DNA of Creativity Video now available

We are very happy to present this short video about the DNA of Creativity project. 

DNA of Creativity at the Oceanside Museum of Art
Opening reception: Sat. April 12, 6-8 pm EXTENDED until Aug 7, 2014
704 Pier View Way Oceanside, 92054
Free for OMA members, $10
More info Patricia Frischer 760.943.0148: Danielle Susalla 760.435.3721
More info: patricia@sdvisualarts.net 760.943.0148
 
Grant Recipients showing at OMA
SD View Art Now (a smart phone app to locate local arts events near you) Patricia Frischer, Emily Kay, Denise Bonaimo Sarram, Alison Renshaw
Sea Changes: Act (a project featuring  plastic pollution) Michelle Kurtis Cole, Kira Carrillo Corser, Lauren Carrera, Dale Sweetnam, Caitlan B. Whalen, Debb Solan, Marjorie Pezzoli.  
Urban Succession (preserving wildlife in urban settings) Jason Rogalski, Jean Tsau, Dr. David Lipson, Jeremy Gercke, Jonathan Austin
PAMM - PolyAesthetic Mapping: The Muses (ways to think about the collaborations that artists and scientist experience) Kaz Maslanka, Vicki Leon,Microtonal music by Jonathan Glasier, Joe Monzo, Arthur Frick, AntiQuark and poetry by Ted Washington,  Jeffery Haynes, Brianna DelGuidice

Sciene meets art for "Soil Blind" installation

By Alex Zaragoza

Dirt plays a vital role in Barrio Logan sculpture

“Soil Blind” by Jeremy Gercke, Jonathan Austin and David Lipson
Walk into any gallery or museum with a clump of dirt in your hands, and you’ll likely be escorted out of the premises within minutes. Art and dirt don’t mix. That is, unless the dirt is a central part of the art on view.
Such is the case with “Soil Blind,” a sculptural installation at Woodbury School of Architecture in Barrio Logan. Dirt is a fundamental part of the piece, created by artist Jeremy Gercke, landscape architect Jonathan Austin and scientist David Lipson.
The sculpture features more than 100 cone-shaped clay modules hanging from cables suspended from a steel frame. Each unique module is filled with various types of soil and nutrient-rich composts found in gutters throughout Barrio Logan.
The piece is more than visual art, however; it’s also a scientific experiment. With “Soil Blind,” Gercke, Austin and Lipson created an environment ripe for germination and natural activity.
“It’s been an education for me,” Gercke says. “I always wanted to make artwork that isn’t necessarily something to be looked at. It is part of an environment, a site-specific piece that relates to the area.”

The installation was made possible by a grant from DNA of Creativity, through the  organization the San Diego Visual Arts Network that provides funding for projects that merge art and science. The grant went to a project called Urban Succession, which aimed to preserve and provide wildlife habitat in urban areas.
Gercke, Austin and Lipson are friendly with members of Urban Secession, and after a series of talks, the organization decided to get behind “Soil Blind” as a bit of a different part of the project.
“The idea of making a home for raccoons or possums didn’t resonate with us,” Gercke says. “These animals are going to go wherever they want. So we looked at the larger picture and thought about what activates the animals.”
“My compost in my backyard is the most active place in my house,” he adds. “Bugs, birds—they all hang out. We felt they needed environments the most.”
The crew set out to collect soil specimens for their installation. Lipson, a professor of soil biology at San Diego State University, ran tests on the dirt collected. He was surprised when one soil sample came back positive for E. coli.
“It’s part of our hope that this project is fruitful,” Austin says. “It can start a dialogue about these issues, like soil, Barrio Logan and the city in general—how the city is producing soil through unnatural processes.”
Since its installation in mid-February, the piece has been aflutter with activity: Plants are sprouting, spiders are spinning webs and birds often snack on bugs hanging from the sculpture. This is exactly what the team had hoped for.
“Soil Blind” can be viewed from the corner of Sampson and Main streets.

Write to alexz@sdcitybeat.com. You can also bug her on Twitter.

