CREATING DISTINCTIVE COLLABORATIONS. FOSTERING EMERGING POSSIBILITIES.
DIALOGUE | RESEARCH | EXPERIMENTATION PHOTO: NANCY WONG ELIZABETH “JORDIE” DAVIES AND AYESHA SINGH
VISION FOUR CORNERSTONES OF THE INITIATIVE
The Arts, Science + Culture Initiative explores the intersection between 1 COLLABORATION artistic production and scientific inquiry, amplifying the University’s belief in the transformative power of ideas. By creating distinctive and explore new territory between the arts, sciences, and social meaningful trans-disciplinary collaborations and fostering emerging sciences by cultivating conversation and joint projects that support new systems of thought and research. dialogue, the Initiative envisions ways to help shape the cultural landscape and the convergence of new paradigms for seeing and knowing in the 21st century. We build environments for conversation and 2 COMMUNICATION experimentation within our institutional setting, where the University encourage and support new partnerships from a wide range community and others can explore a distinctive approach to research, of disciplines for faculty and students while championing the inquiry, and teaching through direct dialogue and interaction. The advancement of new knowledge. Initiative’s impact emerges from selective programs that inspire the next generation of scholars, arts practitioners, and citizens. 3 EXCHANGE The Arts, Science + Culture Initiative embodies UChicago’s stimulate new insights and pathways to address the complexities of our world by tapping into multiple methodological insights, tradition of “integrated and borderless inquiry” by offering grants, tools, questions, and curiosities offered by different disciplines. programming, and other opportunities for students, faculty, and practitioners in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences to work, think, and experiment in proximity to one another within the 4 EXPERIMENTATION University of Chicago, throughout the city, and beyond. foster curiosity and experimentation to seed visionary outcomes. GRADUATE STUDENT PROGRAMMING GRADUATE COLLABORATION GRANTS Awarded yearly since 2010, the Arts, Science + Culture Graduate ENRICHING ACADEMIC STUDIES AT UCHICAGO Collaboration Grants fund teams of two or more graduate students—one or more from the arts or humanities and one or more from the sciences The core of the Arts, Science + Culture Initiative’s programming or social sciences—who work together over the course of the academic provides funding and institutional support for graduate students in year to investigate a collaborative project that weaves together the the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences to engage with unique perspectives offered by their disciplines. In 2015 the grants students and practitioners outside their field of study. ASCI has expanded to allow inter-institutional collaboration with MFA candidates two premier programs that foster trans-disciplinary collaboration, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). In addition to the promote unexpected experimentation, and sustain dialogue among financial support awarded to graduate grantees, the Initiative provides graduate students: the Graduate Collaboration Grants and the staff support, monthly dinner forums, and exhibition, publication, and Graduate Fellows. presentation opportunities for the graduates’ collaborative project.
GRADUATE FELLOWS The Arts, Science + Culture Graduate Fellows program is a monthly forum for discussion and exchange among a cohort of graduate students from across the university. The graduate fellows are researchers and artists whose work is firmly anchored in the arts, humanities, social sciences, or sciences, and for whom crossing disciplinary boundaries is integral to the particularities of their work. Now entering its fifth year, previous grants have been awarded to students from the Departments of Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Music Composition, English, Neuroscience, Evolutionary Biology, Physics, Visual Arts, and Molecular Engineering.
GRADUATE CONSORTIUM This pilot program, which ran for three years beginning in 2015, was a trans-disciplinary consortium of Fellows from the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Northwestern University. Through self-guided group field trips, each cohort built an interdisciplinary community while engaging Chicago’s vibrant urban environment. The three Field Guides are the culminating presentations of the Fellows’ research over the course of their year together, highlighting and examining their distinctive approaches to research and practice while on site and working “in the field.” All three volumes are now available as PDFs on the Arts, Science + Culture Initiative website.
PHOTOS: JEAN LACHAT COLLABORATIONS MOVING FORWARD
Many former Arts, Science + Culture collaboration grantees have gone on to expand their original projects. The following is a selection of teams who have continued to pursue their research:
SHANE DUBAY AND CARL FULDNER AT THE FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Shane DuBay (PhD, Evolutionary Biology, UChicago) and Carl Fuldner (PhD candidate, Art History, UChicago) first collaborated in 2014–15 on The Phoenix Index. In September 2017 they published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, “Birds track 135 years of atmospheric black carbon and environmental policy,” which went on to garner widespread attention in numerous international media outlets.
