Climate Action Lab: Water Fair Event

Monterey Bay Sanctuary Exploration Center

April 19th, 2024, 11am - 3pm.

Created by Layla Scott, Water Fair Executive Director

Looking at an orange sunset ocean view or a crystal clear blue lake water is breathtaking. It is the source of life. A precious resource we tend to take for granted. Here in Santa Cruz, it is a unique place with both surrounding forests and ocean coastlines. Our city is magical. As residents, it is our responsibility to understand how to protect and steward the natural resources that create our beautiful home. The fair includes informational poster sessions from UCSC student researchers, art activities, local organizations, and educational games for all ages!! Looking forward to making a splash in our community...See you there!!

THE GREENHOUSE PROJECT SPRING EVENT & SEED EXCHANGE

SUNDAY MAY 21st, 2023, 1-3 PM
152 FARM RD, SANTA CRUZ, CA
The Greenhouse Project is hosting its first public event, and we'd love to see you there! The event will include a reading by Dine writer and poet Byron Aspaas, an exhibition of prints by Edward Ramirez, Auntie Manna's Vietnamese food pop-up by Amanda Linh Vong, and a seed exchange (bring seeds!) hosted by Zoe Loomis from Pie Ranch. Auntie Manna will also host a banh mi workshop (limited to 15 people). To sign-up for the banh mi workshop, email dalbell@ucsc.edu. Please feel free to share! A poster is attached below if needed.
 

Art + Genomics initiative What Makes Us Human: An Art + Genomics Convergence virtual exhibition highlight in UCSC Inquiry Research Magazine

Adaptable Academics amid pandemic upheaval, flexibility finds opportunity article by Mary-Russell Roberson.

"The isolation brought on by the pandemic inspired a team assembled and led by Jennifer Parker, founding director of the OpenLab Collaborative Research Center. Their pandemic plan? To create a virtual reality gallery intended to encourage conversations among scientists, artists, and others. “The whole concept is brand new, spearheaded by this moment,” said Parker.

Click here to read more

UCSC BioDesign Challenge winners Saul Villegas & Silvana Moiceanu

Join us June 21-25 for BDC Summit 2021. Art Students Saul Villegas & Silvana Moiceanu will showcase their projects, Worlds of Flora Fauna, before an international audience and panel of 60 pioneers in art, design, and technology! Tune in to see student projects, live Q&As with judges, and talks by keynote speakers.
Click here to learn more

Data Visualization Collective

Exploring the convergence of science, art, and technology for publications and digital storytelling with EEB graduate student Jessica Kendall-Bar.

A 10-week independent study group, to explore data visualization and storytelling using several powerful design platforms: (PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects, Autodesk Maya,  Statistical Software R, Javascript Web Editors: p5.js/d3.js).

Norris Center Art/Sci 2021 Residency Program

The Norris Center for Natural History is soliciting applications from student artists for an Art and Science Residency at UC Santa Cruz. The goal of the program is to fund and support creative communication opportunities for science research and student professional development.

The Norris Center will work together with scientific researchers and students from UC Santa Cruz to  either complete a needed artwork for a specific research project or to collaboratively generate something new. Examples of projects could be an illustration of a scientist’s research system or organisms to use in a publication or presentation; animations about complicated processes; communicating outcomes of scientific research to a wider audience; or collaborating with a scientist to develop an arts research project. The collaborative approach often has fascinating and unexpected outcomes that lend themselves to further scientific inquiry - visit https://norriscenter.ucsc.edu/art/art-science-residency/index.html for examples of previous Norris Center art-science residencies.

Entanglement exhibit at COP25

The Algae Society was invited to curate an exhibit during the UN Climate Change Conference COP 25 (December 2-10, 2019) as part of the Global Climate & Health Alliance conference with support from the World Health Organization and the Universidad Complutense, Madrid. Works from the exhibit are on view form December 2 - Jan 14, 2020

Click here for images from the exhibit.

LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Talks is Leonardo's international program

June 23, 2020 - CHAIRED BY: Piero Scaruffi

Panel on "Opportunities for Online Art/Science Interaction" (Part 2 with UCSC Prof. Parker, Stanford Prof. Curtis Fran, and Bettina Forget the director of SETI Institute's Artist-in-Residence program, ).  Register here

A discussion about Online Art by broadening it to scholars who spent their life bridging the world of art and science. Which opportunities arise online for interaction between art and science? Much collaboration is created when people are in physical proximity, in the same campus, or in the same building. Does the online world foster or deter interdisciplinary collaboration? The online world tends to create echo chambers, where one looks for what one is already familiar with, not with the unfamiliar. How can we foster collaboration across disciplines in the online world?

El arte como herramienta frente a la emergencia climática

Can art play a role in the fight against climate change? There is an obvious affirmative answer: raise awareness by showing what is happening, but beyond that obvious there are artists who think they can work in collaboration with scientists to think together about solutions that discover who we are and what role we play on this planet. Some of the artists who think so have formed the group The Algae Society, responsible for the exhibition Drift & Migrate:

See review here

The Algae Society Bio Art & Design Lab

This is the Algae Societies first exhibition in Spain produced by the Complutense Research Group “Art, Technology and Social Commitment – ARTECS.” For this exhibition Algae Society members collaborated with the ARTECS – UCM research group (Arte, Tecnología y Compromiso Social) and the MIAC graduate students to create pieces that talk about the environmental impact of human activity and how this affects the existence of algae worldwide. The hope is to better understand our symbiotic relationship with non-human organisms and to  spawn empathy as we communicate the rich diversity of algae in the face of global warming.

Click here for more information

UC Art + Design Placemaking at UC Santa Cruz

Professor Jennifer Parker, Director of OpenLab, has been awarded a UC Multicampus research grant with faculty from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Santa Barbara. This work is core to UC’s foundational public research mission as a land grant institution and its commitment to scholarship that directly serves the interests of California’s diverse publics. Click here for more information on faculty and student projects.

The Mobile Coaction Lab hits the Road!

