LASER // Conversations in Art and Science continues with its fall 2017 presentation featuring Beth Ferguson, assistant professor of Design, and Petr Janata, professor, Dept. of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain. Joining them is Michael Arcega, assistant professor, Department of Art, San Francisco State University. 

DATE: Thursday, Nov. 16
TIME: 6-8 p.m.
LOCATION: Music 115

Admission free; Reservations recommended

EVENTBRITE: https://ucdlaser04.eventbrite.com

Refreshments will be provided. 

Ferguson discusses “The Electric Drive Solar Kiosk,” Janata presents on ”Musical Neurobiographies” and Arcega’s topic is “WORDSWORDS.”

The Leonardo Art, Science, Evening Rendezvous (LASER) talks at UC Davis are evening presentations that engage the public as participants in conversations with artists, designers, scientists, and technologists making significant contributions to their fields. The evenings are designed to encourage unexpected juxtapositions between seemingly unrelated projects, facilitating the interdisciplinary conversations that engage the challenges of the 21st century.

Event sponsored by HArCS, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences UC Davis and Leonardo/ISAST.

Beth Ferguson is assistant professor of Design at The University of California, Davis. She runs Sol Design Lab, a solar furniture design/build company. She has collaborated with public utilities, festivals, and universities to position solar energy as a civic and public resource. She has engaged thousands of participants in the development of projects such as solar charging stations, up-cycled public furniture, climate change emoji, and Green Maps. She has received commissions from SXSW, Austin Energy, ZER01 San Jose Biennial, TEDxPresidio, Coachella, The ZERO1 American Arts Incubator, The U.S Department of the State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and the Bay Area Maker Faire. Ferguson will talk about her project, the Electric Drive Solar Kiosk, an innovative combination of solar technology and public art that provides shaded seating, LED lighting and free solar power for the public in downtown Austin, TX.  Website: Sol Design Lab

Petr Janata is a professor in the Psychology Department and Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis. He received his B.A. from Reed College and his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. His research on how the human brain engages with music has examined expectation, imagery, sensorimotor coupling, memory, and emotion in relation to tonality, rhythm, and timbre. His work also emphasizes the use of models of musical structure to analyze behavioral and brain data. He is particularly interested in musical situations that elicit strong emotional experiences, such as music-evoked remembering or being in the groove. In 2010 he received a Fulbright Fellowship to do research in Prague, and in the same year he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to further his investigations of what music-evoked autobiographical memories can tell us about the functional organization of the human brain. Website: http://atonal.ucdavis.edu

Michael Arcega is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. His research-based work revolves around language and sociopolitical dynamics. Directly informed by Historic narratives, material significance, and geography, his subject matter deals with circumstances where power relations are unbalanced. As a naturalized American, his investigation of cultural markers are embedded in objects, food, architecture, visual lexicons, and vernacular languages. Arcega’s work has been exhibited at the Asian Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Orange County Museum of Art, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Cue Arts Foundation, and the Asia Society in NY among many others. Website: http://arcega.us/