Science Lush

2014 Science Lovers Gift Guide (with a STEAM twist)

Christmas lights are up, menorah lights are flickering and far too many of us are scrambling for last minute gift ideas. If you've got a science lover on your hands, here are a few suggestions for STEM-related presents with an artsy, S'Lush-style twist. 

 

FOR THE KIDDO: SCIENCE & LIT

Rachel Poliquin over at Science Friday has recommended "Five Books Guaranteed to Make Kids Love Science." I'm betting these inventive picture books will be just as enticing to the parents who purchase them.  

 

• Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, by Dominic Walliman and Ben Newman (Flying Eye Books): "Both modern in its scientific spirit and with a sensibility modeled after the delightful mid-century children’s books from the Golden Age of space exploration, it tickles young readers — as well as their space-enchanted parents — into precisely that “palpable zest to make contact with the cosmos." (Brain Pickings) 
  
  
• Shackleton’s Journey, by William Grill (Flying Eye Books). One of the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of 2014. "This is a book that will appeal to adult art lovers, picture book fans and history buffs (of which, I fall into all three categories), children and adult alike. The book’s large format gives ample space for detailed colored pencil illustrations and the perfect pacing for such a fascinating journey." (The Eric Carle Museum)
  
  
• Animalium (Welcome to the Museum), by Katie Scott and Jenny Broom (Candlewick Press): "Designed to mimic the experience of visiting a natural history museum, this elegant, eye-catching volume explores the animal kingdom through gorgeously detailed pen-and-ink illustrations that resemble vintage taxonomical plates. ... It’s easy to imagine these exquisite images hanging in the gilded hallways of a museum, but unlike a museum, readers can take this experience along with them." (Publisher's Weekly review)
  
  
• Infographics: Human Body, by Peter Grundy and Simon Rogers (Candlewick Press): Complex facts about the human body are reinterpreted as stylish infographics, which astonish, amuse and inform by turn. Researched by the Guardian's Datablog expert and designed by the father of infographics, Peter Grundy. (Amazon description)
  
  
• The Worm, by Elise Gravel (Tundra Books): The second in a series of humorous books about disgusting creatures, The Worm is a look at the earthworm. It covers such topics as the worm's habitats (sometimes they live inside other animals), its anatomy (its muscle tube is slimy and gross), and its illustrious history (worms have been on earth for 120 million years). (Amazon description)
   

DECK THE WALLS: SCIENCE & ILLUSTRATION

Deck the walls with these fun illustrated prints from Rachel Ignotofsky! Her pieces feature whimsical takes on everything from the anatomy of cells to lab equipment. My favorite set is probably her "Women in Science" collection, which currently features Marie Curie, Valentina Tereshkova, Jane Goodall, Patricia Bath and Rosalind Franklin. 

On her site, Ignotofsky says of the collection, "I wanted to celebrate the accomplishments of these women and hope to inspire curiosity in young women to ask questions about the world we live in and be the one who finds out the answers." 

You can find the Women in Science prints here, and browse the rest of her collection through her Etsy shop. 

 

RING IT IN WITH BLING: SCIENCE & DESIGN

Although it hasn't been scientifically proven that jewelry is the way to a woman's heart, a li'l shiny shiny for the holidays is almost guaranteed to bring a sparkle to the eyes of the recipient. 

Love this handmade copper bracelet with etched periodic table from Hardware Designs! Additional design options include circuit boards, as well as an aluminum cuff featuring binary numbers (via PopSugar). 

 
Anatomology's science-inspired jewelry includes earrings and necklaces inspired by DNA, synapsing neurons and the molecular structure of caffeine (seen above).  

 

DRAMATIC GIFTING: SCIENCE & THEATER

Give a friend or family member something to look forward to in 2015 with tickets to a technology or science-infused theater production. 

Constellations
Playwright: Nick Payne
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
New York, NY
January 13 - March 15, 2015

"A change in font equals a change in universes." 

