbara

Panel Description

The panel “Art as cultural diplomacy” seeks papers that explore the function of art (in its broadest definition) as an instrument of cultural diplomacy by the state and, especially, by nongovernmental actors. The main theme of the session is the question of art and diplomacy in Europe before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Papers are welcome which explore issues related to the role of art, diplomacy and the politicization of the European Union and its candidate countries, as are those which consider how the arts have pursued or resisted East-West dichotomies and other narratives of alterity in Europe and worldwide. The panel seeks to combine a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives to explore how art—its various practices, history, and theory—are an important area of inquiry in the expanding field of cultural diplomacy.

Some examples of topics include:

• How can art serve as a neutral platform for exchange to promote dialogue and understanding between foreign states?
• How can art, including organized festivals (i.e. film, art, music.), cultivate transnational identities that undermine dichotomies of East and West, and other narratives of alterity in Europe and beyond it?
• The implications for art as an instrument of diplomacy in a postmodern age where geopolitics and power are increasingly mobilized by image based structures of persuasion
• How has/can art facilitate cohesion between European Union member states and candidate states that effectively responds to the EU’s efforts to create “unity in diversity.”
• The politics of mapping Europe: mental and cartographic
• Community based art as a social practice to engage issues of European identity
• The difference between art as cultural diplomacy and propaganda
• The digital revolution and the emergence of social media as platforms for art to communicate across social, cultural, and national boundaries?
• Diplomacy in the history of art in Europe and Eastern Europe
• Artists as diplomats
• Art history as diplomacy—exhibitions, post-colonial criticism, global art history, and other revisions to the conventional boundaries of Europe and its history of art
• The international activity of cultural institutes

Please apply on-line or submit abstracts of less than 300 words together with the details of affiliation until 23rd of March 2015 to application@euroacademia.eu

For full details of the conference, please see before applying the conference website: http://euroacademia.eu/conference/re-inventing-eastern-europe-the-fourth-edition/

Reference:
CFP: Art as Cultural Diplomacy (Krakow, 24-26 Apr 2015). In: H-ArtHist, Mar 4, 2015 (accessed Sep 25, 2015).

Thanks to ArtHist for the original post. 

Request to form OBFS Ad Hoc ArtSciConverge Committee

Gothic Community Center.

In September, 2014, a Working Group on Art@FSMLs formed during the Wood's Hole Organization of Biological Field Stations/National Association of Marine Laboratories (OBFS/NAML) Joint Meeting. The group started this blog, and began to explore ways to facilitate and encourage art at sites of long-term environmental research.

Last week, OBFS held their 2015 Annual Meeting at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, CO, along with concurrent meetings of the Global Network of Mountain Observatories (GNOMO) and iDigBio.

Photos here.

The Working Group presented an update of activities, and examples of several field station and marine lab art programs.

The OBFS Board recognized the growing importance of supporting interdisciplinary field station use, and is converting the Art@FSMLs Working Group into a permanent Ad Hoc Committee within the organization.

Local resident

View presentations: 

• Intro and update (PDF)

Art@FSMLs update

View more presentations or Upload your own.

• Cedar Point, NE (PDF)

Art@Cedar Point

View more presentations or Upload your own.

• ArtLab, Mountain Lake, VA (PDF)

ArtLab at Mountain Lake, VA

View more presentations or Upload your own.

• Art at LUMCON, LA (PDF)

Art and Science at LUMCON

View more presentations or Upload your own.

* * *

Watch additional FSML art program videos:

Ann Carlson at Jasper Ridge...

Picture Jasper Ridge. A performance hike by artist, Ann Carlson. from Stanford Arts Institute on Vimeo.

Art at Cedar Point...


Art at Cedar Point from Kat Shiffler on Vimeo.

a2ru Programs, and Groundworks Conference Announcement, November 8-11, 2015

The Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) generates knowledge, advocacy, and resources that enable universities to integrate arts and design practices, fostering highly adaptive creators and thinkers.

"There is a problem with creativity. Companies and governments are very keen to promote it, but they’re not sure what it is or who has it."
"Art should be regarded as a specific kind of cognitive engineering".

