Tag Archives: Culture

Art illuminates the beauty of science – and could inspire the next generation of scientists young and old

Chris Curran is Professor and Director Neuroscience Program, Northern Kentucky University
“I received my PhD in Environmental Genetics & Molecular Toxicology with a focus on genetic susceptibility to developmental neurotoxicants. I trained under Dr. Daniel Nebert and continue to benefit from the knockout mice he generously donated while starting an independent research career at Northern Kentucky University. I am also grateful to NIEHS which has funded our research here at NKU and supported nearly 100 undergraduates directly or indirectly over the last 12 years. I am past president of the Society for Birth Defects Research and Prevention and represent BDRP on the FASEB Board of Directors. I also service as a Councilor for the Society of Toxicology and the Developmental Neurotoxicology Society.”

Gayle Chong Kwan: Oneiric Archaeologies

Gayle Chong Kwan is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and academic whose work is exhibited internationally in galleries and the public realm. Her large-scale photographic works, immersive installations, and sensory ritual events are at the intersection of historical and archival research and fine art practice, and position the viewer as one element in a cosmology of the political, social and ecological. She has created a new installation work, ‘Oneiric Archaeologies’, in VR game design, sound, tactile wearable sculptures, and social dreaming to explore the collective re-shaping, re-use, and understanding of Avebury Neolithic site through dreaming.

If we fully engage with how generative AI works, we can still create original art

Dr Anthony Downey is Professor of Visual Culture (Birmingham City University), where his research and teaching focuses on practice-based research, Artificial Intelligence (AI), computer vision and machine learning, digital methodologies, and post-disciplinary models of knowledge production.
Anthony’s most recent book, ‘Trevor Paglen: Adversarially Evolved Hallucinations’ (Sternberg Press, 2024), outlines the extent to which so-called “hallucinations” reveal systemic biases in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). Recent and forthcoming publications include ‘Decolonizing Vision: Artificial Intelligence, Algorithmic Anxieties & Aerial Warfare’ (MIT Press, 2026); ‘Creative Endings: Visual Cultures, Generative Artificial Intelligence, and the Return of the Uncanny’ (Routledge Companion to Visual Culture, 2026); ‘AI as Alibi: Algorithmic Models of Automated Death’ (Digital War, 2025); ‘Algorithmic Predictions and Pre-emptive Violence’ (Digital War, 2024) and ‘The Return of the Uncanny: Artificial Intelligence and Estranged Futures’ (Visual Studies, 2024). Anthony is currently co-editing the first Special Journal Collection on AI and Memory for Memory, Mind & Media (Cambridge University Press).
Anthony sits on the editorial boards of Third Text (Routledge), Digital War (Palgrave Macmillan), Memory, Mind & Media (Cambridge University Press) and is the founder and series editor for Research/Practice (Sternberg Press).

The Art-Science Symbiosis

‘The Art-Science Symbiosis’ book outlines new approaches to understand current scientific practice in general and art-science in particular, showcasing how contemporary art can provide a unique perspective on the meaning and potential of collaboration. The book explores the different scopes of the art- science practice and 22 art-science works from all over the world, including interviews and descriptions by the same art-scientists.

The whole story of human evolution – from ancient apes via Lucy to us

John Gowlett is Professor of Archaeology and Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool.

A British Archaeologist born in the Isle of Man, based in the University of Liverpool, he is collaborating with colleagues on projects in Kenya. He has worked on archaeological sites around the world for many years, and has particular interests in fire and in the evolution of form in tools. He is currently mainly involved with research on the extinct volcano of Kilombe in Kenya, which has a record 2 million years long.

Vital Signs: another world is possible

‘Vital Signs: another world is possible’ is Science Gallery London’s new, free exhibition and events programme. It brings together artists, designers and researchers to explore how the health of the natural world is intimately connected to our own health and wellbeing from the waterways and atmosphere to the ocean floor. Revealing unique perspectives on our surrounding environments through multimedia installations, research collaborations and A Living Library, Vital Signs reinforces that humans are fundamentally a part of nature rather than apart from it.

Contemplating Oblivion

Keith Wiley was one of the original members of MURG, the Mind Uploading Research Group, an online community dating to the mid-90s that discussed issues of consciousness with an aim toward mind uploading. He has written a previous book, ‘A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading’, about the philosophical interpretation of mind uploading, various invited book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, and magazine articles, in addition to several essays on a broad array of topics.

On ‘The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World’

Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer and former editor of frieze magazine. Her books include ‘The Other Side: A Story of Women, Art and the Spirit World’ (2023), ‘The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of women’s self-portraits’ (2021), the children’s book, which she also illustrated, ‘There’s Not One’ (2017), and the novel ‘Bedlam’ (2007) She was the guest curator of the 2023 exhibition Thin Skin at Monash University Art Museum in Melbourne and is the host of the National Gallery of Australia’s new podcast, Artist’s Artists.