If you're a sucker for love and physics (and the latter as a metaphor for the former), this is a show you'll appreciate. Playwright Nick Payne's play premiered at London's Royal Court and is now in New York City playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club. Oh, and it's starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson (THE AFFAIR), which means if you're interested, try to get tixx asap.  

From The New Yorker's review of the London run: 

Here, under a canopy of white variegated helium balloons that look like a galaxy of stars, Payne conjures the notion of a “multiverse” where “several outcomes can coexist simultaneously,” as Marianne (the petite, piquant Sally Hawkins) says. She happens to be a theoretical physicist who is in the process of being seduced by Roland (the charming Rafe Spall). She goes on: “In the quantum multiverse, every choice, every decision you’ve ever made and never made exists in an unimaginably vast ensemble of parallel universes.” “This is genuinely turning me on,” Roland says. 

 

Mr. Wolf (World Premiere)
Playwright: Rajiv Joseph
South Coast Repertory
Costa Mesa, CA
April 18-May 3, 2015

Mr. Wolf (Image: South Coast Repertory)

Theresa is 17 years old, and she can map out the solar system. She understands the universe—how and why it came to be. She owes all that to a man named Mr. Wolf. Now the only life she has ever known is coming to an end. She’s being taken away—turned over to people who are strangers to her. How can they possibly understand her needs, when they seem to be lost, too?

 

stop. reset.
Playwright/Director: Regina Taylor
Goodman Theatre
Chicago, IL
May 23 - June 21, 2015

As e-books and digital technologies transform the literary world, Chicago businessman Alex Ames must confront the likely demise of his long-standing African-American book publishing company. While his employees fret over losing their jobs, Alex finds unlikely inspiration from a mysterious teenager, whose inventive, forward-thinking ideas may provide the solution to preserving Alex's legacy. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lush List 9/8/14: AxS Festival, Marjorie Prime at the Taper and Planets at the Hollywood Bowl

While technically the summer isn't over for a few weeks, there's that back-to-school feeling in the air. Perhaps that's the reason there are all sorts of exciting science-infused cultural happenings popping up!

Marjorie Prime

This year the Mark Taper Forum kicks its season off with the play MARJORIE PRIME by playwright Jordan Harrison. Directed by Les Waters, the play will run from September 10th – October 19th. I’m intrigued by the Taper’s description: In the age of artificial intelligence, how do you compute the reality of loss and keep your loved ones from becoming a distant memory?

Jeff Ward, Lois Smith, Lisa Emery and Frank Wood on the first day of rehearsal for MARJORIE PRIME. 
Photo by Craig Schwartz, courtesy of Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum. 

In addition to the compelling subject matter, I'm also excited to see this play because the cast features one of my favorite actresses, Lois Smith. I’ve been lucky enough to see her do some amazing theater, and she's been in a ton of classic films (her first part onscreen was in EAST OF EDEN!), but she may be more recognizable to newer audiences from her roles in TRUE BLOOD and MINORITY REPORT. In an interview in the Playbill for the show, she was asked what about Harrison’s play resonated with her the most:

“The way he deals with memory and with family and in a way, eternity. There is a certain delicacy about it. [The characters] are, like a piece of music or a book, in terms of human endeavors, they are human inventions, trying to encapsulate meaning. Just the delicacy with which he tackles something. I’d never seen that before."

The Planets: An HD Odyssey

If you didn't get enough of the heavenly bodies on International Observe the Moon night this past Saturday, the Hollywood Bowl is giving you a grand second opportunity on Tuesday, September 9th. Images from NASA and JPL rovers and satellites, as well as computer-generated graphics of the Mars landing, will accompany a performance of Holst's PLANETS. The suite has seven movements, each named after a planet and its corresponding astrological character:

1. Mars, the Bringer of War (00:00 - 07:21)
2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace (07:22 - 15:59);
3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger (16:00 - 19:51);
4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity (19:52 - 27:49);
5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age (27:50 - 36:31);
6. Uranus, the Magician (36:32 - 42:14)
7. Neptune, the Mystic (42:15 - 49:01).

