Event 1: LASER Symposium

About two weeks ago I attended that LASER symposium at the CNSI in UCLA. I have not really had the time to sit down and talk about my impressions of it until now.

A picture of me after the LASER symposium finished

The LASER symposium was set up as a series of quick talks between many different individuals who bridge the gap between art and science. One of the speakers was Tamira Elul a professor Touro University in California. Her background is in biology and she focuses on comparing slides of biological tissues to early paintings by abstract expressionist painter Sam Francis. Like Elul, Francis had an initial background in biology before turning to painting. Elul argued that this background greatly influenced Francis’s early works and showed pictures of biological tissues which looked remarkably like Francis’s paintings.

Another presenter at the LASER symposium was Robert Gero who just opened up his exhibit Infinity Structures: Paradoxical Structures. The purpose of his exhibit is to explore the creation of the infinity structures. These paradoxical structures would have internal dimensions that exceed its exterior dimensions. To this end Gero took a very scientific approach to design a room with an “infinite” interior.

The LASER symposium was an interesting look at individuals who take a simultaneously artistic and scientific approach to understand the world.