Event 2

           I really enjoyed attending the Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous this past week. It was a really educational and fascinating experience. Going into it, i did not know what to expect but the different topics the speakers presented were all incredibly unique and many of them were completely unfamiliar to me. i really enjoyed the fact that most of the presenters were still in the process of doing their research or creating their art because the way they were talking about it really showed how passionate and invested they were and I feel like with art, that passion isn’t always highlighted or tangible in the final product but it is such an invaluable part of the scientific and artistic process.

The one that fascinated me the most was the scientist who presented his research on light pollution. I had previously been pretty ignorant when it came to this topic and did not fully realize how impactful our abundant use of artificial light is on the environment. The charts he displayed were truly captivating because light is something that I rarely think about and that is just so normal and insignificant to us throughout our daily lives that it was truly amazing to see how much damage is being done by something that has been confined to the background of all of our lives. While this presentation was more specifically geared toward scientific research, the other speakers played more into the topics we’ve covered in this class by combining science and art in new and innovative ways. 

One of the speakers discussed her project that involved collaboration with many talented dancers to depict her artistic vision. This presentation was interesting because although I am familiar with the basic concept of performance art, it was interesting to actually hear an artist talk through their

original ideas and their artistic process and discuss what different factors influenced it and how it became their final product. I had always just assumed that with that kind of performance art, the people involved were just the medium, not the artists, but she really emphasized how much she learned from the dancers and how they were able to influence the final piece using their own individual talents. 

I would definitely recommend this event to my classmates because it was really helpful to see how real artists have been able to find practical applications for the topics we have been covering in class. The presentation really highlighted the ways real people have created opportunities for themselves by combining the fields of science and art. Before attending this, the projects that were featured in lectures and readings all just represented concepts and how they had come into existence, but this presentation really showed me how all of these different ideas are still relevant and are being employed in today’s artistic and scientific communities. It was also really interesting to get an inside look at what our professor has created in the past because it really adds an extra layer of context to all of our lectures.