And if for some reason you're not awed by what you see onscreen, all you have to do is tilt your head back and look up at the sky. I can't wait for this evening of beautiful music under the stars! Now I just need to figure out what kind of picnic to pack...

Conductor: Andrè Previn & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

AxS Festival 2014: Curiosity

So, so excited about this two-week festival taking place in Pasadena, CA, from September 19th - October 5th. AxS [ak-sis], produced by the Pasadena Arts Council, "explores the nexus of artistic and scientific inquiry, promoting experimentation and cross-fertilization between these disciplines."

So what does that mean exactly? A whole bunch of really cool events that merge science with architecture, new media, visual art, music and theater, along with some super-smart, creative people having conversations about it all. You can check out the full schedule; below are a few of the events I'm particularly looking forward to.* For specific date, time and ticket info for each of them, see the individual event pages. 

• EVELINA DOMNITCH & DMITRY GELFAND/ LUCKY DRAGONS: Amsterdam-based art-science artists Domnitch and Gelfand will join experimental music group Lucky Dragons for performance, science and art, live music,video projections and collaborative sound art. Domnitch and Gelfand’s 10,000 PEACOCK FEATHERS IN FOAMING ACID uses laser light to scan the surfaces of soap bubble clusters. Unlike ordinary light, the laser’s focused beam is capable of crawling through the micro and nano structures within a bubble’s skin. When aimed at specific angles, this penetrating light generates a large-scale projection of molecular interactions as well as mind-boggling phenomena of non-linear optics. Bubble behaviors viewed in such proximity evoke the dynamics of living cells (the lipid membranes of which are direct chemical descendants of soap film). And then for a deeper dive into Domnitch and Gelfand's process, head to QUANTUM SENSITIVITY:A Talk with Domnitch & Gelfand, at which the artists discuss their immersive works which merge physics, chemistry and computer science with uncanny philosophical practices. Addressing the very thresholds of scientific insight, these endeavors explore the slippery frontier where quantum behavior arises on a human scale. 
  
  
• MARKO PELJHAN: Arctic Lab: A trip to see the glaciers is on my bucket list, so this project caught my eye. Artist/scientist Peljhan will discuss the Arctic Perspective Initiative, an art/science/tactical media project focused on the global significance of the Arctic geopolitical, natural and cultural spheres. And did I mention that Peljhan has also been the flight director of ten parabolic experimental flights in collaboration with the Microgravity Interdisciplinary Research initiative and the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, creating conditions for artists to work in alternating gravity conditions? Fascinating stuff I'd like to hear more about.
   
• SOL PATH: Having been on site as part of the NASA Social program for the Curiosity landing, I still feel an affinity for all things rover-related. Sol Path was inspired by the exploratory path that the Mars Rover takes over the course of a Martian day and developed in residency at JPL. It explores the intricate interactions between an Earth-bound team of explorers and a robotic space lab as it searches for signs of life. By composer/cognitive scientist Bruno Louchouarn, with live performance by viola soloist Brett Deubner and immersive multimedia platform by Adam Larsen.
  
  
• Pasadena Arts Council has commissioned arts collective Machine Project to re-imagine the Pasadena landmark Gamble House through a variety of interactive events. I think my favorite on the list is POETS IN CLOSETS, where poets read a single poem to one audience member at a time in the Gamble House’s walk-in closet. It’s like a literary twist on 7 Minutes in Heaven. Or what I like to imagine might be a lost scene from Downton Abbey.
  
  
• COPENHAGEN: I was lucky enough to see the original Broadway production of Michael Frayn’s Tony-award-winning play in which German physicist Werner Heisenberg and Danish physicist Niels Bohr (and Bohr’s wife Margrethe) meet in 1941 to debate physics, politics, love and betrayal, while cautiously dancing toward the detonation of the fission bomb. In this special presentation from theater company A Noise Within, the always engaging Caltech physicist and author Sean Carroll offers an engaging, pre-show mini-lecture on the origins of the universe, and the cast will do a post-show discussion on the themes of the play.
  