Benedikt Diemer (PhD, Astronomy & Astrophysics, UChicago) and Isaac Facio (MFA, Fiber & Material Studies, SAIC) collaborated in 2014–15 on The Fabric of the Universe, a project that explored ways to use 3-dimensional textiles to visualize the structure of the universe. They continued working together and exhibited a 3-D woven textile at the Adler Planetarium in 2018. Facio is the 2019 artist-in-residence at Fermilab.
Meredith Leich (MFA, Film, Video, New Media, and Animation, SAIC) collaborated with Andrew Malone (PhD, Glaciology and Climatology, UChicago) in 2015–16 on Scaling Quelccaya, a film that used experimental visual strategies to convey the retreat of the Quelccaya Ice Cap. Leich moved forward with their film and won second prize at the Deutsche Bank 2017 Macht Kunst competition.
Kieran Murphy (PhD, Physics, UChicago) and Xinyi Zhu (MFA, Film, Video, New Media and Animation, SAIC) collaborated in 2016–17 on Randomness and Mindgames. They continued to work together on VR games and in 2018 attended “Role/Play: Collaborative Creativity and Creative Collaborations” as part of a Sackler Symposium on art and science in Washington, D.C., and presented their work at the National Academy of Sciences.
THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE, INSTALLATION AT THE ADLER PLANETARIUM, BY BENEDIKT DIEMER AND ISAAC FACIO. TO DATE, THE INITIATIVE HAS SUPPORTED 124 GRADUATE STUDENTS FROM 32 DISCIPLINES.
Anthropology Computational Medicine Organismal Biology and Visual Arts Joshua Babcock Neuroscience Marie Adachi Anatomy Anthony Adcock Adrienne Elyse Meyers Kyler Brown Rossy Natale Damien Bright Nicole Balthrushes Andrew Bearnot* Sophia Ree Hannah Burnett* Celine Goetz Jan Brugger* Clare Rosean Computation Science Performance Studies Emma Gilheany John Santerre Xuan Han Nigel O’Hearn Chris Eastman Jen Smoose Cameron Hu* Laura Hodges Marco G. Ferrari Richard Williamson Mallory James Economics Erica MacKenzie Physics Jacqueline Hendrickson Terence Wong Ty Turley Evan Angelico Hilary M. Leathem Bailey Miles Elisabeth Hogeman Shanna Zentner Jelani Hannah Agnes Mondragón* English Alex Ruby Stacee Kalmanovsky Samuel Meehan *denotes multiple programs Anne-Sophie Reichert Hannah Brooks-Motl Neha Sathe Francis Mendes Levitin Marc Miskin Yukun Zeng Oscar Chavez Phillippe Tapon Devin Mays Kieran Murphy Arianna Gass Art History Middle Eastern Studies Ivo Peters Bill Hutchison* Carl Fuldner Niko Shahbazian Martin Scheeler Lauren M. Jackson Hanne Graversen Scott Waitukaitis Carmen Merport Molecular Engineering Qin Xu Astronomy Jonathan Schroeder Ashley Guo & Astrophysics Allison Turner* Paul Jerger Benedikt Diemer Political Science Daniel Reid Elizabeth “Jordie” Davies* Evolutionary Biology Biochemistry & Erzsebet Vincent Erick Bayala Molecular Biology Ruben Waldman Psychiatry & Josiah Zayner Nicole Bitler Kuehnle Behavioral Neuroscience Rachel Wallace Shane DuBay Anya Bershad Biological Sciences For me, active collaboration Natalia Piland Music Jared Clemens Psychology K. Supriya Iddo Aharony Mirae Lee Geoff Brookshire is like turbulence: not fully Lu Yao Alican Çamcı Maggie Zhang Heather Harden “ Jonathan DeSouza Shannon Heald understood at the onset and Geophysical Sciences Biophysics Patrick Fitzgibbons Grant Macdonald Stephen Hedger Will McFadden Ted Gordon in the process. However, Predrag Popovic Yu Ji Pierce Gradone Elizabeth Necka Chemistry swirling, in time, interesting Germanic Studies Elizabeth Hopkins Ken Ellis-Guardiola Tiara Starks Amy Stebbins Jack Hughes Clara del Junco patterns emerge. Don’t give Mariusz Kozak Statistics Jeff Montgomery Glaciology Andrew McManus Kushal K. Dey up, follow those patterns. Nicole James* & Climatology Lei Sun Andrew Malone Will Myers Sukanya Randhawa Marcelle Pierson History Cinema & Francisco Castillo ROSEMARY HALL Media Studies Marco Aurelio Torres Trigueros Tien-Tien Jong MFA, Printmedia, SAIC Linguistics Neurobiology Mikki Kressbach Rebekah Baglini Tahra Elissa Nicole Erin Morse Dana Simmons* Tyler Schroeder Mathematics Artemis Willis Daniel Johnstone Markus Kliegl PUBLIC PROGRAMMING
ACTIVATING RESEARCH AND PRACTICE AT UCHICAGO AND BEYOND
SLOP CHEST, PHOTO: TUCKER RAE-GRANT
Throughout the year, the Arts, Science + Culture Initiative produces a variety of programs that bring together UChicago faculty and students with other cultural thinkers and professionals from the Chicago area and beyond. ASCI partners with numerous organizations across campus and throughout the city to host conferences and seminars, invite visiting artists and lecturers to the UChicago campus, and to develop experimental forms of research, presentation, and production. On topics as wide-ranging as digital culture, urbanism, medical imaging, and the cosmos, ASCI’s public programs critically challenge scientists and artists to collide disciplinary methodologies, sparking new bodies of research and lines of inquiry. The Arts, Science + Culture Initiative actively pursues and builds partnerships in the arts and sciences throughout Chicago and beyond.
