LASER New York Rendezvous Event

Event Info

When: Sunday, March 8, 2026, 3:00 - 6:00PM ET

Where: LevyArts: 40 E 19 Street, #3R NYC

Space is limited, so please RSVP by responding to this email, or at: eklevy.nyc@gmail.com. Please note that late admittance past 3:30PM cannot be accommodated.  

The NY LASER program is a series of lectures and presentations on art, science, and technology-related projects and an affiliate of Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Science and Technology (ISAST). Ellen K. Levy, PhD, artist, writer, and co-editor of the "Science and the Arts since 1750" Routledge, Taylor & Francis book series, and Patricia Olynyk, artist, writer, and Florence and Frank Bush Professor of Art at Washington University co-chair the NY LASER program to foster high-level dialogue on topics of leading interest to a network of artists, scientists, humanists, and scholars. This event will feature presentations by William T. Ayton, Kurt Hentschläger, Rebecca Lazier, and Peter A. Torpey. 

SPEAKERS BIOS

William T. Ayton is a NY-based visual artist integrating traditional and new media as ongoing inquiry and expression of worldviews, virtual world-making, and iterative path for human evolution. His work has been exhibited at the United Nations (NYC & Geneva), Ars Electronica Festival (Linz), Museum on the Seam (Jerusalem), National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Peace Palace (The Hague) and the U.S. Senate Rotunda (DC). Ayton received his Fine Arts Degree in Drawing & Painting at the Edinburgh College of Art, then lived in Madrid, Paris, and Brooklyn, before settling upstate in Rhinebeck, NY. He was Artist-in-Residence at Arizona State University Meteor Studio (2019 - ‘24), and 3D Digital Art lecturer, ASU Herberger Institute for Design & Art (2020 - ‘24). He will speak about his journey from drawing & painting to digital, 3D, XR & AI.

Kurt Hentschläger has developed a unique artistic universe that combines visual, sound, digital, and performative arts. His work is often characterized by striking pictorial power and a multi-sensory experience that invites full immersion, blurring the boundaries between what is real and artificial. His work, among others, has been exhibited at the Venice Biennial, PS1 New York, Musée d'Art Contemporain Montreal, ZKM - Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, National Art Museum of China Beijing, National Museum for Contemporary Art Seoul, MONA - Museum of Old and New Art, and Tasmania & Sharjah Art, UAE.

Rebecca Lazier, a Guggenheim Fellow, is a choreographer known for experimental, interdisciplinary collaboration. Her work brings dance into dialogue with music, visual art, and engineering, treating choreography as a responsive, emergent system shaped through collective inquiry. A Professor of the Practice at Princeton University and member of the faculty group creativeX, she partners with artists and engineers to explore how embodied practice intersects with scientific research. In this talk, she shares the research and iterative process behind NOLI TIMERE, a large-scale aerial performance created with sculptor Janet Echelman. Suspended within a monumental net sculpture, performers navigate gravity, instability, and interdependence, examining how humans adapt within a shifting world.

Peter A. Torpey, PhD combines light, image, music, interactivity, and storytelling. As the founder and principal creative at “The nth,” Art and director of Live and Immersive Arts program at the University of Arizona, he collaborates with theater-makers, orchestras, museums, festivals, educational institutions, and other artists worldwide to create experiences that connect audiences and participants with stories and each other. Today, Peter will highlight PlanetScape, an interdisciplinary collaboration in the form of a multimedia performance and interactive installation about exoplanets and humanity’s journey to find habitable worlds beyond our own. 

SPONSORS:

NY LASERs are a program of international gatherings that bring artists, scientists, humanists, and technologists together for informal presentations, performances, and conversations with the wider public. The mission of the LASER program is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building to over 60 cities around the world. To learn more about LASER Hosts or to visit a LASER near you, please visit our website @lasertalks.