The above quotes come from a2ru's extensive Knowledge Base that provides information that enables research universities to adapt effective strategies for integrating arts practice, and to support and inform further original inquiry. They also offer project grants, and request assistance in compiling relevant studies and examples of original research collaborations.

* * *

The 2015 a2ru National Conference takes place November 8-11, 2015 at Virginia Tech. From their webiste:

"GroundWorks: Improving and Supporting Practice in the Third Space" will convene partners and allies to address the next generation of opportunities and challenges facing arts transdisciplinary practice, peer review, infrastructures, and partnerships in research universities.

Registration is open to all.

GOALS & OUTCOMES

• Disseminate and leverage the Mellon Best Practices Guide to improve practice and infrastructure. Develop and test set of shared values and criteria for peer reviewing, critiquing, and understanding research and creative practice in the third space.
• Make progress towards a peer-reviewed aggregator/forum for arts transdisciplinary research and practice.
• Lay groundwork for shared practices guidelines for third space research and practice in S.E.A.D, Arts + Health, and Arts + Social Entrepreneurship endeavors.
• Explore emerging cultural policy platforms through high-impact regional partnerships.

Art/Science collaboration in Ecology and Evolution

Scientist Stephen Tonsor, and artist Natalie Settles present at the DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER), September 15, 2011 held at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC.

Tonsor and Settles collaborate in the study of ecology and evolution. From Tonsor's lab page:

Settles and Tonsor have designed an interactive, projected wallpaper in which the fitness (and therefore local adaption) of the wallpaper’s many distinct motifs is determined by viewer attention... Viewers unwittingly participate as “blind watchmakers” in an evolutionary process to be revealed in a meta-exhibition.

What can art do?

"Watershed Sculpture" that acts to restore a floodplain.

Art can "have a job to do".

Bill Fox talks about and promotes, "art that walks in the world" to address real issues; and there is "a growing trend that seeks to blend art with environmental restoration." Artist residencies are "striving to not only be positively impacted by their environment, but also improve and become active participants in their environment."

An interesting conversation started around the recent #ArtSciConverge workshop in Reno, NV. Here are some highlights:

================

... in considering [the] notion that artists who do this work, "fall into two categories: interpreter or translator. Many of the scientists were, in fact, seeking interpreters for their work. These are artists who can give the analysis of data collection empathetic meaning. The word “empathy” for scientific discovery was used frequently." 

We would like to suggest another category, it is the category of "creator" where the artists, like the scientists, create something that did not pre-exist them. For instance, in the Sagehen work, we created the experiment, hired the scientists to help us work it out, thereafter the whole experience will find its way into the scientific literature in one way and the artistic domain in another; or look at the piece for the Greenheart of Holland, where, like mining four different disciplines, we literally put on the table the partial creation of the whole landscape.  

Many other artists also fit in this category, in one way or the other, in the art-science domain. For instance, look at the work of Brandon Ballengee, who was at our meeting, or Betsy Damon's, "The Keeper of the Waters" or for that matter Lauren Bon who makes the astonishing and radical discovery that is was not the railroads but the mule that built the west, and manifests this by supporting a hundred mule train moving from the desert to the center of LA. Maya Lin’s recent work is also of this category. These are all creative acts and neither interpret nor translate but rather transform how one might think and therefore respond to the world differently, perhaps more empathically.

Helen Mayer Harrison/Newton Harrison
Co-Directors - Center for the Study of the Force Majeure; Professors Emeritus, UCSD; Research Professors, UC Santa Cruz; Principals - Harrison Studio

[More here]

* * * 

Apologies for taking so long to reply to this, but we wanted to add the Center’s support to the Harrisons’ delineation of this third category of artistic endeavor as it relates to science. Many of the art projects that we archive are works where artists use what they have learned from science to create not only new works, but new line of inquiry within their careers. The data and information become the raw grist from which they eventually bake something quite different. In turn, those works help people see the world from a new perspective—one that may, in fact, lead them back to science.