PHYSICS PROFESSOR HEINRICH JAEGER AND ARTIST DAN PETERMAN. SLOP CHEST Hannah Burnett (PhD Candidate, Anthropology) and Tucker Rae-Grant (Artist, MFA ‘14) spent two weeks on a container vessel carrying 4,400 shipping containers, twenty-three crew members, and four passengers. Turning their gaze away from the monumental, they studied the everyday items that came along for the ride. Burnett and Rae-Grant were joined by Shannon Lee Dawdy (Professor, Anthropology) and Matthew Jesse Jackson (Associate Professor, Art History; Chair, Department of Visual Arts) to present “Slop Chest: Notes on Trade,” a talk and screening of their film. They drew on ethnographic and visual methods to respond to their questions: As millions of tons of commodities are transported across the world, what material residue remains? What human traces does global trade leave in its wake?
EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC SERIES This series features music on the edge by artists whose works fall between the cracks of historically defined categories of composition, improvisation, jazz, and electronic music. These performances highlight two specific musical approaches—composer-led bands that create experimental new music by fusing elements of composition and
TYSHAWN SOREY TRIO, PHOTO: MIKE GRITTANI improvisation and music that focuses on electronics and technology to expand what is musically possible. The music series is presented in partnership with the Logan Center for the Arts, the Chicago Center for Contemporary Compositions, and the UChicago Department of Music. RECENT PUBLIC PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 2018–19 events included:
The TYSHAWN SOREY TRIO, November 2018 in the Logan Center DISCIPLINES OF EXPERIMENT Performance Penthouse, co-presented by ASCI, the Logan Center for Co-presented in October 2018 by ASCI, the Gray Center for Arts and the Arts, the UChicago Department of Music, the Center for the Study Inquiry, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Nicholson of Race, Politics, and Culture, and the Chicago Center for Contemporary Center for British Studies, this two-day symposium with panel Composition. The concert featured 2017 MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey, a discussions and experiments featured poets, writers, artists, game multi-instrumentalist and composer, along with bassist Christopher Tordini designers, performers, musicians, and scientists as they explored and pianist Cory Smythe. They played selected work, including pieces from the trio’s most recent record, Verisimilitude (Pi Recordings, 2017), which the concept of “experiment” as a framework, objective, method, and combines Sorey’s intricate compositions with improvisation. provocation. Participants included Natalia Cecire from the University of Sussex, D’Lane Compton from the University of New Orleans, and Carla CHIMEFEST 2019, a collaboration between the CHIME Studio, the Nappi from the University of Pittsburgh. And from the University of Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition, and ASCI, was a two- Chicago: , , , , Heidi Coleman Rachel Galvin Edgar Garcia Travis Jackson day event in May 2019 featuring concerts by electronic music performers Heinrich Jaeger, Patrick Jagoda, Adrian Johns, Our Literal Speed, Sam and improvisers from around the globe and talks with leading artists and Pluta, Dieter Roelstraete, C. Riley Snorton, Ashlyn Sparrow, Jennifer researchers from the United States, the UK, and Europe. Wild, and John Wilkinson. ONGOING RESEARCH
THE WATER PROJECT: RESEARCH AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION Along with access to energy, access to potable water is quickly emerging as one of the most pressing and complex issues we face on our globe. At UChicago, scientists and engineers are focused on developing new filtration technologies, novel methods to monitor underground water movement, and innovative smart grids for urban water management, while social scientists and economists are researching policy interventions for water governance. This research across the disciplines, however, proceeds in isolation—and, perhaps, without much consideration for the emergent and powerful role of arts and culture production around water-related issues.