The Mobile Coaction Lab, developed in collaboration with OpenLab, has embarked on it maiden research voyage, traveling from Wilmington, NC to Santa Barbara, CA and back collaborating with a variety of aquatic ecosystems, including oceans, rivers, lakes, watersheds and headwaters.  Each day, imagery, sound, data and live water samples will be collected and blended into a site specific evening performance, exploring our relationships with water and the life that it supports.More details here:

Congratulations Juniper Harrower and Kathleen Deck

UCSC graduate students Kathleen Deck and Juniper Harrower have both had their thesis abstracts (PhD and MFA) accepted to LEONARDO Journal (see Vol. 53, No. 5, October 2020) on topics at the intersections between art, science and technology.Jennifer (Juniper) Harrower: Species Interactions and Climate Change in the Loss of Joshua Trees and the Role of Eco-Art for Understanding Multispecies Connections (Highest-Rated Abstract) and Kathleen Deck, Enviro-Envision Visualizing Climate Change through Art. Both Juniper and Kathleen have been actively involved in OpenLab and the IDEA Hub at UC Santa Cruz.

You can read more about Leonardo Labs at https://www.leonardo.info/labs-2019#Harrower 

Iconic Joshua trees may disappear—but scientists are fighting back

Congratulations to Juniper Harrower, Openlab Fellow and Ph.D candidate in Environmental Studies - Her research on how climate change is affecting Joshua trees has been published in a National Geographic article!

By 2100, scientists predict that Joshua Tree National Parkwill lose almost all of its Joshua tree habitat to climate change. But the Joshua tree relies on other species to survive, and a new study on the relationship between Joshua trees and a type of symbiotic yucca moth piles on the bad news. According to the study, yucca moths, which the Joshua tree relies on to reproduce, aren’t healthy in the few places where Joshua trees can survive the heat.

“We’re finding that not only does climate change affect species, it affects how species interact with each other,” says Juniper Harrower, the study’s first author, and a graduate student at the University of California Santa Cruz.

Click HERE for full article.

Fall Quarter’s IDEA Hub Open House

Are you curious to know more about the IDEA Hub? Thinking about applying for funding this year? Join us for the IDEA Hub Fall Open House!  Register here!

The Open House is happening on Friday, October 19 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the McHenry Library in the Digital Scholarship Commons (located on the ground floor of the library) in the VizWall area. Light refreshments will be provided. Interested in attending the Open House?

Please register here!

Species Loss: Exploring Opportunities with Art–Science

A new article published in Integrative and Comparative Biology, Volume 58, Issue 1, 1 July 2018, Pages 103–112, features OpenLab sponsored projects by Juniper Harrower, a PhD candidate in Environmental Science. 
Human-induced global change has triggered the sixth major extinction event on Earth with profound consequences for humans and other species. A scientifically literate public is necessary to find and implement approaches to prevent or slow species loss. Creating science-inspired art can increase public understanding of the current anthropogenic biodiversity crisis and help people connect emotionally to difficult concepts.

Kathleen Deck: Re-thinking Extinction

OpenLab is sponsoring Kathleen Deck's Re-Thinking Extinction project as part of the 5th L.A.S.T. Festival March 23-24th at Stanford University. Kathleen is a UCSC DANM graduate who has sought innovative paths and connections between creativity and sustainability to develop her arts research practice at the intersection of art and science. She is a new media artist MFA candidate at the University of California Santa Cruz, interested in themes of sustainability, climate change and animal extinction. Re-thinking Extinction is a collaborative project with Professor Sinervo at UC Santa Cruz to develop and build "Robo-tort,O a robot prototype of the California Desert Tortoise (Gopherus Agassizii). This mechanical tortoise creature embodies the human desire to dominate and change the natural world. Only, this monster is determined to save the species it was made to resemble and can explore solutions beyond the current resolution of inevitable extinction.

 
If you’ve never tried VR before, this is your chance. Explore the new DSC VizLab and experience Virtual Reality. They invite you to test the HTC VIVE headset, Samsung Gear VR, and Google Cardboard Headset. DSC Staff will be available to answer questions and introduce you to available resources and hardware. The event is designed for IDEA Hub fellows, but open to anyone.
 
Click here for event flyer

Cosponsored by the IDEA Hub, Institute for Humanities Research and the Digital Scholarship Commons.

Join the faculty and staff governing board of IDEA Hub at any time during the IDEA Hub Fall Open House. Meet some of the fellows of the fall cohort and learn of their social-benefiting and/or creative enterprises for which they’re receiving funding. Find out how you can apply to form an IDEA Hub team. Tour the incubator spaces of the OpenLab at the Digital Arts and New Media Center.

Click here for more information

Dark Deleuze in the Dark

Andrew Culp’s Dark Deleuze (University of Minnesota Press, 2016) offers a radical reinterpretation of the theorist Gilles Deleuze that challenges today’s world of compulsory happiness, decentralized control, and overexposure. Arranged in a series of contraries, Culp’s cataclysmic politics exhorts us to kill our idols and cultivate “hatred for this world.”

February 22, 2017, 5-7pm, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center, Click here for more information

OpenLab ArtCrawler at the Santa Cruz Mini Maker Fair

Gateway School in Santa Cruz. April 16,  2016  7-11pm Saturday. The Art Crawler developed by Sean Pace with OpenLab will be at the Santa Cruz Mini Maker Fair

More information HERE

OpenLab at the 3rd L.A.S.T (Life Art Science Technology) Festival

The LAST (Life Art Science Technology) festival celebrates the confluence of art with the technologies and sciences that are shaping the 21st century. Free and open to everybody.

Click HERE for more info about OpenLab projects

OpenLab at California Academy of Sciences, NIGHT LIFE Live, San Francisco, CA

Thursday, May 14, 2015 – 6-7:45pm

eve Warnock and Pellham Johnston help kick off NightLife LIVE this Thursday at California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco with an exhibit in the garden for OpenLab!

Details: Here

OpenLab sponsors workshop at University of Sussex, Creativity Zone

OpenLab affiliated arts Gene Felice and David Kant present artwork on biosensors in conversation with Kate O'Riordan. 1pm - October 30, 2014 Read More: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/scv/events?id=26467

OpenLab's Oceanic Scales with Gene Felice at California Academy of Sciences -July 10, 2014

Oceanic Scales is an interactive art installations featured at the opening night of Soundwave--San Francisco’s innovative biennial three-month art and music festival—at the California Academy of Sciences.