This is not an act of interpretation, but another use of data and information, one where perhaps science inspires creativity. I say that provisionally as much to test out the idea among us all.

Thanks, Helen and Newton, for such an elegant reply.

William L. Fox
Director, Center for Art + Environment, Nevada Museum of Art 

* * * 

Very well said, Helen and Newton. It is this category, creator, that is most transformative to our thinking and therefore most valuable.

Stephen J Tonsor, Ph.D.
Director of Science and Research
Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Lessons Learned from talking about the Nature of Creativity in the Brain

Bill O'Brien, of the National Endowment for the Arts, attended a workshop on the Nature of Creativity in the Brain held by the Santa Fe Institute in June, 2015.

The workshop report is due out next month and I'll post it here when it arrives. In the meantime, here's an article Bill wrote about the event, outlining the lessons learned.

==============

Update, 8-10-15: 

Pacific-Standard Magazine has an article about the workshop. The workshop report is available here.

#ArtSciConverge: NSF Workshop in Reno, NV - June 19-21, 2015

Perspectives: Examining Complex Ecological Dynamics through Arts, Humanities and Science Integration, Nevada Museum of Art • Reno, Nevada June 19-21, 2015

Proposal (NSF DEB-1543827) | Participant packet | Photos | Workshop report (will be posted when completed)

Dinner conversation

"The purpose of this workshop is to advance the integration of the arts and humanities (AH) with science in the interest of addressing complex ecological and social-ecological challenges. 

This effort is emerging organically from the recent groundswell in arts and humanities activities associated with Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) network sites (www.ecologicalreflections.com) and Field Stations and Marine Labs (FSML), and is expanding to incorporate an array of other organizations active in art and science integrative research and public outreach. 

Through this workshop, we aim to expand the depth and breadth of interdisciplinary efforts and to map a path forward in which AH contributes not only to outreach and education efforts, but also to fundamental inquiry and analyses of the grand challenges facing ecosystems and social-ecological systems. By integrating these different means of inquiry and observation, challenges may be met with greater power and insight than each discipline can offer in isolation."

Speaker Presentations:

Why are field research stations even interested in art?
Overview of the Recent National Academy of Science Publication on the Future of Field Stations and Marine Laboratories (FSMLs) 
Jerry Schubel, President and CEO, Aquarium of the Pacific:

* * *

What are artists already doing at field sites? Why are they doing it?
Art of the Anthropocene
Bill Fox, Director, Nevada Museum of Art - Center for Art + Environment:

* * *

Does art make us see the world differently than science does?
The Pliability of Perception
Art Shimamura, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley

* * *

What is the nature of creativity?
The Emerging Field of Neuroaesthetics and Why the Linkage Between Arts and Sciences Actually Engages our Brains in a Different Way
Michael Casey, James Wright Professor, Depts. of Music and Computer Science, Dartmouth College

* * *

Can art make useful discoveries about the world (vs. traditional outreach and illustration)?
Art Experience vs. Science Experience
Brandon Ballengée, Artist and Biologist

* * *

What are the mandates that drive environmental (and other) art? What are the metrics for success? What’s the future?
Panel Discussion: Arts Funding 
Bill O’Brien, Senior Advisor for Innovation to the Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts
Janet Brown, President and CEO, Grantmakers in the Arts

* * *

How Do You Work the Art/Science Interface and Get to Impact?
The Green Heart Project 
Helen and Newton Harrison, Artists

* * *

What are the issues around integrating art and science?

Overview of, “Steps to an Ecology of Networked Knowledge and Innovation", from the Sciences, Engineering, Arts, and Design (SEAD) Network.

