Forces to Forms 1 Event Attendance

In today's event, part of a series titled Forces to Forms that partners UCLA with Pratt Manhattan Galery, we explored the creativity of a handful of artists who explored form generation from the micro to the macro level [1]. 

Addressing laws of nature through physical structures and philosophical debate was first examined by Bob Root-Bernstein, a biogeneticist and artist himself, whose work was a tribute to the famous Miller-Urey experiment of recreating primitive Earthly conditions. 

[2] In collaboration with Adam Brown, another researcher at Michigan State, Root-Bernstein's "ReBioGeneSys" (2021) is literally capable of producing living molecules and cells!

Janet Echelman also demonstrated the third culture by portraying how physical systems interact over time. Her work has touched nearly every continent, representing culture and climate through fabric and mist architectures [3], with her current display depicting high waves and hurricane winds among Pacific and European coastal regions. 

The ineffability of quantum mechanics was explored in Paul Thomas' exhibit on quantum chaos through the use of an animation software that transfers data into pixeled representations.

[4] Unfortunatey this is is a still image, so you can't see how quantum chaos is depicted here as transformative spatial data through the use of woven fabric. Such work may influence my decision to pursue a presentation in physics or mathematics, two disciplines that I have fiercely avoided in my coursework yet may attempt to embrace through an artistic medium.

Todd Siler allows forces like energy and magnetism to guide his fractal designs. He neatly summed up the foundational geometrical complexities and long-standing effort to popularize nuclear energy in his presentation [5]. 

Meredith Tromble demonstrated how energy flows through individuals and our connections in dance, similar to the networking of plant life.

[6] "Eating Light" was debuted at the Forces to Forms event. 

Finally, the host, Ellen Levy, closed with an admonishment to not see two different cultures, but to observe each culture embedded within the other. This event neatly captured the theme of Week 1, simultaneously segwaying into Week 2 in which we will explore math, geometry, patterns, and dimensions in both art and nature. This platform gives voice to the complexity of nature where our symbolic language falters, which I believe achieves Dr. Vesna's vision in "Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between" of a subculture of artists using technology and scientific principles to bring art to life, literally [7]. If we were to name the third culture as technologists, an emergent domain of "scientists", I believe that the artists in this event demonstrated the innovation, inspiration, trial-and-error, and, at the same time, carefully guided data sets that characterizes the artistic technologists [8].

[1] Pratt. “From Forces to Forms 1, Series of Artist Talks with UCLA ArtSci Center.” Calendar | Event View, Pratt Institute, https://www.pratt.edu/events/event/17757/.

[2] Brown, Adam W. “ReBioGeneSys – Origins of Life.” Adam W. Brown, 2021, http://adamwbrown.net/projects-2/rebiogenesys-origins-of-life/.

[3] Echelman, Janet. “About.” Janet Echelman, 2022, https://www.echelman.com/about.

[4] Thomas, Paul. “Visiblespace: Art, Science and Culture.” Visiblespace Art Science and Culture, WordPress.com, 2016, http://visiblespace.com/blog/.

[5] Sider, Todd Lael. “13th International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems.” Fractal Reactor: An Alternative Nuclear Fusion System Based on Nature's Geometry, 2007, pp. 239–245.

[6] Tromble, Meredith. “Artist and Writer.” Meredith Tromble, 31 Jan. 2022, https://meredithtromble.net/.

[7] Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, 2001, pp. 121–125., https://doi.org/10.1162/002409401750184672.

[8] Wilson, Stephen. “Information Arts Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology.” The MIT Press, Leonardo, 2022, https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/information-arts.