Read More: Oceanic Scales at Cal Academy of Sciences

OpenLab at the Tech Museum for Open Make with DANM graduate student Wes Modes

UCSC OpenLab Spastic Robots and Frankenthings: Tear into consumer electronics and repurpose the parts for making with OpenLab Maker, Wes Modes. Create robots, kinetic art, and DIY toys from the cast-offs of consumer society. Spastic Robots are robot doodles, cyborg rejects, the workings of the mad-scientist who lives just below the landfill. We'll have VCRs and other things with motors and controllers for you to reconfigure into spastic robots.

Celebrating Alterity: Imagining Other Worlds 

Presented by  Geoffrey Thomas, Interactive

DesignerWednesday, April 16, 2014 - 2:00pm. Digital Arts Research Center Room 206, University of California, Santa Cruz

Geoffrey Thomas has worked as a programmer, interaction designer, and university professor. He has trained in the fields of fine art, animation, and multimedia. His work has been exhibited and screened at Siggraph 2002, File2003, Select Media Festival, Kunst Aus Strom, Popcorn Incident, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Chiangmai First New Media Art Festival and featured online at ArtMedia2002, DIAN-network.com, Mediatopia.net, Rhizome.org, and SoundToys.net.
For more about Thomas' work: http://turbulence.org/studios/thomas/

Climbing Godzilla with Fitbit: assessing media coverage and the user interface.

Dr Aristea Fotopoulou (University of Sussex/ UCSC Science and Justice Research Center 2014 Visiting Scholar)
 Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - 2:00pm - 3:00pm, Digital Arts Research Center, University of California Santa Cruz
Aristea works at the intersections of media & cultural studies with science & technologies studies. She has written about digital networks and feminism, and recently, on information politics, knowledge production, and digital engagement. She currently explores practices of data sharing and algorithmic living (Project Tracking biodata: sharing and ownership. She also works in the EU-funded project EPINET, a technological assessment of new emerging technologies, such as wearable sensors, with focus on media and digital culture.

Click HERE for more details!

OpenLab @ #ZERO1 in San Jose – participate in public research- exhibits, workshops and talks – Tues. 7/23 – Fri. 7/26

OpenLab: Creating Art + Science Platforms to Engage Citizens and Grow Community Workshops, Exhibits, and Talks, organized by Jennifer Parker

PARTICIPATORY WORKSHOPS!
Learn about Phytoplankton, Desalination and Bike Mechanics. Create CB Radios,Discover How to Build DIY Water Rafts and Play Yahoo Answers Jeopardy Game Show. Join artists Gene Felice, Laura Wright, Matthew Jamieson, Kyle McKinley, Wes Modes, FICTILIS and Blue Trail for a series of innovative, creative and collaborative workshops combining art, community, design, technology, and science. Bay Area participants of all ages welcome to attend!

Workshops and events are free but we'd love to know you are coming: RSVP HERE! All events will be Free and Open to the Public at the ZERO1 Garage, located at 439 S. 1st Street, San Jose

OpenLab open studios Friday  June 7, 2013

Oceanic Scales team showed an amazing amount of dedication and hard work leading up to our first demonstration of our prototype system  More info...

OpenLab presents: PERFORMING TECHNOLOGIES, UCSC Digital Arts & Research Center Room 108, Wednesday April 17, 2013 - 3:00pm - 5:00pm   Free and Open to the Public!

A panel discussion at UCSC exploring expressive interactions across: theory, science, art, & the public.  Panelists: Karen Barad (UC Santa Cruz), Sally Jane Norman (University of Sussex), Eric Paulos (UC Berkeley), Simon Penny (UC Irvine), Jennifer Parker (UC Santa Cruz).  Program developed by Jennifer Parker and Kate O'Riordan.  Free and open to the public. READ More...

OpenLab Artist Drew Detweiler  + DANM Mechatronics  create the Wave Walker at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History Fri Feb 15 2013 at 05:00 pm. Designed for Peer Gynt in Collaboration with UCSC Mechatronics for Kimberly Jannarone's amazing version of Peer Gynt. The show literally takes the audience on a journey. It opens March 1st at UC Santa Cruz and shouldn't be missed! Read More....

Intersection for the Arts: The Artist as Citizen and Public Arts Partnerships with Panelists: Jennifer Parker (UCSC OpenLab), David Kasprzak (Artist) and Randy Rollison (Intersection for the Arts). Tuesday, April 24, 2012 from 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM, EAP brings together dynamic panelists to discuss artistic citizenship and issues of engagement with place.  More info...

MsGlitch403: Gender, Cyberspace, and Art Practice with Jingtian Zong, EASP MFA Candidate

MsGlitch403 is a collective initiated by four UCSC SIP interns in the summer of 2023, exploring the relationship between gender, sexuality, and representation in cyberspace. MsGlitch403 represents a multitude of ideas: Starting at its core, we take inspiration from ‘glitch,’ first coined in Glitch Feminism by Legacy Russell, representing our divergence from the heteronormative digital sphere. Repurposing the ‘403’ from ‘403 Forbidden Error,’ a status code indicating the server understands the request but refuses to authorize it, we seek empowerment from becoming internet reformers who defy online restrictions.

Click HERE to learn more about the project.

Algae Society: Bio Art & Design Lab featured in Leonardo Magazine

Exploring Multispecies Entanglements and Making Kin with Algae

As a collaborative group of artists, scientists, and scholars, they experiment and coproduce with algae, seeking to highlight complex human interdependence and kinship with algal beings. Here the founding members introduce the Algae Society and share a collective collage of their evolving artistic works while reflecting on each researcher’s process, materiality, and aesthetic considerations.