Amy Ione, Artist and Educator

* * *

Humanities in Action: A look at work in the science/philosophy interface to promote social action
Michael Nelson, Ruth H. Spaniol Chair of Renewable Resources, Oregon State University

* * *

Complex Program Case Study:
Master Class on How to Create and Build an International Arts-Science-Technology Program Putting Them on the Same Level, Using Arts@CERN as an Example
Ariane Koek, Founder of Arts@CERN

* * *

Interviews:

| Xavier Cortada, artist and activist |

* * *

| Brian Smith, STEM to STEAM leader |

* * *

| Art Shimamura, neuroscientist |

* * *

| Janet Brown, arts funding representative |

* * *

List of Workshop Products

• Grant proposals:
• 2015 Planning Meeting (NSF DEB-1543827): Participant packet | Photos | Presentation videos (above) | NSF Progress Report (2016) | 
• National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Coordination Network (RCN). Submitted, 2015. Resubmitted, 2016 (declined).
• Clore Foundation Fellow, art/sci program feasibility study (accepted)
• New York State Regional Economic Development Council funded a 2017 proposal from Harvestworks by Kevin Duggan:

"Art, Data and Ecology at NYS Field Stations" is a cultural mapping project to identify resources and best practices to support the creation and exhibition of new work by artists and cultural organizations in collaboration with biological field stations in New York State. Collaborators include the New York City Urban Field Station and the Huyck Preserve and Biological Research Station.

• National Endowment for the Arts (NEA): NYC Harvestworks collaboration with Hubbard Brook, 2016. Lindsey Rustad and Kevin Duggan (declined):

"Experimental Forest: Media Art, Data and Ecology: Harvestworks will partner with the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation and a network of biological field stations and Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites to support artist residencies on the creative use of environmental data. Six artists will collaborate with scientific researchers and staff at six national field stations – each with a distinct ecosystem and in many cases with decades of collected information—to develop new projects that can illuminate ecological issues and engage the public in new ways during in a time of intense environmental and climate change. Each location will produce public events centered on the residences, and outcomes will be broadly shared to inspire further collaborations between the arts and environmental research sites."

• Meetings:
• Bill Fox participated in several meetings as a direct result of the Reno workshop, including:
• 2016 Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) strategic meeting in NYC on putting funders next to art/sci initiatives, 
• 2017 NSF strategy meeting in Washington, DC

• Networking with additional potential partners, including: 
• Los Angeles County Art Museum (LACMA). Faerthen Felix and Jeff Brown; 
• Metabolic Studio, Los Angeles. Faerthen Felix and Newton Harrison; 
• Alliance of Artist Communities. Faerthen Felix, Jeff Brown, Bill Fox; 
• Western States Arts Foundation (WESTAF), Public Art Archive (PAA): Faerthen Felix; 
• Lake Tahoe West. Jeff Brown (Jeff convinced the multi-agency forest planning project to embed an artist in the process).
• In 2016, OBFS approved a permanent ArtSciConverge committee at the request of Faerthen Felix and Jeff Brown.

• Artist/Scientist collaborations at field research sites:
• Symphony of Jellies. Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, CA. 2015. After the workshop, Jerry Schubel commissioned artist Marty Quinn to sonify jellyfish motion. This provided melodic components used by musicians Eddie Freeman and Marta Victoria to create a symphony performed by Los Angeles high school students in 2016. Photos.
• Ever/Perma multimedia art project by Xavier Cortada on climate change and methane in the Florida Everglades and in Alaskan permafrost, with Annie Duffy and Mary Beth Leigh as collaborators (University of Alaska Fairbanks), 2016.
• Sierra Nevada College MFA Program at Sagehen Creek Field Station, 2015-present.
• Since the workshop, UC Berkeley’s Sagehen Creek Field Station has expanded and formalized their artist-in-residence program in partnership with the Nevada Museum of Art - Center for Art + Environment. The program works as a demonstration project about the power of art/science collaboration for other field stations and marine labs. For instance, a recent project profiled artist works from Sagehen that demonstrate the power of combining art with science at field stations and marine labs. 
• In conjunction with a consultant from Toronto, the Nevada Museum of Art - Center for Art + Environment developed a procedures manual for archiving scientific field station Artists-in-Residence materials. A manual for archiving Sagehen Creek Field Station Artist-in-Residence activities was drafted.