  
• ALICE THROUGH THE WORMHOLE OR WHAT’S THIS WONDERLAND UP TO? You all know I’m a sucker for good theater, so not surprising that I’ve chosen to highlight not just one, but two theatrical endeavors from the festival. This is described as a work-in-progress of a wild, original musical take on Alice through the Caltech Universe.
  
  
• KPCC will be hosting several events in conjunctinon with AxS at the Crawford Family Forum, including MAKERS: WOMEN IN SPACE. This segment of the six-part PBS documentary series from Executive Producers Dyllan McGee & Peter Kunhardt profiles the impact women have had over the past 50 years. Following the film, Joanne Griffith will interview Rev. Dr. Bear Ride on the life and legacy of her sister, the late Dr. Sally Ride — the first U.S. woman in space.   

*Event descriptions that accompany my comment provided by AxS.

 

 

 

Video: An Interview with Sci-Fest Founder David Dean Bottrell

Hi folks! 

Going to try something new...bringing video to the blog! I've always loved writing about cool events and projects that bring art and science together, but I thought it would be fun to actually talk to some of the people who are making those projects happen. 

For my very first Science Lush vlog, I interview David Dean Bottrell, one of the founders of Sci-Fest, the first annual Los Angeles science fiction one-act play festival. The festival will launch in May 2014. An actor and screenwriter, David has appeared on BOSTON LEGAL, MAD MEN, TRUE BLOOD and iCARLY, among others. We talk about everything from his childhood comic book obsession to the challenges of bringing science fiction to an audience without the benefits of CGI. 

A word about the vlog:
Science Lush (the show) is definitely a work in progress, so thanks for going on the ride with me as I figure this all out! We'll be trying bunch of different things - sometimes I'll shoot on location, sometimes I'll be broadcasting from my super-fancy dining room studio (like in this episode). I'll also be playing around with technical stuff like sound & lighting, and maybe I'll even get a logo! I know, I know, that's just crazy talk. But the one thing that will stay the same - I'll be letting you know about cool STEAM* happenings. 
{*STEAM = Science Technology Engineering Arts Math}

One last comment...don't judge this video by the thumbnail! If you think this one is bad, you should've see the other two choices YouTube gave me!!

 

 

Has Sci-Fest piqued your interest? Here's their fundraising video: 

 

 

More info on some of the things David and I talk about: 

• Sci-Fest website: http://www.sci-fest.com
• Sci-Fest's Kickstarter campaign ends on February 28th, 2014, but you can still donate after the deadline if you are interested in supporting it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
• More on David here: http://daviddeanbottrell.blogspot.com/
• Movies we love: Children of Men, Code 46, Moon
• Authors we love: Ursula LeGuin, Ray Bradbury, Octavia Butler

The full version of the cool Ray Bradbury quote David mentions: 

"Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about."

--Ray Bradbury

Baba Brinkman: Darwin and the Life of a Rap Troubadour

When it comes to topics for hip hop, science isn't usually first on the list. But this year when I attended the Science Online conference, one of the morning Converge sessions featured a performance by Baba Brinkman, creator of The Rap Guide to Evolution. Brinkman's electric energy immediately woke up the sleepy (slightly hungover) room, and catapulted us into the day as he got the audience to joyfully consider how the process of "Performance, Feedback, Revision" applies both to science and art.  

Brinkman calls himself a "rap troubadour," and finds inspiration in everything from The Canterbury Tales to evolutionary psychology. I was curious about how the writer/performer has managed to meld the worlds of hip hop and science, so I tracked him down and convinced him to answer a few questions for me about how an English Lit guy ended up writing songs about natural selection, who he might like to work with in the future and what it's like to try to find rhymes for "Darwin." 

His show Evolutionary Tales: A Hip-Hop Theatre Cycle, presented by Soho Playhouse Inc., opened Off-Broadway at the Player's Theater on  May 31st, 2013, and runs through June 23rd, 2013. The cycle is comprised of three different shows - The Rap Guide to Evolution, Ingenious Nature and Canterbury Tales Remixed. If you're lucky enough to be in the NYC area during the run, visit www.evolutionarytales.com for tickets and information. 

