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did you know...

 
  • NASA hired an artist-in-residence, Laurie Anderson, in 2003?
  • Vladimir Nabokov was a curator of lepidoptera at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology?
  • Metaphors and analogies are crucial to both poetry and science?
  • Art nouveau was heavily influenced by early biology?
  • Scientists think the future of science... is art?

READING

  •  Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
  •  Age of Wonder - Richard Holmes
  •  Proust Was a Neuroscientist - Jonah Lehrer
  •  Einstein's Dreams - Alan Lightman

SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, CONCEPTS, ETC.

  •  Light as both a wave and a particle
  •  Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
  •  Theory of Chaoplexity: the idea that the only real order in the universe is disorder.
  •  Systems biology
  •  Emergence
  • Holism
  •  Failure of rote reductionism (Human Genome Project)
  • Fall of positivism
  •  The Proustian Hypothesis
  • Humanist theoretical orientation in psychology (Carl Rogers)
  • Plasticity of the brain/ the influence of environment on the development of unique perception (neuroscience)

INFLUENTIAL FIGURES & ORGANIZATIONS

  •  Henry David Thoreau

(http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/03/10/the-detailed-records-plant-and-animal-life-concord-create-treasure-climate-change-data/nGvpnWZ2Ksjoq75YqU2qHL/story.html)

 

and

http://www.livescience.com/26328-global-warming-brings-earlier-spring-flowers.html)

  • Victoria Vesna

(http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/publications/publications/00-01/ThirdCulture/ThirdCulture.htm)

  • Archetime: Cross-Disciplinary Conference/Exhibition/Filmfest dedicated to exploring artistic, academic, and scientific concepts of Time (http://www.archetime.net/)
  • ​LHI Art-Sci Symposium @ Land Heritage Institute in San Antonio, Texas

(http://www.penelopeboyer.com/LHI_website_revised/2013_LHI_Art-Sci_Symposium.html)

 

 

 

ARTISTS

  •  M.C. Escher
  • Santiago Ramon y Cajal

 

 

 

WRITERS

 

  • Christian Bok

From an article in the Guardian:
"[Bok] has spent nine years researching the Xenotext project and, despite having no academic training in biochemistry, he is doing all the genetic and protein engineering himself. Using a “chemical alphabet”, Bök is translating his short verse about language and genetics into a sequence of DNA, which will be implanted into the genome of the bacteria. The protein that the cell produces in response will form a second comprehensible poem."

 

  •  Forrest Gander
  •  Peter Munro

SISTER GENRES

  • Speculative/science fiction poetry (Science Fiction Poetry Society, Rhysling Award, Sci Faiku, Contrail, One Breath)
  • Science fiction
  • Conceptual poetry

"Artists and musicians addressing scientific and technological problems invented chest percussion (musician Joseph Auenbrugger), the stethoscope (musician and artist Rene Leannec), the laryngoscope (singer Manuel Garcia), the first pill-making machine (artist William Brockedon), the principles governing tree growth (artists Leonardo da Vinci and, independently, John Ruskin), camouflage (painter Abbott Thayer), frequency hopping—a standard mode of encrypting electronic information (actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil), and the first artificial intelligence program (composer Lejaren Hiller).

Artists have invented several classes of novel geometrical objects and structures that have been appropriated by scientists in both life and physical sciences, including Wallace Walker’s “kaleidocycles,” Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, and Ken Snelson’s tensegrity structures. The invention of pointillism by Seurat led directly to modern pixelization as well as to the color blindness tests. The Fauvists gave rise to false coloring, which is employed for data analysis in every science. Indeed, the “chip”—our modern integrated circuit—is made using mainly artistic techniques: the logic is embedded into the design by drawing, it is then printed using silk screen methods, miniaturized using photolithography, and the patterns are then etched into the chip. In other words, the modern world would not be possible without the insights and inventions of artists. We lose sight of this conclusion at our peril..."

- Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein, Professor of Physiology, Michigan State University

 

(http://artworks.arts.gov/?p=6141)

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