• Archiving artist/scientist collaboration efforts:
• Archive of #ArtSciConverge materials at the Nevada Museum of Art - Center for Art + Environment. NMA-CA+E also began archiving #ArtSciConverge materials for UC Berkeley's Sagehen Creek Field Station.
• In 2016, Bill Fox produced guidelines for these archives.

• Input to the SEAD report 5-year update

• ArtSciConverge presentations:
• 2015 LTER All-Scientists meeting. Working Group Session: "Engagement of Arts and Humanities in LTER Sites and Programs". Fred Swanson, Lindsey Rustad, Mary Beth Leigh, and others from the LTER. Aug. 30-Sept. 2, 2015. Estes Park, CO.
• Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) 2015 annual meeting. Gothic, CO. Sept. 16-20, 2015. Concurrent Session: Faerthen Felix, Eric Nagy, Jon Garbisch, Murt Conover.
• Proposed Mt. Mansfield Center Review. Burlington, VT. April 18-19, 2016. Faerthen Felix, Lindsey Rustad.
• UC California Naturalist 2016 Statewide Conference. Los Angeles, CA. Sept. 9-11, 2016. Faerthen Felix, Charles Convis, Elkpen.
• Organization of Biological Field Stations 2016 meeting. Sept. 21-25, 2016. Sitka, AK. Concurrent Session: Faerthen Felix and Mark Shultze.
• Alliance of Artist Communities 2016 Conference. Oct. 4-7, 2016. Portland, OR. Breakout Session: "Cross Pollination: Art/Science Collaborations + Impact of Place". Faerthen Felix, Bill Fox, Deb Ford, Charles Goodrich.
• TEDx Fairbanks: Seeing the Elephant: Toward Reintegration of the Arts, Humanities, and Ecological Sciences. Mary Beth Leigh. Feb.21, 2016. Fairbanks, AK. 
• Alliance for Arts at Research Universities (a2ru) Meeting. Nov. 3-5, 2016. Panel Session: "Ecological Reflections: Integrating the Arts and Humanities with Science at Long-Term Ecological Research Sites". Mary Beth Leigh, Fred Swanson, and others. Denver, CO. 
• Fred Swanson has given talks at North Temperate Lakes LTER and the Oregon State University Hatfield Marine Science Center. 
• Mary Beth Leigh has given invited seminars at Oregon State University (June, 2016) and North Dakota State University (Nov. 2016).
• Organization of Biological Field Stations 2017 meeting. Sept. 20-24, 2017. Itasca, MN. Concurrent Session: Sylvia Torti and Faerthen Felix.
• Alliance of Artist Communities 2017 Conference. Oct. 2-5, 2017. Denver, CO. Breakout Session: "Beyond the Studio: Art/Sci Collaborations". Nina Elder, Fred Swanson, Collin Haffey, Cedra Wood.
• Mary Beth Leigh has given oral presentations on this topic at: 
• Oregon State University (June, 2016)
• Invited seminar North Dakota State University (Nov. 2016)
• Invited seminar University of Alaska Fairbanks (Sept. 2017)
• Faculty seminar 6th International Symposium on Biosorption and Biodegradation/Bioremediation, June 25-29 2017, Prague, Czech Republic
• Invited keynote lecture American Society for Microbiology Alaska Branch Meeting (Oct. 2017) in Anchorage, AK. Platform presentation
• Lindsey Rustad curated the online twitter account IAmArtSci for a week where she discussed our various ArtSciConverge projects 
• Michael Nelson was consulted on environmental science, arts, and humanities projects by the University of Virginia’s new Resilience Institute and the Georgia Coastal Long-Term Ecological Research Program at UVA. Nelson gave a formal presentation and led three faculty discussions on the subject.
• Presentation to National Assoc. of Marine Labs (NAML) art/science committee about the activities of the ArtSciConverge committee of the Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS). Conference call, Faerthen Felix and Sylvia Torti. May 16, 2018.
• "The Sagehen Art Program: Why does Science Need Art?" Faerthen Felix. 
• E.A.R.T.H. Lab studio course, UC Santa Cruz, CA. May 11, 2016.
• Sierra Club - Northern Sierra Chapter Meeting, Claire Tappan Lodge, CA. June 20, 2016. 
• Art/Science Collaboration in the Great Basin. Playa, OR. April 22-25, 2016. 
• Truckee, CA Morning Rotary, Aug. 15 2017. 
• UC Santa Cruz Art and Environment Course. Santa Cruz, CA May 23, 2018.
• Truckee Arts Alliance, June 25, 2018.

