Endless Forms Most Beautiful is a crested cactus garden that embodies both an aesthetic and a medically transformative approach to cancer. The cacti in this garden have mutations in their meristem cells causing uncontrolled growths—which are, by some definitions, cancer. The garden was installed near the new Biodesign Institute C building on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe. Crested cacti and other fasciated plants are examples of organisms that live with cancer but do not die from it.

In their National Endowment for the Arts–funded project the authors sought to provide artists with an innovative method for creative expression using electrolytic etching techniques long used in the electronics and biotech industries. Using scientific methods, the electrolytic etching process was improved and then compared side by side with copper etched in ferric chloride after analysis with an AFM. The optimized electrolytic etching method proved to be superior to classical acid etching in intaglio printmaking.

The authors share an emerging analytical approach to designing and studying STEAM programs that focuses on how programs integrate the respective epistemic practices—the ways in which knowledge is constructed—of science and art. They share the rationale for moving beyond surface features of STEAM programs (e.g. putting textiles and electronics on the same table) to the discipline-specific ways in which participants engage in creative inquiry and production.

Strange-face illusions are apparitional perceptions of deformed faces, unknown people and monstrous beings produced by prolonged staring at one's own face in a mirror or when staring eye to eye at another person in a dyad, at low-level room illumination. In the authors’ experiment, portrait artists drew illusions they perceived during a 10-minute eye-to-eye gazing session while paired in dyads with naive participants. Dissociation was measured through standard self-report questionnaires.

A theoretical physicist and potter, the author presents his practice that fuses these two sides of himself. His art aims to circumvent the regular pitfalls of scientific public engagement, replacing a didactic approach with sensory stimuli from tactile objects, eliciting curiosity for science. The author presents the origins of his practice and focuses on several series of ceramic pots. He explains the design of their form and decoration, exemplifying the interconnections between physics, mathematics and some of his artistic influences.

In this article, the author presents a novel approach to the procedural generation of artwork series based on multiple sequence alignment of orthologous gene copies. In the strategy developed, nucleotides present in a string of DNA (A, G, C, T) were each assigned to an existing artwork. New visual compositions were then created by collaging columns of pixels from each of the existing four artworks according to the arrangement of nucleotides after orthologous genes were aligned.

Crypto art is limited-edition digital art, cryptographically registered with a token on a blockchain. Tokens represent a transparent, auditable origin and provenance for a piece of digital art. Blockchain technology allows tokens to be held and securely traded without the involvement of third parties. Crypto art draws its origins from conceptual art—sharing the immaterial and distributive nature of artworks, the tight blending of artworks with currency and the rejection of conventional art markets and institutions.

This article introduces The Immersive Guitar (TIG) Project, a proposed sonic performance installation that doubles as an intimate acoustic venue. The TIG Project responds to several needs, highlighting relations between place and performance, music and architecture. The needs concern a rarity of suitable, intimate spaces for acoustic performance and an appeal for more creative solutions in the provision of such spaces, which would afford novel ways of accessing performing arts experiences. This article introduces the proposition and provides project background and rationale.

Science is similar to a game, as both involve rules-based participation in search of optimal outcomes. Supported by key texts in history and philosophy of science, the authors propose a game-based model for understanding scientific inquiry and practice, particularly through computational resources. They conclude that this model creates space for more speculative and reflective approaches to scientific practice and can contribute to the design and development of better scientific software, simulation and visualization.