Click here to read more

OpenLab's Special Topics Class Art:189

This interdisciplinary course is for students at any level, all backgrounds and majors interested in exploring the intersection of art and biology. This class introduces students to a range of topics to create art and examine "What Makes Us Human” as part of th virtual exhibition hosted by OpenLab, the Genomics Institute, and the Porter Sesnon Gallery at UC Santa Cruz opening November 12, 2020. Students in this class will have the opportunity to participate in the exhibition and the 2021 Bioart Design Challenge with students from around the country. See whatmakesushuman.org for more information about the class and to learn more about the project.

OpenLab Visiting Artists in Residence Ivaylo Hristov

Ivaylo Hristov is a visiting artist from Bulgaria awarded the CEC Artslink to work with UCSC OpenLab collaborative Research Center. Born in 1979, Ivaylo Hristov lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria where he completed an MA in Painting at the National Academy of Arts in 2005. His works seek to add complexity to the ‘ready made’ by making interventions into objects, often using light, drawing, print and painting.

 

New article David Harris, OpenLab alumnus and Ph.D candidate at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University

In a special topics issue of SciArt,"How can art influence science?" David Harris wrote "The Story's We Tell Ourselves." Here is a shot excerpt: "My research, now, is about the nature of art and science collaboration, and one of my ongoing interests has been the question of whether the creative arts can substantively influence the sciences. What is it about the creative arts that is peculiar to the creative arts, that could influence science? Lots of scientists talk about how the arts influence their work, but when I talk to them about it and look for evidence, and try to understand how that influence actually happens, it almost always reduces to the scientists feeling warm and fuzzy feelings for engaging with the arts." Click HERE for the full article

 

Printmaking Pop-UP

Join Juniper Harrower, OpenLab affiliate researcher for a pop-up printmaking event focused on Border  Biodiversity, Thursday April 11, 2019, 5-7pm. The project seeks to educate and engage participants in a social and environmental critique of current U.S. border policy. Everyone is invited to come silkscreen science illustration-inspired images of borderlands animals whose necessary patterns of natural migrations would be damaged and disrupted by the proposed U.S./Mexico border wall. 

Follow the Flush, Saturday May 5, 2018 9:30 AM – 3:00 PM

OpenLab is proud to help sponsor “Follow the Flush” is a free participatory 5K walk following the path of wastewater through interesting landscapes that are hybrids of urban infrastructure and natural features. Interactive art installations and educational displays along the way offer a fun way for people to learn more about what happens after we flush the toilet, and to engage in some potty humor as a playful way into more serious conversations about waste, sanitation, sustainability, and resilience. The walk ends at the wastewater treatment facility, where tours of the facility and will celebrate the work that goes into maintaining this critical infrastructure, including the role that microorganisms play in processing human waste and making us who we are.

Click HERE for more information.

The cymatic water tank visualizer takes any sound or data in the form of sound files, and plays them through deep bass “Buttkicker” speakers to vibrate a tank full of water. Different frequencies excite different modes of vibration of the tank and cause different kinds of patterns in the water.

Higher frequencies make a delicate, wispy, spider-web-like pattern on the surface of the water, while lower frequencies make the water jump as the sound
creates standing waves. See movie moment. This instructable shows the steps we went through to build the tank, the frame, and the electronics to run the visualizer. This project is part of the work of the University of California, Santa Cruz OpenLab, DANM, designed and constructed by Sean PaceZach Corse, and David Harris.

The second L.A.S.T. festival - San Francisco, California

This exhibition will feature a group of art installations, curated by Lily Alexander, that break the "Do not touch!" taboo of the traditional museum and that are meant to let you experience something you never experienced before. OpenLab: BioSensing Garden by Joel Horne, Sean McGowen, Richard Vallejos, and Ian  Ayyad will be on at the exhibit

Read More: http://lastfestival.com

OpenLab 3D Workshop

3D Workshop  Learn how to output vector & 3D object on different media. Friday, 2-4pm, Feb. 16, 2018. UCSC Art Dept. HiVE rm A101

Student Tutorial in the HiVE with J Gaston.

Learn Alternatives to Adobe PhotoShop and Illustrator using FREE software

When: Friday January 19, 2 - 4pm, Location
Where: The Art Dept. Hive, A101 (across from the wood shop)

Bring your own laptop with the following programs pre-installed:  

 

Click here for more information

OpenLab partners with the CIED to establish IDEA Hub

The IDEA Hub is a campus-wide initiative for students, created to spread social and creative entrepreneurship at UCSC, Led by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIED), . A network of incubation facilities, fellowships, seminars, workshops, and mentorships provide students space to critically think about the challenges facing society and propose pathways for meaningful intervention.

Click here for more information

 

WRIT LARGE at UCSC

 

Featuring 10 UCSC artists each using an English phrase to query a corpus & presenting the results. A cross-disciplinary event representing Creative Writing, Digital Arts & New Media, Film & Digital Media, Computer Science, and Linguistics students. The event will start with a reception and presentation of artist works at 6pm, followed by an informal panel discussion at 7, offering an opportunity to see the processes behind various works. Writ Large at UCSC is made possible with support from the Porter Hitchcock Poetry Fund, OpenLab, and Digital Arts & New Media.

Click here for more information

Fort Mason Center, San Francisco

OpenLab with Digital Arts and New Media students will have their work to the Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture, March 24-26. Including Sean Pace's CRAWLER hosting a game by Ben Spalding, and the Water Tank in its latest iteration by David Harris and Zach Corse, and Sean Pace.

More information HERE

California Academy of Sciences, NIGHT LIFE Live, San Francisco, CA

OpenLab's cymatic water tank visualizer at California Academy of Sciences Night Life! 

Thursday, September 10, 2015 – 6-7:45pm

Details: Here

OpenLab sponsors TRANSFLUX @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Transflux, an interactive exhibition where the artists transform the Front Door Gallery into a living, breathing organism and symbiotic ecosystem. Developed by OpenLab affiliated artists Gene A. Felice II, Nathaniel Ober, and eve Warnock with coordinating artist Kate Spacek transform the Front Door Gallery into a living, breathing organism and symbiotic ecosystem. Through the exploration of the interconnectedness of our inner and outer world, the artists demonstrate the patterns and forms within life that shape who we are and where we come from. Read more....