• Workshop Press:
• Reno Gazette-Journal
• UC Natural Reserve System News: 
• Invisible Barn Materializes  
• Why Art at Reserves?  
• LTER Network Newsletter, 7/7/15  
• Psychology Today blog post   
• Grantmakers in the Arts blog post
• OBFS/NAML ArtSciConverge blog post
• WESTAF Blogathon on the Intersection of Arts and Science

• Social Media presence:
• #ArtSciConverge hashtag: FB | Twitter
• Facebook page

• Planned products:
• NSF Final Report (2018)
• WESTAF Public Art Archive (PAA) for field station artworks
• Structured coordination between Alliance of Artist Communities (AAC) and Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS)
• Faerthen Felix worked with the Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) and the Alliance of Artist Communities (AAC) to map field stations and marine labs with artist residencies that have an interest in ecology. We continue to work to add additional residencies, since many FSMLs also produce research in the social sciences and the humanities.
• A short synthesis article focusing on the workshop is being planned by PI Leigh with Fred Swanson and Michael Nelson. 
• Mary Beth Leigh, Michael Nelson, Lissy Goralnik, and Fred Swanson are writing a chapter in the forthcoming book “In The Challenges and Accomplishments of Long-Term Ecological Research: New Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future of Ecological Science” (eds. Robert Waide and Sharon Kingsland) focused on the history of arts and humanities within the LTER Network.
• Section on art at FSMLs in an upcoming Handbook of Best Practices for Mountain Observatories
• National coordinator for art at FSMLs
• Facilitate scientist participation in artist residencies (2015-)

Conference Report: "Art as a Way of Knowing", March 3-4, 2011 at the San Francisco Exploratorium

In 2011, the San Francisco Exploratorium hosted a NSF-funded conference called "Art as a Way of Knowing".

The organizers, "wanted to know how the arts expand our engagement and understanding of the natural and social worlds...The premise of "Art as a Way of Knowing" was that art is a fundamental part of being human, and that learning in and through the arts is a serious form of interacting with the world by engaging with its questions, formulating ideas, and deepening knowledge."

The purpose of the conference was to gather a broad range of artists, scientists, and educators to explore the history, practice, and value of the arts as a means of inquiring into the natural world. The conference brought together some 125 leading international thinkers—representing work in education, art and science museums, contemporary art, and interdisciplinary research.

Download the full report.

Clore Leadership Programme

The Clore Leadership Programme is a UK-based organization that offers a range of programs for outstanding individuals who wish to develop as cultural leaders.

By investing in individuals, we aim to strengthen leadership across a wide range of creative and cultural activities.

The annual Clore Fellowship award provides support to Brits and a few internationals who "...may be working freelance or within cultural organisations, of all types and sizes, in areas ranging from archives to theatre production, and including visual and performing arts, film and digital media, heritage, creative industries, museums, libraries and cultural policy."

While Americans probably don't qualify for the awards, there may be opportunities to do interesting projects with Clore Fellows.

"The programme blends real-life examples with practical skills and tools.

You will be expected to challenge and stretch yourself. Peer learning is a key element of the programme. It is not a taught course and there are no exams or qualifications. Instead you will learn from experience, your own and others, by sharing and reflecting and by putting your new-found skills into practice through workshops, a secondment and collaborative enquiry.

You will be encouraged to be curious, to question, to discuss and to write about cultural leadership."

2011 SymBIOtic ART & Science Conference report

Fred Swanson’s rough notes and impressions on the conference:

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SymBIOtic ART & Science Conference: an investigation into the intersection of life sciences and the arts. 

