A Day of Art and Science Wonders at the Getty Center

Curated by Lawrence Weschler

In the spirit of the Renaissance, a time when the arts and sciences overlapped more fluidly, several artists and scientists present their recent ideas and projects throughout the Getty Center.

Experience the “Liminal Camera,” a giant movable camera built from a shipping container by the Optics Division of the Metabolic Studio in Los Angeles. Throughout the day (10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.), members of the Optics Division of Metabolic Studio will demonstrate how the converted container functions as an image-capture device.

1:00–2:00 p.m.: Visit innovative art/science projects by Tristan Duke, Margaret Wertheim, Robert Lang, and Debora Coombs on view in the lobby of the Harold M. Williams Auditorium.

2:00–4:00 p.m.: Panel Discussions in the Harold M. Williams Auditorium

• Introduction by celebrated author Lawrence Weschler.
• Interactions Between Art and Science
  • Artist/science writer Margaret Wertheim, stained glass artist Debora Coombs and origami expert Robert Lang will each present their work at the intersection of mathematics and material making, revealing how hand-crafted processes can constitute genuine mathematical research.
• Optical Wonders
  • Lauren Bon, Richard Nielsen, and Tristan Duke from the Metabolic Studio Optics Division present their work exploring the photo-chemical agency of the landscape.
  • Tristan Duke presents his hand drawn holograms, sharing his process of invention and exploration of art and science as parallel modes of inquiry.
• Final discussion with all participants, as well as sculptor Elizabeth Turk, and Scott Schmidt of the Smithsonian Institution. Moderated by Lawrence Weschler.

On March 20-21, IFF director Margaret Wertheim will be a visiting lecturer at Texas Tech. Wertheim will deliver a public talk: “How to Play Mathematics,” plus a workshop on “Making Hyperbolic Space” and engage in other activities with students and faculty.

Public Lecture:  How to Play Mathematics

What does it mean to know mathematics? Usually we associate math with equations and think of it as the epitome of symbolic reasoning. Yet all around us simple organisms and objects are performing extraordinary pieces of mathematics. Sea slugs and corals realize in their anatomies hyperbolic geometry, a form that human mathematicians spent hundreds of years trying to prove impossible. Swooping towards a prey, a peregrine falcon executes a logarithmic spiral. Bouncing about a room, sounds waves enact the complexity of a Fourier Transform. Meanwhile African artisans discovered fractals centuries before European mathematicians and have long incorporated them into designs of cloth, pottery and village architecture. Islamic mosaicists, masters of geometrical construction, discovered aperiodic tilings more than 500 years before modern mathematicians. In this multidisciplinary talk, Margaret Wertheim will argue that mathematics isn’t just something we do with our minds, it can also be engaged with through process of material exploration and play.

Location: TTU Museum auditorium

Time: 6-7:30pm, followed by a reception 7:30-8:30 pm.

Public and students welcome.

Being There: Virtual Reality from Giotto to Grand Theft Auto

A talk by IFF Director Margaret Wertheim

Place: ICA-LA

Time: Wednesday December 20, 2017. 7:00-8:00pm

The Arena Chapel (detail) by Giotto di Bondone, Padua, 1305.

We are used to thinking of virtual reality (VR) as a technology of the computer era, but in this talk at the ICA-LA, Margaret Wertheim will trace its roots to the Middle Ages. In the 13^th century Roger Bacon championed a new kind of representation he called “geometric figuring” and argued for artists to adopt this style as a form of Christian propaganda. Soon, Giotto was painting the Arena Chapel, a medieval environment consciously designed to make visitors feel as if they had been projected into a three dimensional simulation of Christ’s life. Following this thread of imagery through the evolution of what came to be called “perspective,” and on to development of computer-based simulation and video games, Wertheim will discuss a lineage of visual verisimilitude from Giotto to Grand Theft Auto and current efforts to digitally simulate the medieval temple of Angkor Wat.

VR recreation of the 12th century Cambodian temple, Angkor Wat. VR world by Dr. Thomas Chandler, Monash University, Sensilab.

ICA-LA event webpage

About ICA-LA: ICA-LA is a new museum in downtown Los Angeles founded and directed by Elsa Longhauser, former long-time director of the Santa Monica Museum of Art. ICA-LA’s first exhibition is a major retrospective of beloved outsider artist Martin Ramirez and includes a suite of never-before-shown, large-scale Ramirez works. The museum is located at: 1717 East 7th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90021.

About Margaret Wertheim: Margaret is an internationally noted science writer, artist and curator whose work focuses on relations between science and the wider cultural landscape. She is the author of six books, including The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet, and Physics on the Fringe, a sociological study of outsider science, whose protagonist, James Carter, was the subject of a pioneering 2002 exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Wertheim has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Guardian, Cabinet, Aeon, and many others. In 2003, with her twin sister Christine Wertheim, she founded the Institute For Figuring, a non-profit devoted to “the aesthetic and poetic dimensions of science and mathematics.” Through the IFF, she has designed art & science exhibits for the Hayward Gallery (London), Science Gallery (Dublin) and Mass MoCA (MA). By inviting audiences to play with ideas, her work offers a radical approach to math and science at once intellectually rigorous and aesthetically aware. The Wertheims’ Crochet Coral Reef project is now the largest participatory art &science endeavor in the world and has been exhibited around globe including at the Museum of Arts and Design (New York) and the Smithsonian (Washington D.C.).

On Thursday November 23, 2017, IFF Director Margaret Wertheim will deliver the keynote address at the annual conference of the Public Pedagogies Institute in Melbourne, Australia.

Titled Turning Learning Upside Down: Teaching and Learning Beyond the Classroom, this 2-day event looks at a wide variety of ways in which pedagogy is being enacted, and can be enacted, outside of formal academic spheres.

Location: Victoria University, Footscray, Melbourne.

Dates: 23/24 November, 9am-5pm daily.

Conference webpage. Click here to see conference overview. Click here to see full conference program with abstracts.

Public Pedagogies Institute website.

“Making Hyperbolic Space” Workshop at Deakin University, Melbourne Australia.

The rooms we inhabit, the skyscrapers we work in, the streets we drive on, speak to us in straight lines. But outside our boxes nature teems with swooping crenelated forms. From the curling structures of corals and kelps, to the frilled surfaces of lettuces and cacti, nature has a love affair with hyperbolic geometry – an alternative to the Euclidean variety we learn about in school. While nature has been playing with hyperbolic forms for millions of years, human mathematicians spent centuries trying to prove they were impossible. The discovery of this “pathological” geometry ushered in a revolution that led to the mathematics underling general relativity and hence the structure of the universe. In this playful event, IFF director Margaret Wertheim discusses the history of hyperbolic math, then leads a hands-on workshop where participants construct their own models of hyperbolic space out of paper.

All materials supplied. No prior experience needed. Event is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is required.

Book ticket here. 

Deakin Event webpage and Facebook event page.