OpenLab: BioSensing Garden at ZERO1 for the L.A.S.T. Festival

 BioSensing Garden is a sculptural garden and water-droplet fountain that visualizes data from a Fitbit, (an exercise tracking device). The fountain is made from a re-purposed printer that drips water onto a pane of tilted glass. The droplets are timed and placed precisely so that they create visualize the data from the fitbit as they fall. Imagery will be projected onto the droplet patterns as they fall onto a garden below. The data droplets are the sole source of water for the plants and so their health is a direct reflection of the amount of exercise from the participant. OpenLab Team: Sean McGowen, Ian Ayyad, Richard Vallejos, and Joel Horne

Read more about L.A.S.T. FESTIVAL ZERO1

UCSC receives NEA grant for Associate Professor Jennifer Parker's Art/Science project on ocean ecology. 

UC Santa Cruz has been awarded a $45,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to supportBlue Trail: Imagination and Innovation for Ocean Sustainability--a series of interactive visual and sonic art installations that will be spread out across the San Francisco waterfront. http://news.ucsc.edu/2014/04/art-ocean-grant.html

Justice in the More-than-Human World: Fostering Care and Affinity in Emergent Collaborations Co-Sponsors: UCSC OpenLab, Digital Arts and New Media, SJRC, UCIRA

This multi-day event series includes presentations and conversation from visiting artists; Amy Youngs ,Ohio State University and professors emeritus Helen & Newton Harrison  and Oron Catts from Symbiotica.  Wednesday Feb. 26th at 4pm. Thursday Feb. 27th noon to 2pm. Friday the 28th at 4pm up in UCSC Engineering 2 room 599.

 more info click here
 

The Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) is a national program of evening gatherings that bring artists, scientists, and scholars together for informal presentations and conversations.

The goal of the series is to feature compelling new developments in the arts and sciences, and--in the words of series founder Piero Scaruffi--"to mix audiences that would not normally be found at the same event."  Read more

OpenLab at Sketching in Hardware 2013 Conference July 19-21, 2013

Our digital design tools help us think of things we would never have considered, before the tool gave us the ability to think of them (as per the ideas of distributed cognition). As these tools move into the cloud, these thoughts become increasingly social and the tools create a shared understanding of what’s being designed, an understanding simultaneously shaped by the capabilities of the tools and the knowledge and skills of the people using them. More info....

Founding Director, Jennifer Parker to present OpenLab at Balance-Unbalance 2013. An International Conference designed to use art as a catalyst to explore intersections between nature, science, technology and society as we move into an era of both unprecedented ecological threats and transdisciplinary possibilities. Hosted in the UNESCO Noosa Biosphere Reserve on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. The 2013 conference theme, Future Nature, Future Culture[s] is aimed to provoke discourse around what our elusive future might hold and how transdisciplinary thought and action could be used as tools for positive change.   More Info....

OpenLab Workshop with visiting artist Joel Dittrich: Audio & Visual Installation, VJ & Projection Mapping

UCSC Baskin Arts D101, WednesdayApril 10, 2013 - 2:00pm - 4:00pm   Free and Open to the Public!Students, come to a workshop with visiting artist Joel Dittrich.  The workshop will cover audio and visual installation, and vj and projection mapping. http://www.joeldittrich.se

 
OpenLab Director, Jennifer Parker talks Art +& Science ART News article "Under the Microscope: In Museums, schools, and research facilities scientists and artists are swapping methods to illuminate natural phenomena and solve global problems" March 2013 by Suzanne Muchnic

When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology celebrated its 150th birthday two years ago, a group of professors organized a Festival of Art, Science & Technology. The bonanza of installations, concerts, kinetic illuminations, and new-media explorations “turned the campus upside down”, says Evan Ziporyn, a composer and clarinetist who has been on the faculty for 20 years. Read more….

Leonardo Art/Science Evening a Stanford University Jennifer Parker (UC Santa Cruz Associate Professor and OpenLab co-founder) on "Down to earth: Art, Astronomy and Physics" Highlighting new works created by artists and scientists from the UCSC OpenLab Network... Read more...

OpenLab to present new works at MEDIATE SOUNDWAVE (5): SonicPLACE Exhibition 
Sound Installations + Exhibits Opening Night, Event hosted by California Academy of Sciences and Exhibition by UC Santa Cruz’s OpenLab/Mechatronics Group at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco, CA. July 5, 2012  More Info   &  July 13, 2012 - Sept 28, 2012  More info...

UCiRA + OpenLab Sponsored Workshop: Dynamic Mechatronics for Artists with Sudhu Tewari, July 9-12, 2012 Location: Digital Arts Research Center: OpenLab RM 214. A workshop designed to give artists a basic understanding of electronics and mechanics for augmenting their artwork, We will transform static artwork into active pieces allowing for interactive functionality. More Info....

Contact Microphone Building workshop with OpenLab at the Exploratorium

With Sudhu Tewari OpenLab affiliated artist and founder of AUX, at the Exploratorium Saturday, Apr 21, 2012 10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.  Do you ever wonder if there are sounds you can’t hear? Well, there are! Some sounds are too quiet to be picked up by human ears and so go unnoticed. Sudhu Tewari wants to share these sounds with you. Read more...

OpenLab and UCSC Baskin Visual Arts Offer Experimental Game Design Class

Spring Quarter 2012. There is so much more to games than what you play on your Xbox or Facebook!  We will look at game design as an art practice, engaging with the works of the New Games movement, Fluxus artists, the Big Games movement and makers of socially conscious board and card games. Read More...

OpenLab Maker Workshops, August 3, 4, 5, and 9, 2011, 1-4PM

You are invited to join the OpenLab Summer Makers Workshops in Metal, Woodworking, Casting and Prototyping Labs at the Arts Division at UCSC. These workshops are designed for everyone regardless of skill level. The Makers Workshop is perfect for inventors, makers, tinkerers, artists, students, scientists, and entrepreneurs.   read more...