Yeast to Clone Obama

Artist Using Yeast to Clone Obama, Gaga, Jesus: On September 13, artist and "experimental philosopher" Jonathon Keats will have some of the world's most famous people at his exhibition opening at New York's AC Institute — including Lady Gaga, Michael Phelps, and Barack Obama — in the form of yeast-based clones he's developing from cultures based on the celebrities' various diets. "It's a new way of thinking about cloning," Keats said. "Genetics is not the whole story, the breakthrough field is epigenetics." (See the video below for a clip of Keats talking about what it means to be an "experimental philosopher.") [Discover News]

Call for DNA of Creativity promotion videos

If you are an amateur video maker and would like to help us promote the DNA of Creativity Project, please contact us and we will load you video (up to one minute) on the DNA of Creativity Blog.  We are happy to include a link back to your own website in exchange for this support of our non-profit.

The follow is a sample to inspire you. We know you can all so better!

Contact Patricia Frischer patricia@sdvisualarts.net  760 943 0148

Linking Artists and Scientists: Getting Down to the Basics of Creativity

by National Endowment for the Arts on Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 7:52am ·

by Whitney Dail

Image courtesy of San Diego Visual Arts Network

Creativity is a hot topic today. We as a society are fixated with asking, “What is creativity?” How are creative sparks ignited? And can these sparks lead to new ways of looking at the world around us? Well, the San Diego Visual Arts Network (SDVAN) asks: What could happen if artists and scientists partnered to explore its possibilities? SDVAN has organized a cross-disciplinary project that connects the arts with sciences to increase our understanding of creativity and its role in our daily lives. Their project DNA of Creativity brings together artists and scientists in the San Diego area for four different creative endeavors. These artist-scientist teams—with specialists in theater, music, visual arts, design, biology, engineering, mathematics, and physics--have begun collaborating to produce a series of activities, publications, and lesson plans centered on a variety of art/science works. The results of these collaborations will include a smartphone app for locating art events with augmented reality, structural design for preserving urban wildlife, theatrical skits surveying the aesthetics of art and science, and a multimedia exhibition raising awareness for marine conservation. To learn more about DNA of Creativity’s development and culmination, we spoke with Patricia Frischer, SDVAN’s founder and coordinator.

NEA: Patricia, can you tell me about the DNA of Creativity and how the project began?

PATRICIA FRISCHER: SDVAN is always searching for new collaborations and ways to build audience for the visual arts. Our high- and bio-tech industry are real drivers of the San Diego economy and involving science in art projects seemed a logical next step for our organization, which has put on numerous large-scale collaborative projects. The idea of the DNA of Creativity is to actually understand the added value that a project has when matchmaking an artist with a scientist. We could have also called the project the DNA of Innovation; but as we are a visual arts organization, we are comfortable with the word creativity.

Once I started to explore what was out there on the Internet about art and science in 2010, I realized there was definitely room for another project, especially in San Diego. I started gathering information, which eventually was shared on our DNA of Creativity blog. I was then contacted by Harvey Seifter who was putting together the Art of Science Learning conference in Chicago, San Diego, and Washington, DC. He wanted help getting out the word about his conference and--with our 4,000-5,000 unique visitors a month and one million hits a year--we were able to fill a few seats and also document the conference. I met some exciting people and felt confident that we were going in the right direction. We held one large networking gathering to see if there was popular interest with both artists and scientist locally. We used that occasion to discuss various types of collaborations and to start brainstorming possible projects. In no time at all we had more than 150 people interested in the project.

NEA: The mission of the project is described as “in-depth team explorations” to demonstrate the creative processes of overlapping artistic and scientific inquiry. What are some of the goals that have been set?

FRISCHER: Our mission for DNA of Creativity is to make connections between the art and science worlds with a goal of fusing the energies of both communities to produce a series of projects, which will enhance the viewing public’s perception of creativity and its role in our lives. We are a supporter of the idea of changing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) into STEAM by adding the arts. The project is divided into four components. Teams of a minimum of five,with a combination of artists and scientists, choose a theme for their project, which they have approximately 18 months to realize. Then each team must document the process of the collaboration and how creativity/innovation is enhanced by the relationships of the team members. Each team has to create lesson plans based on their project theme and then make a public presentation of their project in whatever format they choose.

