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.

WHEN: Thursday, January 31, 2019, 7:30-9:00 pm
WHERE: Art Annex, 107 Main

SPEAKERS for WINTER QUARTER

Colin Tucker, Place and/as Music //

PhD, Music Composition
University at Buffalo (SUNY)
Independent Curator

Katia Vega, Dermal Abyss //

Assistant Professor
Department of Design, UC Davis

Travis Parker, Drones and Beans //

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Plant Biology, College of Biological Sciences, UC Davis

Open and free to the public. Reservations recommended. 

For more information, visit the LASER Facebook page.

Colin Tucker is a curator who works at intersections between music, embodiment, location, and social practice. He develops place-based music events, in which artists attempt to bring musical techniques into conversation with the particularities of a specific location, in order to reveal unexpected perspectives on this place, as well as stretch received musical techniques in unexplored directions. Tucker holds a PhD from the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and has produced events in collaboration with partners including Princeton University, Art Institute of Chicago, Canadian Music Centre, New Music USA, Art Bridges Foundation, and Arts Council Norway.

Katia Vega is an Assistant Professor of Design at UC Davis. She completed a postdoctorate at the MIT Media Lab. Using biosensors, she transforms traditional body modification techniques into interactive skin interfaces. Her project, Dermal Abyss, extends the possibility of biosensors as a Tatooed interface. This project is an award winning interdisciplinary collaboration with MIT researchers Nick Barry, Viirj Kan and Xin Liu, and Nan Jiang and Ali Yetisen at the Harvard Medical School. Vega is one of the CNET’s 2017 Top 20 Most Influential Latinos in Technology and the winner of the Interactive Innovation Award at the 2018 South by Southwest (SXSW).

Travis Parker is a biologist and geneticist, Parker uses drones to study what makes a crop competitive against weeds. He has also used drones to evaluate high-yield, diseaseresistant bean varieties that can thrive on organic farms. Under the guidance of Professor Paul Gepts, a geneticist at UC Davis, Parker’s work aims to improve the performance and profitability of organic farms by improving legumes like pinto, black and kidney beans, as well as heirloom-like varieties with high culinary quality. Parker’s team recently received a grant from Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that funds innovative projects in agriculture.