 

Photo Credit: Tavakoli Photography

You have a Masters in Medieval and Renaissance English Literature, and your thesis drew parallels between the worlds of hip-hop music and literary poetry. How did you get the idea to correlate these two seemingly very different forms of communication? 

I was reading the Canterbury Tales for a class, and I recognized it as a masterpiece of rhymed storytelling, a lyrical chronicle of the lives and power struggles of diverse characters, young lovers, bitter rivals, villains, heroes, murderers, adulterers, kings and beggars; the tales are rich with metaphor and symbolism but also a gaudy circus of sex and violence. At the same time I was listening to albums by Nas, the Notorious BIG, Jay-Z, Big Pun, and Slick Rick, and I recognized their songs as... exactly the same thing.

Given your lit background, doing a hip-hop version of Canterbury Tales seems to make sense. The idea for The Rap Guide to Evolution had its seed in a suggestion from Dr. Mark Pallen, author of The Rough Guide to Evolution. What was your initial reaction when he presented you with the challenge to "do for Darwin" what you had done for Chaucer? 

My initial reaction was excitement and enthusiasm, with an undercurrent of anxiety. In literature there's a wider range of acceptable poetic license when re-telling a story, but with evolution there are serious pitfalls. If the story is misconstrued it can easily shade into pseudo-science, but at the same time I needed room to be playful and entertaining. Dr. Pallen is an experienced exponent of evolution so he helped me toe that line.

Tell me a bit about your process once you decided to take on the project. How much did you know about Darwin? What kind of research did you do? 

When I started the project I had read a few books by Jared Diamond and Richard Dawkins and E O Wilson, so I was familiar with the broad sketch, but the challenge was to create a story with a human face, so it was like a treasure hunt. I was looking for areas of overlap between evolutionary science and human experience, and I found them in the writing of David Sloan Wilson, Steven Pinker, Geoffrey Miller, Sarah Hrdy, and by re-reading the big three I started with to draw out the jewels. Mostly it came down to applications of evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution or "memes". Between those two concepts, you can connect evolution with virtually everything humans do and care about.

You are first and foremost an entertainer, not a scientist or science journalist. When writing, how do you balance scientific accuracy with what may be necessary for theatricality?  

I have an easy benchmark. I imagine myself being "peer-reviewed" by an expert scientific audience after the show, questioned as to what my exact meaning and intention was, and I give myself as much poetic or creative license as I feel I could reasonably defend in response to that audience. In reality, the show has been performed in front of many such audiences, and I have made significant changes in the spirit of "Performance, Feedback, Revision".

"Performance, Feedback, Revision."

Lyrics and performance: Baba Brinkman.Dir Felix Harrison. Music: Nokz from Tehdit. Animation: Dave Anderson. 

 

What scientific term has been the most challenging to find a rhyme for? 

"Darwin" is actually a very difficult word to rhyme on its own. That's why I usually combine it with other words, for instance by rhyming "Storage Container" and "War of Nature" and "Darwin Hater" and "Fornicator".

Tell me about the inspiration to make the show not just about evolution via a hip-hop delivery, but also about the evolution of hip-hop.

I suppose the evolution of hip-hop would be the elephant in the room if I didn't talk about it. There's also something theatrically potent about being in front of an audience and telling them, in real time: "Your response to everything I say determines my fate, if not causally then at least probabilistically. How likely am I to thrive or to go extinct as a performer? That depends on what happens in this moment." It makes people realize that the power of cultural evolution, which is very similar to artificial selection or domestication, is in your hands at all times, as a consumer, as a citizen, and as an audience member. 
 

  

"Natural Selection" - The Rap Guide to Evolution Music Videos.

Lyrics and performance: Baba Brinkman. Music: Tom Caruana. Dir: Felix Harrison. Animation: Tommy Nagle.
Supported by The Wellcome Trust. 

