July 3 SEED salon with PHILIP ROSS -- LIFE INDOORS

Tuesday July 3, 7 pm at the Odessa Club, Dame Court, Dublin 2.
Donation: 5 Euro.

Many of the artworks made by Bay Area biological artist PHILIP ROSS are created through the design and construction of controlled environmental spaces.

Juggernaut (pictured) is a self-contained habitat for one living plant. Three blown glass enclosures provide a hydroponic environment; the plant's roots are submerged in nutrient-infused water, while LED lights supply the necessary illumination. In creating it Ross drew on two culturally divergent traditions - Chinese scholar's objects and Victorian glass conservatories, which share the belief that nature is best understood when seen through the lens of human artifice.

In this SEED art-science salon, Philip Ross will present the evolution of his own artwork, which consists of transforming a variety of living species into sculptural artifacts that are at once highly crafted and naturally formed, skillfully manipulated and sloppily organic. Mr. Ross is based in the Bay Area of California, where he teaches courses on art, technology, and philosophy at Stanford University and the California College of the Arts.

June SEED art-science salon: BRIAN SCHWARTZ on Science As Performance

Wednesday June 13, 7 pm at the Odessa Club, Dame Court, Dublin 2.
Donation: 5 Euro.

THEATRE, MUSIC, DANCE, the literary and the visual arts can convey the joys and controversies of science. In this SEED art-science salon, New York-based physicist BRIAN SCHWARTZ will illustrate a program at the CUNY Graduate Center entitled Science & the Arts which is designed to communicate to the public the excitement and wonder of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

BRIAN SCHWARTZ is VP for Research, Professor of Physics, and co-director of the New Media Lab at the Graduate Center of CUNY. In 2000, Dr. Schwartz ran a landmark symposium, Creating Copenhagen, prior to the opening of the play Copenhagen on Broadway. He produces major public programs at the Graduate Center on the interface between science and theater, art, music and dance (link) He operates a National Science Foundation grant entitled Science as Performance: A Proactive Strategy to Communicate and Educate Through Theater, Music and Dance. Another NSF grant is with the Feminist Press focused on developing science related books for women (link). Currently he is co-producing a musical based on the novel “Einstein’s Dreams” by Alan Lightman.

Image: Richard Wiseman in a Faraday cage with a million volt spark