Photo Credit: Squid Map, Jiabao Li, 2022
LASER Talks UC Davis: The China Shop
Conversations between Artists and Scientists
Chaired by Jiayi Young and Tim Hyde
The China Shop is a new faculty-led initiative that embeds resident artists and designers within scientific laboratories at UC Davis to conduct research. Playing off the idea of “a bull in a china shop,” the two-year endeavor brings together four artist-scientist pairs creating opportunities to engage in transdisciplinary exchanges and a space to ask unconventional and impossible questions. Each residency includes a public conversation where the pair discusses their creative work, system of collaboration, and works in progress. Our 2023 Art-Science Residents are the Cesar and Lois Collective at the Hess Lab with scientist host Matthias Hess, and Jiabao Li at the Center for Mind and Brain with scientist hosts Joy Geng, Petr Janata, Ron Mangun.
This project is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts Art Works grant, directed by professors Tim Hyde (Department of Art and Art History) and Jiayi Young (Department of Design).
EVENT INFORMATION
When: Tuesday, May 30, 4:30pm-6pm PDT. Find your timezone here
Where: Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis.254 Old Davis Rd, Davis, CA 95616
SPEAKERS BIOS
Artist Lucy HG Solomon is working with collaborator Cesar Baio at the Hess Lab. The duo comprises the art collective, Cesar & Lois. Cesar & Lois advance intersections between natural, societal and technological networks. They often work alongside scientists to imagine new futures. Cesar & Lois advances intersections between natural and technological networks, layering living organisms over human knowledge. Their living artworks involve various metabolic processes, including the degeneration of texts and consumption of the substrate of human knowledge. These artworks often incorporate artificial intelligence, which interacts with a living organism in order to contemplate nonhuman views of ecosystems. Cesar & Lois received the 2018 Lumen Prize in AI and were selected for Singapore’s Global Digital Art Prize biennial in 2019 and as artists in residence at Coalesce in 2020. “Allochronic Cycles,” which Cesar & Lois created based on the science of Joanne Chory, exhibited in AI Delivered: Redemption in China from 2021 through 2022. “Mycorrhizal Insurrection,” included in the Mercosul Biennial in 2022, is one in a series of projects that propose non-anthropocentric technologies. Aside from their residency at the Hess Lab, they were selected for the Blackbox residency at the Beall Center for Art + Technology at UC Irvine and also for the Finland-based More-than-Planet residency, based in the boreal forest.
Jiabao Li creates works addressing climate change, interspecies world sharing, humane technology, and a just, sustainable future. Her mediums include wearable, robot, AR/VR, projection, performance, software, and installation. She is a member of NEW INC Creative Science at the New Museum. In Jiabao’s TED Talk, she uncovered how technology mediates the way we perceive reality. Jiabao is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Her lab explores the intersection of art, design, technology, and biology. The interests are broadly spanning from interspecies co-creation to knowledge graph, from Biosensors to menstrual blood proteomes. She is co-founder and chief product officer of Endless Health and previously of Snapi Health. She serves on juries for major design awards such as IDSA, D&AD, Biodesign Challenge, etc. Jiabao is the recipient of numerous awards, including iF Design Award, Forbes China 30 Under 30, Falling Walls, National Endowment for the Arts, STARTS Prize, Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award, Core77, IDSA, A’ Design Award, Webby Award, Cannes World Film Festival Best VR short award. Her work has been exhibited internationally, at Ars Electronica, Today Art Museum Biennale, Anchorage Museum, Currents New Media Gallery, Milan and Dubai Design Week, Shanghai Ming Contemporary Museum, ISEA, OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal, CHI, Donghu Shan Art Museum, MOOD Museum of Design, Alaska State Museum.
SPONSORS:
Co-sponsored by the UC Davis Letters and Science Dean’s Office, the Office of Research, and the Manetti Shrem Museum.
The Leonardo/ISAST 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 LASERs is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building to over 50 cities around the world. To learn more about how our LASER Hosts and to visit a LASER near you please visit our website. @lasertalks.
University of California
254 Old Davis Rd
Davis, CA 95616
United States