I believe that scientists and artists have a lot in common when it comes to the creative and scientific processes. What - if any - similarities have you noticed as you've traveled down this road of creating science-oriented theater? 

Both artists and scientists are driven by the search to capture the non-obvious. There is serious creativity in the design of incisive experiments, and there is definitely a science to the orientation of attention that drives the performing arts.

Who are your biggest musical influences? Who's on your dream list of future collaborators? 

Nas, Black Thought, Talib Kweli, Tim Minchin, Homeboy Sandman, Slick Rick.

You call yourself a "rap troubadour." What does that mean? How is it different than a traditional rapper? 

I suppose the only difference between a rap troubadour and a traditional rapper is that the former is fully aware of and oriented towards the rich global history of storytelling as a universal characteristic of the human species, a function of the irrepressible instinct that we have to make and consume narrative. The latter is also a practitioner of the craft, but is more oriented towards the present historical moment. I'm certainly not the only one to view rap this way, however; K'Naan also seems to get it. 

K'Naan performing 'Wavin' Flag'. 
A remixed version was Coke's promotional anthem for the 2010 FIFA World cup. 

 

What's been the most surprising or meaningful reaction you've gotten to the show? 
  

This was posted as a response on my blog:

Dear Mr. Brinkman,
 

I am a US Soldier deployed to the Kandahar region of Afghanistan in support of the war the we are currently fighting in Southwest Asia. My wife recently sent me a care package that contained the Rap Guide to Evolution Revised. It is amazing! I listened to to it straight through 3 times! My favorite track is “Worst Comes To Worst”. I have been speaking out against organized religion for years. I can’t wait to share this conversation starting album with my Soldiers. Thank you for this great work of art. I look forward to sharing your gift with everyone around me.

 

 

 

 

Technical Theater: 'Company' at the NY Phil

Usually, when one talks about "tech rehearsals" in the theater, it refers to the chunk of rehearsal time when lights, sound, etc are all being worked out.  However, as detailed in a New York Times article today, a new production of the musical Company directed by Lonny Price is taking the term to a whole different level.

The show, which is gearing up for four performances with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall starting on Thursday, April 7th, 2011, features a cast of A-listers who it's been problematic to get in the same room together. The solution? Technology! For example, Neil Patrick Harris Skypes with his voice teacher and rehearses songs listening to MP3 tracks while driving (and there's always an abundance of drive time in Los Angeles). Jon Cryer relied on the video capability of the iPhone to learn some of his dance routines (and according to the article, has now developed the unique skill of beimg able to hoof it while looking down at his phone). Other cast members include Stephen Colbert, Patti LuPone, Craig Bierko, Anika Noni Rose and Christina Hendricks.

One of the joys of theater is usually working with the other actors, refining and deepening your work through the rehearsal period. It'll be intereseting to see how this process works for the show, as many of the actors come together at the last minute for Thursday's performance. Curious? You'll be able to check it out when Company is shown in movie theaters in June. Yep, that's right...in today's all-screens, all-the-time world, even live theater gets captured by the camera for a larger audience.

Pages: 'Proust Was a Neuroscientist' - Art + Science

Cracked open a new book this week - Jonah Lehrer's Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Deals with one of my favorite topics, the link between art and science. I'm looking forward to spending the next several weeks (or months depending on how busy the work schedule is) diving into the worlds of Proust, George Eliot, Cezanne, Gertrude Stein and others as Lehrer attempts to connect their artistic methodologies to scientific discoveries.

I'm already intrigued by the introduction, which includes this food for thought:

Every method, even the experimental method, has limits. Take the human mind. Scientists describe our brain in terms of physical details; they say we are nothing but a loom of electrical cells and synaptic spaces. What science forgets is that this isn't how we experience the world. (We feel like the ghost, not like the machine.) It is ironic but true: the one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know. This is why we need art. By expressing our actual experience, the artist reminds us that our science is incomplete, that no map of matter will ever explain the immateriality of our consciousness.

