This website documents the activity of the ArtSci Salon, an initiative fostering dialogues between the arts and technoscience.
Started in 2012, the ArtSci Salon (http://www.artscisalon.com) has been offering public discussions, art installations, performances and workshops to facilitate the cross-pollination between science, technology and the arts. ArtSci Salon responds to the recent expansion in the GTA of a community of scientists and interdisciplinary/media artists, increasingly seeking collaborations across different areas of research to initiate and successfully accomplish new projects. With their interdisciplinary mandate, ArtSci Salon is unique in addressing the role of the arts in the context of scientific research and science communication. of note, the ArtSci Salon does not specialize in science communication writ large. In fact, we believe that in order to address important topics of interest to several disciplines, and to examine complex and multifaceted phenomena, we need to transcend their established boundaries and share ideas, research questions and methodologies. This is reflected in our unique approach: we don’t use the arts to only explicate or to promote science, but we ask how art and science collaboration may benefit each other and may foster innovation and problem solving.
Based on the demographic and the interests of our members, the goal of ArtSci Salon is:
1) To provide outreach opportunities for local and international innovative research projects in the Sciences and in the Arts. Our programming is designed to foster the initiation of new art projects at the intersection between the arts, science and technology.
2) To foster critical – and respectful – dialogue on topics and concerns shared by the sciences and the arts.
There are many ways to reach us:
- please subscribe to our newsletter (very low traffic, roughly once a month)
- follow us on Twitter on @ArtSci_Salon
- Like us ! we are on Facebook
- or you can search our photo collection on Flickr
- or on Instagram
- or contact us at artscisalon@gmail.com
Roberta Buiani is a curator, media artist, and co-founder of the ArtSci Salon . She is an assistant professor and coordinator of the NewONE, an interdisciplinary first year experience program at New College, the University of Toronto. Her work balances theoretical and applied research at the intersection of science, technology and creative resistance, and converges on the analysis of techno-scientific ecologies. Her recent research focuses on emerging life forms exceeding the categories defined by traditional methods of classification. The installation Emergent is a postpandemic mobile gallery featuring encounters at the intersection of art and science with new, fabricated, and adapting life. Transition in Progress: Making Space for Place consists of a mobile lab on mobility and migration, mapping natureculture transformations of mobility and migration in Toronto. Her itinerant community project, The Sandbox Project challenged concepts of sustainability in face-to-face and online collaborations, in network and social media configurations. Her book Viral Behaviors will be published by Bloomsbury in August 2024. More information about her artistic and scholarly work can be found at http://www.atomarborea.net
Stephen Morris is co-founder of the ArtSci Salon at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences (University of Toronto, http://artscisalon.com). He is J. Tuzo Wilson Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto. His research involves experiments on emergent patterns in fluids, granular media, ice formations and fracture. He is also interested in natural patterns, and in the history of physics. He has sometimes passed off his scientific images as art. http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~smorris/smorris.html
Nina Czegledy is part of the Governing Board of Leonardo/ISAST and the LASER events co-curator. She is an artist, curator and educator. She collaborates internationally on interdisciplinary projects. She has exhibited and published widely, won awards for her artwork and has initiated, lead and participated in forums and festivals worldwide. The paradigm shifts in the arts as well as the changing perception of the human body, environmental and various social issues inform her projects. http://ninaczegledy.net
Our Advisory Committee
Antje Budde – Director, DDL squared (Digital Dramaturgy) Lab, University of Toronto
Dave Kemp – School of Image Arts, Toronto Metropolitan University
David Steinman and Dolores Steinman – Biomedical Simulation Lab, University of Toronto
Elaine Whittaker – interdisciplinary artist
Eric Boyd – Technologist. Investor. Futurist. Maker
Jennifer Willet – Director, INCUBATOR art lab and a Canada Research Chair in Art, Science and Ecology, University of Windsor
Joel Ong – Computational arts, York University
Mark-David Hosale, Director, nD::StudioLab, Computational Arts, York University
Nina Czegledy, Independent artist and curator
Tim Lo – University of Ottawa
We thank our supporter The Fields Institute for providing a marvelous space and for helping promote our events
we are Part of the Leonardo Network. Special events are promoted as LASER initiatives. The Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) series of lectures and presentations on art, science and technology. Founded in 2008 by LASER Chair Piero Scaruffi on behalf of Leonardo/ISAST, LASERs are now presented at a number of venues: the University of San Francisco, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, a New York Studio, London, Tacoma, Toronto and Montreal. Coming soon: the launch of LASER: Kansas!
This website was possible thanks to a research fund from York University
We also wish to thank Subtle Technologies Festival which helped us promote the series in 2013 and 2014. Special thanks to Jim Ruxton for his ideas and inspiration