 

OpenLab with SonicSENSE presents: TRANSMUTATIONS: Sound, Data, and Mechanics at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts

March 26-May 13, 2011. By taking data out of archives, pie charts and graphs and giving it a physical form through sculptural, audio and visual means, we aim to build a compelling experience synthesizing scientific research with new media as a method of engaging community participation. We believe in the concept of learning by doing, that material exploration is an important part of the understanding process and that explaining through tangible tools, where people can actually touch, explore and play with information, is essential to collaborative communication and visual thinking.

Graduate students in the UCSC Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) program, UCSC Arts + Physics Research Lab and OpenLab worked collaboratively with SonicSENSE to develop and create the design, content, and conceptual framework of the interactive art exhibition. Read more..

OpenLab to present: Critical Play, Mary Flanagan – Art, Games & History, Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - 2:00pm. Dark Lab (Rm. 108) - Digital Arts Research Center (UCSC)  Co-sponsored by Computer Science Games and Playable Media. Free and open to the public.  More Info...

Leonardo Art/Science Evening, at USF, November 7, 2011 6:30-9:30PM

Jennifer Parker (UC Santa Cruz Associate Professor and OpenLab co-founder) on "Down to earth: Art, Astronomy and Physics" Highlighting new works created by artists and scientists from the UCSC OpenLab Network... Read more...

March 28, 2012
OpenLab has helped to launch a new exciting on-line tool for art, science, tech, and education at the ZERO1 Biennial:Seeking Silicon Valley. Please visit the website and Read more...  ART + SPACE = ArtHERE.org

OpenLab residents John Matthias + Nick Ryan  to present THE SOUND OF SMALL BRAIN CIRCUITS: THE NEUROGRANULAR SAMPLER, PLASTICITY AND CORTICAL SONGS, Public Presentation: Wednesday May 23, 1-2:30pm UCSC Art Department room D101Read More...

OpenLab to present two projects at the ZERO1 Biennial 2012 HydroSONIC and ArtHERE

September 12 – December 8, 2012 SEEKING SILICON VALLEY: THE 2012 ZERO1 BIENNIAL
Opening weekend: September 12-16, 2012Under the theme Seeking Silicon Valley, the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial will feature work by a diverse group of local, national, and international contemporary artists whose work will transform Silicon Valley into an epicenter for innovative art production and public experience. Read More....
 

"DNA INTERTWINED" by José Carlos Espinel, at UCSC Genomics Institute

SHARING DNA: HUMAN, CAT, COW, SLUG, FRUIT FLY AND TREE

A collection of paintings and sculptures created in collaboration with the Genomics Institute during an Art Residency at UCSC OpenLab in summer 2023.

The artist translated DNA profiles into a visual language, using stripes that represent the 20 proteins found in human, cat, cow, slug, fruit fly, and tree genomes. What sets this collection apart is the artist's approach to color selection—a method that draws a connection between the four nucleotides and the blending of primary colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and white.

Click HERE to learn more about the collection and the artist

MIKROS: UN MUNDO OCULTO

MIKROS is the most recent exhibition of The Algae Society: Bio Art & Design Lab in collaboration with the Sustainability, Science & Art group of the Complutense University (SCIART-UCM) and the OpenLab. While the telescope brings us closer to what is far away, the microscope brings us closer to what is at home here on earth. MIKROS invites viewers to enter a hidden world of drifting algae as an immersive art & science experience at the Madrid Planetarium in Spain.

Click here to read more

OpenLab Art/Sci in Residence

Annette S. Lee is an astrophysicist, artist and the Director of the Native Skywatchers research and programming initiative. She has over three decades of experience in education as a teacher, university instructor, teacher educator, program administrator, professional visual artist, and researcher.

Designed by Lee (2007), the Native Skywatchers initiative seeks to remember and revitalize indigenous star and earth knowledge. The overarching goal of Native Skywatchers is to communicate the knowledge that indigenous people traditionally practiced a sustainable way of living and sustainable engineering through a living and participatory relationship with the above and below, sky and earth. We aim to improve current inequities in education for native young people, to inspire increased cultural pride, and promote community wellness. We hope to inspire all people to have a rekindling or deepening sense of awe and personal relationship to the cosmos.

More about Annette S. Lee

 

Madison McCartha, OpenLab Graduate Student Research Fellow at The Poetic Research Bureau in Los AngelesC BioDesign Challenge winners Saul Villegas & Silvana Moiceanu

MADISON MCCARTHA is a poet, critic, and multimedia artist. FREAKOPHONE WORLD (Inside the Castle, 2021) is their debut book of poetry and visual art. Their second book, THE CRYPTODRONE SEQUENCE, is forthcoming from Black Ocean. McCartha holds an MFA from the University of Notre Dame and is a PhD student at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The Poetic Research Bureau is a valise fiction and portable literary service in the public domain. It is a founding and resident member of 2220 Arts + Archives on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles.

All lectures are free and open to the public with student participation strongly encouraged.

Readings are supported by a Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts 2021 Organizational Support Grant.
Online event: Register here

What Makes Us Human: An Art and Genomics Convergence

November 12, 2020 Webinar Event and Opening

The unfolding pandemic has triggered an existential reckoning over our conceptions of place and human encounter. Twenty years after UC Santa Cruz posted the assembled human genome to the internet, we find ourselves redefining and expanding genomics while masked and socially distanced. Simultaneously, the uprisings for Black lives and all silenced and underrepresented identities have brought visibility, urgency and profound pause.

What Makes Us Human takes the doors off the traditional gallery, imagining a space which transcends those walls. Visitors will see connections between diverse academic disciplines from unique and collaborative lenses of the arts, sciences, and humanities.

Art-Science Residency Program

The goal of the Norris Center Art-Science Residency program is to fund and support creative communication opportunities for science research, and student artist professional development.

The next round of applications for Art-Science Residents is open now. Application instructions are here for both artists and scientists, and are due January 14th 2020.

See review here

Algae Society Bio Art Design Lab

OpenLab's newest initiative: The Algae Society Bio Art Design Lab  opens at the MOXI Wolf Museum of Innovation + Exploration in Santa Barbara California. April 26, 2019. The Algae Society is a global collective of interdisciplinary researchers working together to establish a new community with algae, as a non-human international research partner to spark and ignite new research & communication approaches across the globe that transcend disciplines to invite deeper more compassionate connections for living organisms like algae.
Fusion opens at the R. Blitzer Gallery on March 1 and features the results of 17 collaborations between visual artists and physicists. A couple of weeks after the show’s opening reception, both types of participants will share what they learned from each other in a panel discussion.