Though I know a few Cylons who might disagree with the statement above, I think it's an interesting statement about the different needs that art and science fill. There's nothing quite like that moment of catharsis in the theater when you recognize your own life in what is happening on stage.

More thoughts to come...

Pages: 'My Stroke of Insight': Sense & Energy

Just started reading Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.'s My Stroke of Insight, which I am loving. It's about the Harvard-trained brain scientist's experience of her own stroke, and combines a personal and clinical look at what she went through both the morning of her stroke and during the eight years of recovery.

I'm that rare artist who likes to make lists and gets a bizarre satisfaction out of constructing project timelines. Reading Taylor's breakdown of right and left brain functions has given me a lot of food for thought, and is inspiring me to make a list of topics to research when I'm done with her book (told ya' I like the lists). It's making me think about how I think. And how I feel. I'm about 1/4 through the book and here's the passage that's got my brain doing backflips at the moment:

Although most of us are rarely aware of it, our sensory receptors are designed to detect information at the energy level. Because everything around us - the air we breathe, even the materials we use to build with - are composed of spinning and vibrating atomic particles, you and I are literally swimming in a turbulent sea of electromagnetic fields. We are part of it. We are enveloped within it, and through our sensory apparatus we experience what it is.

When doing theater, we often talk about 'feeling' the energy of the audience, about how there's a very real interchange between what's happening onstage and the peeps in the seats. At times this can take on on a very lofty, hi-falutin' tone...something my artsy right brain loves, but my left brain mocks a bit. However, this passage from Taylor's book soothes my analytical left brain, let's it know that there's actual theory and reason for some of the magic that happens onstage. And that in itself is pretty amazing.

STAGE Competition Announces Deadline for Sci/Tech Plays

Thanks to the folks in the Coronet Writers Lab for turning me onto this competition. I'm not familiar with STAGE (Scientists, Technologists and Artists Generating Exploration), but as it's right at the crossroads of my passion for theater and science, I'm looking forward to learning more.

The description of the group states:

STAGE is a unique collaboration between the Professional Artists Lab - a dynamic artistic laboratory - and the California NanoSystems Institute - an esteemed science institute – both housed at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

STAGE endeavors to:
- foster new and imaginative voices and methods of storytelling;
- catalyze the development of art that depicts the technological age in which we live;
- cultivate appreciation and collaboration between the two cultures of science and art;
- promote understanding of the sciences in the public arena;
- accomplish all of the above within an international community.

A bit about the history of STAGE from their site:

STAGE grew out of efforts to catalyze the development of theatre that depicts the technological age in which we live and to foster new and imaginative voices and methods of storytelling, as well as to promote understanding of the sciences in the public arena. Nancy Kawalek, the founder and director of the Professional Artists Lab, approached the California NanoSystems Institute a few years ago with the idea of collaborating on these mutual interests. The partnership began with the STAGE International Script Competition. “We wanted to encourage playwrights – and scientists, for that matter – to write plays relevant to the lives we lead, lives influenced at nearly every moment by incredibly sophisticated technological and scientific advances,” said Kawalek.
 

Here's the competition info...

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA’S 4th ROUND OF THE STAGE INTERNATIONAL SCRIPT COMPETITION

$10,000 PRIZE TO BE GIVEN FOR THE BEST NEW PLAY ABOUT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Submitted plays must explore scientific and/or technological stories, themes, issues or events. Multi-media theatre pieces, non-traditional plays and new forms are encouraged.

The winner of the Scientists, Technologists and Artists Generating Exploration (STAGE) Competition will receive a $10,000 USD prize, along with possible opportunities for developing and promoting the winning script.

THE DEADLINE IS DECEMBER 15, 2009. For guidelines, an entry form and all details, please visit: www.stage.cnsi.ucsb.edu.

Current and previous STAGE judges include Pulitzer, Tony, Olivier & Nobel-winning judges David Auburn, John Guare, David Lindsay-Abaire, Sir Anthony Leggett & Dr. Douglas Osheroff.

