DESMA 9: Fantastic Voyage: Crossing the Boundaries of Art, Science + Technology

The conversation between art and science has been a robust one since the mid-twentieth century, generating innovative art works that have mined complex information systems, cybernetics, the phenomenology of perception, and more recently new advances in biotechnology, climate change, and neuroscience. Fantastic Voyage will provide a brief introduction to the art, science, technology nexus over the past 70 years, with an emphasis on more current works, many of which are driven by pressing technological, environmental, and socio-political issues. This lecture will also introduce the Art I Sci Center's new Medicine + Media Arts Fellowship and Initiative, which seeks to bridge the fields of medicine and media art and serve as a hub for the artistic exploration of contemporary medical science and biotechnology.

Patricia Olynyk’s practice investigates the ways in which social systems, institutional structures, and our senses shape an understanding of our place in the world. Known for collaborating across disciplines on projects that explore the mind-brain relationship, theories related to the umwelt, and the phenomenology of perception, her work often interprets scientific objects and archives in various contexts or calls on viewers to expand their awareness of the environments they inhabit. In 2007, Olynyk was appointed inaugural director of the Graduate School of Art and Florence and Frank Bush Professor of Art at Washington University, in St. Louis, where she holds courtesy appointments in Medical Humanities and the School of Medicine’s Center for Humanism and Ethics in Surgical Specialties. In 2020, she was named inaugural Medicine + Media Arts Fellow at UCLA’s Art | Sci Center. She also co-directs the Leonardo/ISAST NY LASER program, which promotes cross-disciplinary exchange between artists, scientists, and humanists. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally at Venice Design 2018, Palazzo Michel in Venice, The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, Galeria Grafica, Tokyo, and the LA International Biennial. Her writing has been featured in publications that include The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture, Leonardo Journal, PUBLIC Journal, and the Angewandte Book Series.

For more details:
https://mailchi.mp/ucla/ucla-lunch-labs-artsci-2551981?e=[UNIQID]

Watch the recording:
https://vimeo.com/539903816