The show is the brainchild of UC Santa Cruz physicist Stephanie Bailey, who has attempted to blend lessons from the humanities into her teaching of physics. Bailey’s idea was to pair up a roster of Santa Cruz County artists with grad students and faculty in the physics department at UCSC. Like Jane Austen’s Emma, Bailey played matchmaker, looking for complementary interests between artists and physicists. Her own pairing put her with mosaic artist Beth Purcell. Together, Bailey and Purcell built mosaics on musical instruments to illustrate standing waves, the vibrational waveform often created in music.  Read more here.

OpenLab at CCA Conference in NYC 2019

Join OpenLab founding Director Jennifer Parker at the College Arts Association annual conference in New York on the The Role and Impacts of the Arts in Research Universities: Learning from Interdisciplinary Teams - where Professor Parker will discuss OpenLab Collaborative Research Center: ten years of interdisciplinary practice. Wednesday, February 13, 2019, New York Hilton Midtown - 2nd Floor - Gramercy West. See conference link here

Professor Parker to present Case Studies and Conceptual Model for Navigating Art-Science Collaboration

This model is meant to be a generic description of the barriers and bridges to: connect with collaborators, participate in successful collaborations, and to create meaningful science inspired art works. We provide a conceptual model for successful collaborations between artists and scientists, including suggestions on how to connect and collaborate with potential partners, as well as ideas for successful art/science creations. Through a set of case studies in art/science research, we illustrate the promises and the pitfalls to working across these disciplines and make suggestions for successful approaches to this interdisciplinary work. Click here to learn more about the conference and the panel discussion.

 

Juniper Harrower, to present "Species Loss: Exploring Opportunities with Art–Science" at ESA2018

Juniper Harrower, PhD candidate in Environmental Studies and OpenLab Fellow, has been working with OpenLab since 2015 developing collaborative projects exploring the effects of climate change on Joshua Trees. The culmination of these works will be presented with a paper at the Ecological Society of America conference in New Orleans (August 2018)

Click HERE for more information on the conference

IDEA Hub 2018 Fellowship Funds, May 18th is the deadline

The IDEA Hub is now accepting applications for 2018 Fellowship funds. Open to graduates, undergraduates, and graduating seniors. May 18th is the deadline to apply for financial support to move your project past the proof-of-concept stage and seed your enterprise ideas.

Click HERE for more information.

Black on Black-ness

INTERVAL is partnering with The Black Aesthetic (TBA) on an event titled “Black on Black-ness” that seeks to think through the contemporary proliferation of various black signs whose aesthetic and commercial ownership holds a slippery relation to black people. TBA will screen and lead a workshop on Coonskin (1975) and Tangerine (2015)—films that provide ways of speaking about controversy, black aesthetics and questions of authorship.

The Black Aesthetic is an Oakland-based creative organization—recently featured in the East Bay Express—whose mission is to curate and assemble both a collective and distinct understanding of Black visual culture. Through film screenings, publications, and product development, TBA is exploring the question, "What is the Black aesthetic sensibility and what does it look like to you?”

This event is organized by INTERVAL and hosted by OpenLab with support from Film & Digital MediaHistory of Consciousness, and the Art Department at UCSC. INTERVAL is a space dedicated to interdisciplinary play and experimentation in art and scholarship.

Refreshments provided.

Space is limited. Please RSVP to an.intrvl@gmail.com to receive precirculated readings.

The Norris Center for Natural History is soliciting proposals from scientific researchers (faculty, post-docs or graduate students) to work with a student artist who will create art inspired by the scientific research. The goal of the program is to fund and support creative communication opportunities for science research and student artist professional development.

Click here for more information

OpenLab Welcomes the Crochet Coral Reef

The Crochet Coral Reef project, by Margaret and Christine Wertheim and the Institute For Figuring, responds to the environmental crisis of global warming and the escalating problem of oceanic plastic trash.

Click here for more information

Black (W)hole

Black (W)hole, an interactive exhibition experience. The visitor becomes immersed in a field of stars accompanied by the visual and auditory re-creation of a black hole and the abstract equations that describe it.

OpenLab Bio-Sensing Workshop with UCSC & University of Sussex 

Led by David Harris http://danm.ucsc.edu/people/students/david-harris and Emile Devereaux http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/335881 with support from Kate O’Reardon, Jennifer Parker and UCSC OpenLabLocation: Digital Arts Research Center, January 27-28, 9am-5pm – by invitation Rm 108 (UCSC) More info about the Exchange with Sussex and the Workshop HERE

OpenLab at Bay Area Maker Faire 2015, San Mateo, CA

May 16-17, 2015 – Sat: 10am- 8pm Sun. 10am-6pm. Maker Faire is a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement.

OpenLab: Blue Trail Receives Grant from Alliance Data and Epsilon

OpenLab: Blue Trail was recently awarded $10,000 from Alliance Data and its Epsilon business to help further the innovation and construction of 10 interactive art-design-tech installations that will be spread out across San Francisco’s waterfront during 2015.

Read More: http://openlabresearch.com/archives/3431

OpenLab ArtCrawler at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire in Oakland

UCSC_OpenLab-EastBay_Mini Maker Faire. Read here for more info: http://openlabresearch.com/archives/3367

Bay Area Maker Faire 2014, San Mateo, CA

May 17-18, 2014 - Sat: 10am- 8pm Sun. 10am-6pm

Maker Faire is a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement.

OpenLab presents BLOOM: Ocean + Art + Science

April 19. 2014 6-11pm Lighthouse Point
Ocean / water / wildlife / ecology advocacy groups that would like to participate in our event at Lighthouse Point on April 19th!With the UCSC Art Department, the Digital Art & New Media program, the Openlab collaborative research group and the city of Santa Cruz, artists & scientists will join together to create a series of events focused on local water issues
Click HERE for more details!
 