The Arts, Science + Culture Initiative has launched The WATER Project: Research and Cultural Production, a University-wide program to amplify the discourse around the pressing concerns of water—locally and globally—by bringing together scientists, humanists, social scientists, curators, students, community members, and professional arts practitioners. Such a program that brings these voices together currently does not exist on our campus. The WATER Project will cross disciplinary boundaries to establish an “ecology of perspectives” focused on water.
Expanding on a series of successful faculty roundtables (“Water Tables”) in 2018–19, the WATER Project will combine coursework, performances, exhibitions, commissioned artworks, and film screenings that address issues of water as they relate to scientific research, public policy, artistic practice, and humanistic inquiry. The program will invigorate and deepen research and teaching on the topic of water and also provide a forum to address the impact on the local and global health and well-being of humanity and our ecosystems. The ASCI website will offer regular updates on WATER Project-related public programming.
PHOTO: NANCY WONG AFFILIATE KEY PARTNERS Richard and Mary L. Gray The Office of the Provost Center for Arts and Inquiry The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Divisions of the Biological and Physical Sciences The Division of the Humanities UChicago GRAD Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts
FACULTY ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Orianna Cacchione, PhD, Curator of Global Ka Yee Lee, Professor in Chemistry, the Contemporary Art, Smart Museum of Art James Franck Institute, Institute for Biophysical Dynamics and the College, Ian Foster, Arthur Holly Compton Vice Provost for Research; Chair of the Distinguished Service Professor in Faculty Advisory Committee for the Computer Science; Associate Director, Francis and Rose Yuen Campus in Hong Kong Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory Laura Letinsky, Artist, Professor, Department of Visual Arts Matthew Jesse Jackson, Professor, Art History, Chair, Department of Visual Arts Sam Pluta, Composer, Assistant Professor, Department of Music, Director Computer Patrick Jagoda, Associate Professor, Music Studio (on leave 2019–20 academic Department of English, Department of year) Cinema + Media Studies, Executive Editor of Critical Inquiry Sabina Shaikh, Director, Program on Global Environment; Senior Lecturer, Environmental Joseph Masco, Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies in the College; Faculty, and of Social Sciences, Department Chair Committee on Geographical Sciences; Faculty Director, Chicago Studies W.J.T. Mitchell, Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor, James Skinner, Crown Family Professor of Department of English Language and Molecular Engineering, Director of the Water Literature, Department of Art History, Research Initiative and Deputy Director for Department of Visual Arts; Editor, Faculty Affairs, Pritzker School of Molecular Critical Inquiry Engineering/Argonne
Launched in 2010 under the CONTACT leadership of Director & Curator Julie Marie Lemon Julie Marie Lemon, the Arts, Director & Curator [email protected] Science + Culture Initiative operates out of the Logan Logan Center for the Arts th Center for the Arts at the 915 E 60 St, Chicago, IL 60637 University of Chicago. TheArtsScienceInitiative ArtsSciCulture
Cover Image: The Politics of Solar Rhythms: Cosmic Levitation, film still, 2018, by Tomás Saraceno. Single channel video, Full HD, black and white, sound, 2’48”. Courtesy the artist; Ruth Benzacar, Buenos Aires; Esther Schipper, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles; Andersen’s Copenhagen; Pinksummer Contemporary, Genoa. © Studio Tomás Saraceno uchicago.edu/artsscience