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Feb 28-March 1, 2011 NSF, Arlington, VA

An eclectic group of 25 academics, artists, agency folk, private entrepreneurs, and scientists of many ilks plus NEA and NSF observers gathered for two days of discussions of the current status of arts-humanities-sciences interactions and how these collaborations can be advanced in the future.

The represented artistic/humanities media included dance, fiction and non-fiction writing, literary criticism, art history, visual arts of many forms, and a conservator at the National Art Gallery. The science disciplines ranged from physics to neuroscience to ecology (the latter represented by Nalini Nadkarni and me (the only two in the group I knew going in)).

Spatial scales of interest ranged from a bacterium (the medium of an artist) to the universe (an astrophysicist). General vibes/findings of the conference:

• Interest in this collaborative work has been long and strong. Rare individuals have feet in two worlds and excel in both – e.g., Vladimir Nabokov. Highly collaborative ventures involving two or more people are underway in marriages, labs, studios, field programs, and organizations specifically intended for the purpose, such as Leonardo (http://www.leonardo.info/leoinfo.html). Interest in this work seems to have grown in recent years in part as reaction to recent tendencies toward our present hyper-reductionist, organizationally stove-piped world of scholarship. But maybe we are just in the process of getting back to forms of integrative endeavors more common in the 19th as great expeditions (e.g., voyage of the Beagle). 
• Participants in the conference personified deep experience with this work: the dancer-activist leading a company for 34 years, the forest canopy scientist with decades of work at the science-performance interface, the scientific photographer from MIT who works in chemistry and biology labs.  
• This is work of vital importance. It shakes us loose from our comfort zones, awakens creativity, reveals solutions to problems where the solution is to be found in no single discipline, exposes good new questions, presents alternative visions of the future for the unsustainable world we have created for ourselves, ... 
• Future. Continue this good work with renewed enthusiasm and an expanded network. Possibly meet again. Push NSF and NEA (and other funding agencies) to flex to strengthen support of this interface work. Look into possibilities of foundation support. Some points of resonance within the group viewed from a Long-Term Ecological Reflections perspective (my perspective): century in venues such 
• Scope of the collaborative effort. The diversity of approaches to arts-humanities- science interaction represented at the conference was quite impressive, if not overwhelming. This reinforced in my mind the value of working within the scope of programs that are characterized as place-based, long-term, and with well-kept and widely-shared records. That gives us a good balance of breadth, yet common ground and it’s helpful having LTEResearch as a stepping off point gives a network of sites and a community committed to these elements. And I’m fully committed to going beyond LTER in network building. 
• The setting of collaboration (“generative environment for creativity” was used at the conference) is very important. The general attributes include settings that are neutral in the sense of not being home turf for individual disciplines, and yet compelling/powerful places in terms that get us out of ourselves a bit – humbling, inspiring, challenging, even very troubling. Venues mentioned at the conference: old-growth forests, clearcuts, rivers. Refugee camp, cancer ward (narrative oncology), slaughterhouse, prison. These are settings for discussion of how we relate with one another and with the natural world. 
• Organizational setting is also very important and often challenging. We hear several examples of difficulty of beginning interdisciplinary programs at large universities – too much stove-piped turf at the deans’ level, for example. Small colleges (e.g., 250 students of Marlboro College (VT)) seem to have more flex. On the other hand, environmental humanities programs are springing up at larger campuses (e.g., Univ. of Oregon, Oregon State Univ., Univ. of Utah). Made me appreciate the Reflections program having had so much flexibility with its combination of private endowment funding (to Spring Creek) and Forest Service (end of the year funding). The key is to balance useful stability with the flexibility to evolve. In some ways in our Reflections program we’ve had the luxury of organic growth without a written plan, formal oversight, and a formal process to evaluate impact (as would be required by NEA, for example). But we may choose to tighten the program administration in the future. 
• Funding remains challenging. What is the place (and process) of peer review for interdisciplinary proposals? Especially when agencies remain compartmentalized (stovepiped internally and relative to one another). Should we engage in discussions with multiple agencies in the room at the same time (as we’ve discussed), so they may see how joint funding of this work might benefit us all? The concept we articulated at the Baraboo meeting sounds appropriate (though the outcome in today’s funding environment is a bit bleak, given the general state of the economy and Congress): going to DC and meet with science (NSF, USFS- Research), arts/humanities (NEA, NEH), and federal lands people still sounds like a good idea. 
• Communications remain a big challenge, and they are in a huge state of flux globally. A topic that needs group discussion: What are the places of old and new media? 
• What about education and training in this interdisciplinary arena? And will there be jobs for the trained? Hopefully the LTER-funded May workshop at Andrews Forest will lead directly to network building actions, building off the Tucson and Baraboo events.

