The past decades have witnessed increased collaborations between art and science; Yet, there is emerging innovation anxiety: did Silicon Valley create more problems than it solved? This Leonardo/ISAST panel offers a view of new developments involving a close look at the interstices between both disciplines and cultures. Held as a roundtable discussion, this panel considers how specific works in art and science productively intertwine, and in some cases, impact social and environmental issues in desirable ways. This panel also probes the proposed benefits of these interwoven works on a variety of geographical locations and communities. Today’s growing hybrid cultures are by now international, inter-generational networks; we share growing anxiety about 8 billion humans dominating too many ecosystems while launching new technologies, such as AI, without exploring the springs and sinkholes of truths and consequences. There are now more computers than humans, but educational engineering is barely beginning.

Moving away from abstract thinking, history, and theory, this call for proposals to the Leonardo community welcomes artists, historians, scientists, curators, and scholars to discuss case studies and exemplars. These are the nutrients for evolutionary conversations, and fractal and blobby ideas, which can trigger desirable systems emerging from chaos autopoetically. Why do certain organisms, ideas, and organizations alike bloom, while others atrophy or expire?

To be considered for this roundtable interchange at CAA, please email Patricia Olynyk at: olynyk@wustl.edu with a short proposal—200-250 words—by October 15. 2023.