ABOUT
Fusing the Energies of San Diego Arts & Sciences to promote understanding and new ways to view the world.
San Diego Visual Arts Network is gathering information and making 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.
Mission: In‐depth team explorations of a concept which fuses the energies of both art and science communities and researches and showcases the creative process.
Keith Tyson: “If you attempt to marry and equate art with science, then you fail. If you allow what is not similar about art and science, and their different methods and processes, to co‐exist and thrive, then a real art/science collaboration and aesthetic will emerge. But at the end of the day, art and science are united by one logic and one impulse—both are attempts to understand what it is to be human and the world around us.”
From Blank page to Eureka moment to Implementation these projects should include demonstrations of implications and show how results could be leveraged. We hope to create a bond between the Artistic and the Scientific Communities by producing collaborative events, lesson plans and by cross promoting activities that reflect our mission.
San Diego Visual Arts Network is sponsoring a project to encourage independent cross‐disciplinary research between the arts and the sciences. Participants are welcome from areas such as art history, music, cinema and media studies, theater and performance, creative writing, or of course, visual arts and are asked to pair up with participants from astronomy, astrophysics, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, geophysical sciences, math, physics, statistics and/or other scientific fields for joint creative projects. Each team may consist of five or more with a balance of arts and sciences, who work together over the course of 18 months to investigate a subject from the perspectives offered by their disciplines. Teams must be San Diego based but members can be world wide. Projects will be conducted between April 2012–April 2013, with a public presentations scheduled as dictated by the scope of the project through 2013. The projects may take the form of art works, publishable papers, photographs, film, music score, performance, theater piece, or documented research experiment, etc.
The objective of this project is to identify and encourage innovative interactions between the sciences and the arts. Proposals were evaluated on the basis of a number of criteria, including cross‐disciplinary innovation and scholarly risk‐taking. Grants were awarded to successful proposals to cover costs for materials, use of media labs, computation facilities, and in some cases machine‐shop or studio production time, as well as costs associated with the design, implementation, literary and video documentation, specific joint research travel, publication and/or presentation of the project.
Goals and objectives of DNA of Creativity Project
• Make the complexities of art and science accessible
• Showcase the aesthetics of both the arts and the sciences
• Enhance the viewing public’s perception of creativity and its role in our lives as thriving, positive, empowered and fun
• Explain the creative process ‐ expansion of ideas / problem solving should be highlighted
• Enlarge the audience for both arts and sciences and help teams to expose their ideas to a wide audience
• Mentor teams in communication, team building, conflict resolution, reaching consensus and meeting protocols
• Re‐enforce the idea of San Diego as an Art and Science destination through a public relation campaign
• Encourage appreciation of excellence in the fields of art and science
• Create additional awareness for all supporting organizations
• Invigorate students of all ages to support the arts and sciences either as participants or beneficiaries
Benefits to Team Participants:
• Opportunities for social contribution and community enrichment
• Networking opportunities
• Building new audiences
• Cross pollination for artists and scientists
• Improved problem solving, thinking, technical, and team building skills
• Attaining new levels of performance in chosen fields
• Possible leveraging opportunities
• Creation of evidence for supporting funding
• Fun and excitement of sharing the Eureka moment
Benefits to Corporate Participants
• Cutting remedial cost of education in the smart skills that the arts usually provide
• Delineating how those smart skills help the bottom line
• Helping personnel to be able to multi‐task
• Re‐configuring teams to adapt to the new speed to market demands
• Creating a shared language and demystifying innovation to enhance collaboration with the arts community
Team Eligibility Requirements
• Collaborative team members must be prepared to work as a unit
• Each team must have a balance of members from the arts and from a science discipline.
• Each team member must have extensive experience in their chosen field. Exceptions to this are student members
• Each team must agree to a public presentation of the team project
• Each team must be prepared to have their own web presence and the ability to document the team progress
• Each team must be capable of preparing lesson plans based on their project for all age groups i.e. K‐6, 7‐15 and Adult
Team Evaluation Criteria
• 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
• Should be PR friendly and raise awareness about all participants
• Must include for profit corporations, businesses, individuals as well as non‐profit associations
Selection Committee for Grants
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
Time line:
• Information meeting for applicants, Mira Costa Collage, Jan 2012
• Submission of application by March 31, 2012
• Announcement of team by April 30, 2012
• Team results, 2013
Possible demonstrations of results:
• Exhibitions: Museum (OMA)/Galleries, Corporate Lobbies, Art and/or Science institutions, Libraries and Public Buildings,
Schools (Mira Costa College), and Health Care facilities with possible walk through tours, lectures, symposiums
• Team Websites
• PDF online Catalog
• Science Fair: possibly as a component of an existing fair (STEAM)
• Dinners, Concert and Performances, Interactive Installation of all kinds
• Publishable paper, photographs, film, music score, scripts, art works or documented research experiment
SDVAN Criteria for Project possibilities
• Has to be fully MERC – aspects of mentoring, education, recognition and collaboration.
• Should create new audience
• Should be PR friendly and raise awareness about all participants
• Must include for profit corporations, businesses, individuals as well as non‐profit associations
• Should demonstrate community involvement
• Art should stimulate creativity in the sciences and vice versa
• Expansion of ideas / problem solving should be highlighted
• Cross pollination of art and science on the individual and association level should be present
• Lesson plans should be created for a mix of ages and institutions
Reference: Historical Types of Collaborations
Ideally these projects should not be science as art, art using science or art as a communicator of science, but a use of both disciplines equally and collaboratively.
Type I: Artists who collaborate with Scientists on common projects resulting in both the production of art works as well as scientific discoveries. The use of both the scientific process and intuitive creativity possible by both.
Type 1a: Scientists working with Artists to develop technological inventions
Type 1b: Artists working with Scientists to appropriate science for the arts.
Type II: Scientists who apply their scientific research to understanding creative activity in the arts in collaboration with Artists and not just using the artists as “subjects”.
Type III : Scientists or Artists with dual careers both as working scientists and exhibiting artists.Type IV: Artists and Scientists who engage the arts and humanities to improve the ways that the sciences are communicated to the public.
Mentoring available for teams in these areas
• Communication – inner team, to admin of DNA project, to public
• team building – goal setting and alignment for team and individual
• conflict resolution
• reaching consensus
• meeting protocols – time lines, setting agendas, writing minutes, three strikes rule
These sample projects have been suggested in committee brainstorming sessions:
• Sonifying the Digital Solar System
• Mapping Cultural Conscience
• Art Invaders: a game to map aspects of art appreciation
• Super Heroes, the DNA of our future selves.
• Future App: cutting edge educational tool, entirely new field of art, dynamic new communication aid
DNA Administration committee: Patricia Frischer, Aimee Dupuis, Kim Richards, Kaz Maslanka, Darwin Slindee, Corrine Bollendor
Click here to download a pdf version of this information.
