Combining art & science in college courses - a case study from DePaw University

I recently stumbled across this paper in PLoS Biology:

Gurnon D, Voss-Andreae J, Stanley J. (2013) Integrating Art and Science in Undergraduate Education. PLoS Biology, 11(2):e1001491.

The article describes Villin, an amazing art-science collaboration at DePaw University. Students and faculty from the chemistry department teamed up with those in the sculpture department to produce abstract sculptures representing folding protein chains:

I loved the sculptures (I want one in my house!) and I loved the trial-and-error, interdisciplinary approach. The authors capitalized on the similar underlying force that motivates people in both disciplines, noting that "what drives innovation in science is inseperable from the elemental urge to express ourselves artistically." The art was produced for an annual on campus event called ArtFest, but the authors had some insightful words about how similar projects might be funded at other universities:

Projects like Villin can be challenging to fund, but they can also be a good fit for more than one funding source. We were able to make ours work by combining resources from the science class budget and from money allocated for special events. (Gurnon et al. 2013)

The Darshan Project - photo art of Hindu deities

I found out about this project through Yoga Journal - and I had to post it here because this photography is absolutely stunning:

THE DARSHAN PROJECT, an ambitious work in progress from New "Vork artist Manjari Sharma, features the Sanskit word dar shan, meaning "vision" or "view." In this case, says the Mumbai-born Sharma, the term can be denned as "an experience that ignites an understanding of the spiritual realm." Her goal is to install nine four-by-five-foot prints of meticulously staged photographs of Hindu deities in a gallery, along with text, incense, lamps, and taped invocations. It is an enormousand expensive- task. Dozens of craftspeople need at least four weeks and require elaborate sets, jewelry, and prosthetics to create each photograph. (Yoga Journal, March 2013 issue)

"Maa Laxmii", by Manjari Sharma

Initial funding for this project was raised through Kickstarter, and Sharma is now selling prints on the Darshan Project website to raise further capital in order to continue this gorgeous series.

Artsy: a new site for discovering art on the internet

Artsy has been my guilty pleasure for a few months now - perfect for procrastination, but also very educational and a great way to keep track of my favorite artists.

How to describe Artsy? Think of Pandora (the internet radio that touts itself as the "music genome project") for the art world.  On artsy, you can follow a list of artists (the ones you know you like) and also follow "genes" (a specific movement, theme, medium, or subject). Artsy also tells you if a particular artwork is for sale--although as a postdoc most of the pieces I like are waaaay out of my budget...

I've discovered so many new artists lately through Artsy! One feed I definitely recommend is Contemporary Chinese Art.

AAAS/NSF Visualization Challenge - 2012 winners

This morning I've been perusing the winners of this year's International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge, run by the National Science Foundation and Science magazine. All the content is free to access - there's some gorgeous pieces as well as podcasts.

My favourites this year come from the Illustration category (the other categories are Video, Games/Apps, Posters/Graphics, and Photography). There's something innately soothing about wisps of colour hinting at complex neural signals. The first place winner (show below) comes from McQuinn et al. at IBM research,  entitled "Connectivity of a cognitive computer based on the Macaque brain"

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6119/512.full