Tag Archives: Drawing

Why physics needs art to help picture the universe

Frank Wilczek is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and a Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Director of T. D. Lee Institute and Chief Scientist Wilczek Quantum Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), Distinguished Origins Professor at Arizona State University (ASU) and full Professor at Stockholm University.

Wilczek, along with David Gross and H. David Politzer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for their discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Future of Life Institute.

His most recent book is ‘A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design’.

Deconstruction

“Utilizing a dialectical approach in both my studio practice and research, my aim is to move beyond the contemporary paradigm of postmodernism towards an artistic discourse that oscillates between a ‘modern enthusiasm and postmodern irony,’ between unity and multiplicity, totality and fragmentation, clarity and ambiguity, and reason and romanticism.”

Jared Vaughan Davis often deals with topics ranging from epistemology, mythology, ancient and modern cosmology, and the science of ‘belief’.

Exploring Complex Systems in Nature

“My work is an exploration of complex systems in nature, and the dynamic interplay of structure and contingency that makes up the universe. I begin with spirals as a basic unit of configuration. Using compressed air to create and move small currents of paint, I yield control to my materials so that these basic units become force fields, drawing energy within themselves like a vortex and radiating it outward. As they bump up against one another, and overlap, they create interference patterns and complex interstitial spaces. These vibrate in a dynamic interplay in which nothing is static, where “positive and “negative” spaces shift in relation to one another in the shifting light.”

Interlocking Systems of Making

“My work is an exploration between vision and sound and the power of this connection to generate compelling visual environments. The inquiry of this integration has also satisfied a strong interest in the ideas and methodology of science as a basis for the conceptual underpinning of the work. As such, the method of creating my work is scientifically inspired with a well thought out and tested process oriented to have optimal pragmatic results both for the quality of the work itself and the benefits of the process for me as the maker.”

Daniel Hill is a painter, sound artist, curator, educator, and writer whose work explores the relationship between visual art, sound, and science. His paintings employ a rules based system in which the notion of embodied cognition is an inquiry as well as the balance between the aesthetic and conceptual.

On ‘The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars’

When celebrated neuropsychologist Paul Broks’s wife died of cancer, it sparked a journey of grief and reflection that traced a lifelong attempt to understand how the brain gives rise to the soul. The result of that journey. ‘The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars’, is a gorgeous, evocative meditation on fate, death, consciousness, and what it means to be human.

In this correspondence Paul Broks discusses the production of this book with Garry Kennard, its illustrator.

South Africa’s Blombos cave is home to the earliest drawing by a human

Christopher Henshilwood holds a 10 year South Africa National Research Foundation funded Research Chair and Professorship at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is also the Professor of African Prehistory in the Archaeology, History, Culture and Religion Institute at the University of Bergen, Norway.

Karen Loise van Niekerk is an archaeologist working on Middle Stone Age sites, specifically Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter, in the southern Cape, South Africa.

Exploring interconnections of order and chaos

“I am an emerging artist living in Cambridgeshire. Due to circumstances involving one of my children and a traumatic brain injury, I began my current practice as a way to cope with the neurological rehabilitation that has consumed family life. This experience feeds heavily into my artistic process.”

Katherine Gravett has worked in collaboration with neuroscientists in Cambridge and her work has been exhibited in artistic, scientific and therapeutic settings.