Our goals for this project are aligned with the general goals for the SDVAN. We hope to meet the challenge of making the complexities of art and science collaboration accessible to a new and enlarged audience. We want to showcase the aesthetics of both the arts and the sciences and enhance the viewing public’s perception of creativity and its role in our lives as thriving, positive, empowered, and fun. We hope that describing the creative process will encourage appreciation of excellence in the fields of art and science and reinforce the idea of San Diego as an innovation destination. It is important to us to create additional awareness for all the supporting organizations in this field including corporate, non-profit, political, and never forgetting educational. Invigorating students of all ages to support the arts and sciences either as participants or beneficiaries is always a high priority.

NEA: What do you see is the connection between art and science?

FRISCHER: There are numerous similarities between art and science. They both balance direct experience with thinking. They both need skills of design and craft. But the more interesting questions might be--what are the differences between art and science? We think of a scientist questing for those things that are repeatable and can be proven. Artists are often involved in fantasy as well as reality. What we have found is that many of the participants on the teams are both artists and scientist with the majority of those being scientists first and adding an interest in art later in their careers. The connection will certainly be varied and changing depending on the people involved and the theme of the project.

NEA: Where did the name "DNA of Creativity" come from?

FRISCHER: We really want to focus on the scientific components that contribute to the structure of creativity so DNA became our shorthand for that idea. I was actually surprised when none of our projects was focused on formal DNA studies, but maybe we are redefining the word.

NEA: How is DNA of Creativity funded?

FRISCHER: SDVAN is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and we are funded by donations made by those who want us to reach our goals. We received donation for as little as $5. But in order to assure this project could be additionally funded, we received grants from private foundations including the Smart Family Foundation and the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation.

NEA: Four artist-scientist teams have been selected to embark upon investigation with topics such as augmented reality, climate change, wildlife preservation, and aesthetics. How were the teams chosen?

FRISCHER: We were pleased that the selection committee for the grants included prestigious members of the arts and science community: Harvey Seifter, Art of Science Learning Director and Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation grant; Ron Newby, Bronowski Art and Science Forum; and Ruth West, Research Associate, UCSD Research in Computing and the Arts…. This was not a competition but instead a desire to help teams work toward the best possible projects. We asked for help in assessment from the DNA of Creativity administration team in the early stages, looking for the following: extent of cross-disciplinary innovation; degree of scholarly risk-taking, integration of concept explored and form in which it is executed; feasibility for completion within the time frame; relevance to individual team members’ disciplines; ability to create a community involvement component to the project; PR-friendliness to raise awareness about all participants; and inclusion of for-profit corporations, businesses, and individuals as well as non-profit associations.

NEA: Kaz Mazlanka’s team proposed a series of participatory theatrical skits. What other types of artistic media will be explored?

FRISCHER: Jason Rogalski’s team will be constructing architects’ design habitats for wildlife, which will be mixed media constructions, the Batt App team will be looking into augmented reality software, and Kira Corser’s Changing Ocean team is looking at multi-media installation with glass, fabric, dance elements, and video.

NEA: What can we expect to see as outcomes from these art/science collaborations?  

FRISCHER: Because each team has to document the process of collaboration, we are expecting to see a variety of collaborative strategies demonstrated. Ruth West, who has vast experience in this field, helped us to pinpoint what those might be: putting the process of the scientist on view, reconceptualizing science and making it into art, challenging new cultural forms in a reflective use of science, and affecting science by pushing new scientific ideas to be formulated. We are hoping to showcase the added value that is gained when artists and scientists collaborate.

NEA: So far, have there been any challenges?

FRISCHER: Language is always a challenge when you put experts together as they have a developed vocabulary in their practices. Having worked with teams before, we know about the challenges of team collaborations. We have arranged a special workshop on team development, team management, meeting structure, and conflict resolution. As this is not a project that is funded with salaries for the participants, we are aware of time usage issues. That is one reason we wanted quite large teams instead of small teams to share the workload.

NEA: What are the plans for DNA of Creativity’s exhibition and education?

FRISCHER: We put no limit on the media and mediums that are acceptable by the teams. Some of the public presentations will be exhibitions, theatrical presentations, panel discussions, and lectures. The Oceanside Museum of Art has stepped forward and is offering exhibition space as is the Escondido Art Partnership, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries Service, and Mira Costa College. Since collaborations are sought, we are open in the next year to make relationships with anyone interested in the project. We are expecting a minimum of one lesson plan from each of the projects and those will be published and available online for free. Results of the lesson taught by teachers and the project will also be highlighted on the DNA of Creativity website.