STAGE Script Competition
Professional Artists Lab
CNSI - MC 6105
3241 Elings Hall - Bldg. 266
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6105
E-mail: [email protected]
URL: www.stage.cnsi.ucsb.edu

The Lush List: 6/20/09

THE LUSH LIST
An irregularly, posted list of SciCultureTech that catches my eye...

1. Quote of the Week: Iran and Science
Sometimes I find I have to go backwards to go forwards. As part of my attempt to better understand what's been happening in Iran this week, I went back and re-read "Tehran or Bust: A Journey Through the Heart of Iran," a piece by Hooman Majd in the June 1st issue of Newsweek. I found an interesting comment about Iran's attitude towards scientists. Discussing current events with his driver, an off-duty policeman from Isfahan, Madj writes:

"He [the driver] felt he should leave the big political issues to the experts, for he had only a high-school diploma. That Iranian scientists have mastered enrichment technology at Natanz is not only a source of pride for Isfahani policemen, but also for almost all Iranians, who place a premium on scientific study and who rigorously apply an honorific - "Mohandes" - to anyone who has a degree in engineering."

While the resurgence of "geek culture" seems to be giving a boost to the American public's view of scientists, we still have a long way to go before spending time in the lab becomes a source of national U.S. pride.

2. Back to the Moon: Step 1
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) successfully blasted off on June 18th from Cape  Canaveral, FL. According to NASA's website, the goal of the unmanned mission is to create a comprehensive atlas of the Moon’s features and resources to aid in the design of a lunar outpost. If we're going to send astronaut's back to the moon by 2020, we gotta pick out a nice, comfy landing spot.

For a look back at our earlier efforts to get to the moon, check out "From the Archives to the Moon," a collection from the the US National Archives on YouTube. Right now there are three films up, including a biography of Astronaut John Glenn, a piece about Dr. Robert Goddard, the "father of rocketry," and this piece from 1967 about trying to get photos of the surface of the moon so they could figure out whether it was safe for a man to land there. Where's Google Sky when you need it?

3. Opera in Space
I was lucky enough to catch the Wooster Group's performance of La Didone at the Redcat theater this week. The show is a mashup of Francesco Cavalli's 17th century Baroque opera La Didone and Mario Bava's 1965 cult sci-fi movie Terrore nello spazio (Planet of the Vampires). The combo of the mythological story of Dido and Aeneas and a the crew of a spaceship who makes a crash landing on a planet full of body snatchers is exquisite and surprisingly funny. As past and future collide, Wooster uses a variety of multi-media elements to help tell the story, leaving the audience in a rapturous limbo of time and space. For more on the show and the history of the company, the review in  The New York Times has a good write up.

4. SNEEZE and DNA Games
I stumbled across RoutesGame.com thanks to a post from the ERV blog on scienceblogs.com. The collection of casual flash games includes fun stuff like a "viral" game that challenges you to infect as many peeps as possible with your sneeze, and a take off of Guitar Hero called DNA Heroes. After wasting far too much time playing the Sneeze game, I delved a bit further into the Routes site, which aims to take players into a world of genetics, evolution and the human genome using a variety of new media tools. For example, there's an interactive murder mystery that makes use of video, blogs and links across the web to help solve the crime. In another section, Canadian comedian Katherine Ryan embarks on a genetic testing quest to explore pressing issues such as whether her hangovers are caused by genes or gin.

According to the description on the site, Routes is a project of Channel 4 Education in association with the Wellcome Trust. The game was live from January 26th through to March 26th, 2009, but full archives are available so viewers can see the scope of the project.

5. Don't Be a Twit When It Comes to Safety
A piece in The Washington Post reminds folks to be mindful when tweeting on vacation. The great thing about social networking tools is they allow you to share your experiences with friends. But sometimes those 'friends' turn out to be thieves who capitalize on the fact that by posting pics & status updates, you've let it be known that you're out of town. As tempting as it can be to post the shot of you swimming with the Dolphins or partying in Prague, if no one else is at home, leave the vacation updates til you've returned. It's no fun getting away for some R&R, only to come back and find all your stuff gone.