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UC Santa Cruz Institute of the Arts and Sciences and University Relations invites you to join us October 13, 2020 for a special online LASER Talk featuring David G. Stork, Yolande Harris, and Ari Friedlaender.
For this online gathering, scientist and author David G. Stork’s talk, “Did Tim Paint a Vermeer?” will follow attempts to reproduce Johannes Vermeer’s The Music Lesson, 1662–65, through a novel optical telescope and mirror-comparator procedure.
Ecologist Ari Friedlaender and sound and video artist Yolande Harris will discuss their collaborative practice exploring underwater worlds and the migratory behaviors of whales. Recently, Friedlaender has been tracking the changed whale behaviors in Monterey Bay during the pandemic, with the lessening of boat traffic, and the collaborators will talk about how this is informing their practice.
From computer vision and pixel painting to immersive sound and video work exploring the underwater world, these wide-ranging presentations will reflect on the unique intersection of scientific research and artistic practice.
David G. Stork is currently Lecturer in Computer Science at Stanford University, where he is teaching Computer vision and image analysis of art and completing Pixels & paintings: Foundations of computer-assisted connoisseurship (Wiley). He is a graduate in Physics from MIT and the University of Maryland, and has held faculty positions in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Statistics, Electrical Engineering, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Art and Art History variously at Wellesley and Swarthmore Colleges and Clark, Boston, and Stanford Universities. He has lectured on computer methods for analyzing fine art paintings and drawings in major museums, universities, and conferences in 30 countries, including the Louvre, National Gallery London, National Gallery Washington, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, van Gogh Museum, Getty Research Center, and many others. His 200+ technical publications and 54 issued patents have garnered over 82,000 scholarly citations. He is a Fellow of IEEE, OSA, SPIE, IS&T, IAPR and IARIA.
Ari Friedlaender is an Associate Researcher at the Institute for Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz. Ari’s work focuses on using advanced telemetry tools to study the underwater behavior of marine mammals and how is is affected by changes in their environment, including climate change and ocean noise, across a range of their habitats. Friedlaender’s multi-disciplinary research spans the globe and as an educator, Ari works with several organizations to combine art and science to develop curriculum to share information broadly about marine mammals and conservation. Friedlaender is the co-founder of the California Ocean Alliance, has published nearly 100 scientific papers and has been featured in numerous documentary film series from and museum exhibits. Their recent collaboration with artist Yolande Harris, From a Whale’s Back (2020), includes an immersive sound and video work “exploring the visual and sonic underwater world inhabited by whales.”
Yolande Harris is an artist and researcher exploring ideas of sonic consciousness. Her projects consider techniques of navigation, expanding perception beyond the range of human senses, the technological mediation of underwater environments and our relationship to other species. Her projects on underwater sound aim to bring us closer to this inaccessible environment, encouraging connection, understanding and empathy with the ocean. She has presented her work internationally over the last twenty years, including the ICA London, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, the House of World Cultures Berlin and the Exploratorium in San Francisco and holds a PhD from Leiden University in ‘Sound, Environment and Sonic Consciousness’ and an MPhil from from Cambridge University in Architecture and Moving Image. Yolande was Assistant Professor in Video and Open Media at Rhode Island School of Design, and is currently Research Associate at the University of California Santa Cruz, working on underwater sound in the Monterey Bay. Melt Me Into The Ocean (2018) is an ongoing investigation exploring our relationship to the world oceans through underwater sound. From a Whale’s Back (2020) uses video, sound and data from tags used by scientists to monitor whales.