LASER (Leonardo Art/ Science Evening Rendezvous)

Exploring the Frontiers of Knowledge and Imagination, Fostering Interdisciplinary Networking. Tuesday, February 25 DARC

Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous (LASERS) are a national program of evening gathering that bring artists, scientists, and scholars together for informal presentations and conversations. At UCSC's inaugural LASER, speakers will lay the foundation for the series by speaking about the intertwining of art and science. Questions like "why art and science" and "why now" will provide context for the series as a local forum for presenting art and science projects underway throughout the University of California, in the Bay Area, and beyond.

more info click here

October 9, 2013 6:30-9:00PM

Jennifer Parker (UC Santa Cruz) on "Publishing in Public: Breaking Down Academic Silos to Create Trans-Disciplinary Research" Highlighting new works created by artists and scientists from the UCSC OpenLab. Read more

Openlab in conversation with Owen Driggs: Can Artists Heal Nature? at ZERO1 Garage in San Jose, June 28, 2013 6pm

As human actions impact the natural environment, can artists heal nature? Does art bring “special powers” to the table? If so, what are they? What is ‘art’? What is ‘nature’? What needs healing? What arrogance!

Presented by ZERO1 and the Lucas Artist Residency at Montalvo Arts Center, this conversation is organized by Lucas Artist Fellows Owen Driggs in association with their project Mapping Biointimacy, developed for COME HEALING, Montalvo’s 2013 Art on the Grounds exhibition. OpenLab Founding Director Jennifer Parker and OpenLab affiliate artist Gene Felice to join the conversation June 28th at 6pm. Read More...

Openlab at the Bay Area Maker Faire 2013, San Mateo, CA, May 18-19, 2013 - Sat: 10am- 8pm Sun. 10am-6pm

Maker Faire is a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement. READ More...

OpenLab Let's Talk App Launched created in collaboration with the THRIVE Infant-Family Program and OpenLab Artists: Jack O’Neill and Amy Boewer of GirlBoy Media with Associate Professor Jennifer Parker. Thrive Infant Family Program has been awarded grants from the American Psychoanalytic Foundation through the American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytic Association for our Let’s Talk Smart Phone App for parents while their infants are in the NICU. THRIVE has an affiliation agreement with the New Center for Psychoanalysis.

OpenLab Blue Trail Design Jam Competition @ Adaptive Path. Imagination + Innovation for Ocean Sustainability
October 27 10am - 5:30pm.

Join us for a day of art-design-science-tech collaboration to generate concepts for Blue Trail. Blue Trail is a trail of Ten (10) commissioned interactive installations that will take place along the San Francisco waterfront during the final races of the America's Cup sailing challenge in September 2013. Blue Trail is a non-profit initiative developed by 7Story in collaboration with UC Santa Cruz’s OpenLab and the UN Safe Planet Campaign. Blue Trail is a member of the Intersection for the Arts Incubator Program. Read more....

OpenLab at Stanford Multidisciplinary Multimedia Meeting of Arts, Science and Humanities, Oct 18 2012

Panel: Chris McKay (Chief scientist at NASA Ames), Anne Fougeron (Award-winning architect), George Legrady (Director of the Experimental Visualization Lab in the Media Arts & Technology at UC Santa Barbara). Read More.....

Associate Professor Jennifer Parker will give a talk on OpenLab at ISEA International 2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wildernes, New Mexico September 19-24. Read More

OpenLab at OPEN STUDIOS: DANM Mechatronics + OpenLab

Location: Digital Arts Research Center, OpenLab rm#214 June 8, 12-4pm  More Info...

iPhone Kepler App RELEASED: MAR 27, 2012 By OpenLab   {Available for Free at  iTunes}
Kepler Explorer is an exciting new application for the iPad and iPhone, allowing anyone to gain a better understanding of the faraway planetary systems found by NASA's Kepler Mission. Read More...

San Francisco Museum of Art, JANUARY 15 - AUGUST 12, 2012. Sudhu Tewari (OpenLab member and Founder of  Aux) has a new game at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Visitors can view game in the Koret Visitor Education Center, and pick up instructions for prototype games to be played in the museum's galleries and other public spaces. Read more...

OpenLab at The Tech Museum After Hours: Cosmos Under the Cosmos, Wednesday November 2, 2011, 6pm-11pm

Come and celebrate OpenLab Art + Astrophysics projects and with Co-Founder Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz presentation of Cosmic Dynamics at After Hours, the new monthly themed event at the Tech Museum in San Jose where adults only can enjoy science, technology, entertainment and cocktails together with their friends. Read more...

OpenLab Astronomer Jonathan Forntey contributes to confirm first planet orbiting two stars

A world with multiple suns is a common trope in science fiction, as in the iconic double sunset in Star Wars. Scientific reality has now caught up, with a report from NASA’s Kepler mission of the first unambiguous detection of a planet orbiting two stars. More...

OpenLab @ Bay Area Science Festival, November 6, 2011, 11-4PM

AT&T Park will become a science wonderland when the Bay Area Science concludes with this FREE science extravaganza on Sunday November 6th. The event showcases the intrigue and pure fun of science with a non-stop program of interactive exhibits, experiments, games, and shows, all meant to entertain and inspire. Over 170 exhibits will overwhelm AT&T Park – are you ready to unleash your inner scientist? Read more...

 

OpenLab Art + Astrophysics Exhibition at UCSC Digital Arts Research Center, September 17- October 28, 2011

The exhibition features four exhibits of astrophysical phenomena including Black Hole/Star Bowling Game; a Kepler App for iPad/iPhone; a 3D Zoetrope of Moon-Splat; and an interactive sculpture of Spectral Shifts in the Milky Way. More information can be found in the Exhibition Catalog...

OpenLab 2011 Summer Kick-off Event at the Media Theater UCSC, July 12, 14, 15, 21, 2011

Visualization presentations by Alex Pang, Nic Brumell, Joel Primack and technical workshops by Nic Brumell, Uliana Popov, Ralf Kaehler and Hank Childs. All are welcome to attend. Read more...