NEA: Any additional comments you would like to share?

FRISCHER: As a visual arts activist, one does not take on a project like this without a firm belief in the power of art to enlighten and enhance our lives.

May 31, 2012 DNA of Creativity Meeting notes

Dear DNAers,

I wanted to give you an update about our last meeting on May 31st. It was was attended by 26 enthusiastic and energetic DNAers. Each of the four teams made a small presentation and received their grant.

Batt App (a smart phone app to locate local arts events with an augmented reality component)

Changing Oceans (project featuring  climate change, pollution and dwindling fish populations)

Urban Succession (preserving wild life in urban settings)

PolyAesthetic Mapping (a structure to think about the collaborations that artists and scientist experience). 

Ruth West gave a fascinating talk on art/science collaboration strategies. Darwin Slindee spoke on team formation, responsibilities, meeting formulas and conflict resolution, reminding us that the energy of conflict is better than apathy! Hand out sheets are available on on the DNAofCreativity.org website (About-Educataion) for both presentations. Several people commented that these presentations were very helpful in  many ways. We are intending to mentor the teams through the process of collaboration as much as possible and will stay in close touch with team leaders. 

The video of the meeting will be posted on at the bottom of this page or you can access it right now on this link. http://vimeo.com/43541974

Teams will be adding members and so if you are interested in any of the teams do let us know. patricia@sdvisualarts.net

In our next stages, we are encouraging all the teams to create websites. These will be linked on www.DNAofCreavity.org and you can get updates of events and team progress on that site.

PS. Watch for a small article on the Batt App and DNA of Creativity in City Beat on June 7. We were also contacted by the NEA who are planning to post an interview about DNA of Creativity on their facebook page!

We look forward to hearing from many of you often.

Patricia Frischer

Portable DNA fingerprinting

The BioMEMS lab at Whitehead Institute has developed a device that makes DNA fingerprinting faster, more accurate, and portable. The chip-based device miniaturizes a process called electrophoresis onto a small glass chip. In operation, samples of DNA are injected in microchannels etched onto the chip's surface, and an electrical current separates the DNA molecules based on their size. (Image by Sam Ogden. Used with permission.)

This tidbit was sent to us by Tom Sergott all the way from St. Thomas Island

Treading over old trends

I was cruising though some of my archived articles on art and science when I came across this review called DNART by Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker of Oct 2, 2000. Schjeldahl spoke of a show called PARADISE NOW: Picturing the Genetic Revolution at the Exit Art Gallery in New York.

In this show, most artists took the bits of information about DNA and how it can be manipulated and made conceptual art. "The artworks addressed a number of major issues, including: Race – the implications of genetic research confirming that humans of all races are 99.9 percent genetically the same; Economics – ownership of genes and whether they should be patented and sold to the highest bidder; Reproduction – germ-line gene therapy and how it could be used to design babies and/or improve the health of human beings before they are born; privacy – DNA identification and who has access to the information; Health – how gene therapy and new technologies will be used to prevent and treat disease; Food Safety – risks and benefits of genetically engineered food crops and animals."

But what struck me was the statement by Schjedahl, "Art used to crown civilization. Now it skitters through seams and around corners, eagerly parasitic." He does not doubt that the work is art, but questions if this is the highest possible place for artists to put their energies.

That is why in the DNA of Creativity we are urging artist and scientist to come together at the very beginning of the process of collaboration. Art is not to use science or vice versa, but this should be a mutually interactive process of creativity. Yes, we are setting the bar high and are looking with great anticipation for the results of this multiple effort.

If you have not yet taken the DNA of Creativity survey, please do so soon.

Post by Patricia Frischer, coordinator of SDVAN

Hear the Muse.....er News? Art West Agency Continues the Series: 'Interviews on Creativity'

Hear the Muse....

Meet Fusionglass Co Artists Debbie Solan and Paul Fernandes of La Mesa, CA:

Paul was a professional musician, playing guitar, singing, and writing music in the ‘60s, and in the ‘70s and ‘80s traveled internationally with his wife Kathy as headliners with their group ‘Chakra’. They world-toured with bands such as the Pointer Sisters and The Marvellettes. Irish lassie Debbie Solan was a flight attendant and flies still, only on the cape of her muse. Hear more from this dynamic duo.