- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
From Solar Design to Psychology of Music, to Language and Sociopolitical Dynamics
Faculty presentations on solar design, psychology of music, and language and sociopolitical dynamics will highlight the Leonardo Art, Science, Evening Rendezvous (LASER) event, set from 6 to 8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 16 in Room 115 of the UC Davis Music Building.
The event, free and open to the public, begins with networking at 6; and speaker presentations at 6:30. At 7:15, the program includes conversations and rapid fire community sharing.
The speakers are Beth Ferguson, UC Davis assistant professor of design, who will discuss "The Electric Driver Solar Kiosk"; Petr Janata, professor, UC Davis Department of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain, who will cover "Musical Neurobiographies"; and Michael Arcega, assistant professor, San Francisco State University Department of Art, whose topic is "WORDSWORDS."
Janata, in his research on how the human brain engages with music, has examined expectation, imagery, sensorimotor coupling, memory, and emotion in relation to tonality, rhythm, and timbre. His work also emphasizes the use of models of musical structure to analyze behavioral and brain data. "I am particularly interested in musical situations that elicit strong emotional experiences, such as music-evoked remembering or being in the groove," he says. Janata, who holds a doctorate from the University of Oregon, received a Fulbright Fellowship in 2010 to do research in Prague, and in the same year, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to further his investigations of what music-evoked autobiographical memories can tell us about the functional organization of the human brain.
Arcega is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. His research-based work revolves around language and sociopolitical dynamics. His subject matter, embedded with historic narratives, material significance, and geography, deals with circumstances where power relations are unbalanced. A naturalized American, he says he "investigates cultural markers that are embedded in objects, food, architecture, visual lexicons, and vernacular languages." His work has been exhibited at the Asian Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Orange County Museum of Art, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Cue Arts Foundation, and the Asia Society in New York, among others.
Although the LASER event is open to the public, reservations are encouraged at http://ucdlaser04.eventbrite.com. The Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/laser.ucd
LASER is sponsored by the Humanities, Art and Cultural Studies, College of Letters and Sciences; the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and LASER/ISAST (The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology). Entomologist/artist Diane Ullman, UC Davis professor of entomology, is a co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, which spearheaded the formation of LASER events at UC Davis.