============

NSF BIO Advisory Committee Meeting Notes/Summary Minutes:

SymBIOtic ART & Science Conference – Dr. Nalini Nadkarni

Dr. Nadkarni gave an overview of the logistics of SymBIOtic ART and Science Conference held Feb 28- Mar 1, 2011 and jointly funded by NSF/BIO and National Endowment of the Arts. The focus of the meeting was genetics, ecology, and the environment as perceived through the visual arts, dance, and literature. The participants were asked to examine the nature of the creative processes and practices of joint work and to identify joint benefits and challenges for research, education, and outreach. Dr. Nadkarni presented examples of joint art/science projects (e.g., The Ferocious Beauty Genome, The Emergent Improvisation Project, and the Long-Term Ecological Reflections 200-year Log Decomposition Study) and enumerated both the benefits and challenges of doing art-science work. Dr. Nadkarni also reported on the context of proposed interactions, the types of support needed, the questions that arose and the conclusions of the meeting. A report of this conference is being prepared by the co-PIs.

The committee expressed enthusiasm about the workshop, the ongoing collaborations and interactions and its perception that interaction makes both art and science more accessible to communities. The participation in the workshop and interest of the research based museum community was discussed. The discussion then moved on to the support needed (for the collaborations and education training), the next steps, other collaborations between NSF and NEA, the rigor needed to ensure effective collaborations and the potential impediments to collaborations. It was suggested the inclusion of sciences that are more disposed to work with the arts should be explored.

SARAS 2014 Workshop on Art Science Collaborations

SARAS 2014 WORKSHOP ON ART SCIENCE COLLABORATIONS, 15­-17 DECEMBER 2014

PUBLIC CONFERENCE ON ART SCIENCE COLLABORATIONS, 18 DECEMBER 2014

Fred Swanson (H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest) is presenting at a workshop about art/science confluence, hosted by the South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability (SARAS). Fred will be discussing the emergence of arts/humanities at sites of long-term ecological research in the US.

The meeting is to be held in Uruguay this December. Here is an outline of the agenda, and a description of the event framework.

"The three day workshop for 30-­40 attendees will focus on the opportunities and challenges that emerge when we try to bring together disciplines that have been historically divided. It will be followed by a one day public conference at which we will share our findings with a public of several hundred regional stakeholders."

From Fred:

"Hard to tell what some of the presentations will be about, but I just watched some videos of the Bjordem-Scheffer art-science collaboration and they are interesting - easy to google up. Scheffer was just featured in a couple-page story in Science about this work on ecological tipping points."

I'll update this post with more information after the meeting.

Data Carpentry

Data Carpentry is a new project funded by NSF BIO Centers and DataOne. It is designed to teach researchers basic concepts, skills and tools for working more effectively with data.

Workshops are designed for learners with little to no prior knowledge of programming, shell scripting, or command line tools.

iDigBio recently hosted a Data Carpentry workshop, and their website has good documentation.

It occurs to me that this workshop offers an interesting opportunity to train both scientists and artists, while providing the possibility of interaction.

Looking at the rapidly expanding pool of data as a resource, or a medium, offers interesting potential art/science collisions. For example, Artist-Scientists Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg lead Google's "Big Picture" visualization research group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They created a compelling art project from wind data that you have probably seen, as well as many internet data visualizations , including Many Eyes, an on-line data visualization tool, Wikipedia, chat history and e-mail visualizations.

More thoughts about data visualization here.