Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Event 3

Alexander Damianisch was part of a series of short lectures at the symposium on “Arts based Research in times of Social and Climate Change” on campus on April 4th. Her topic covered “Art Based Research on Dementia.”


Damianisch’s presentation was titled “On the Development of Milieus of Change via Institutions.” He introduced his ideas by talking meditation, centering, and relaxation. By taking even a few seconds to gather one’s self, you can find a new focus and center of thought on which to go about your day. By separating from the kind of standard approaches to work, you can get into a whole new mindset.

This opens up space for newfound detail and artistic creativity. By combining “focus freedom” and “free focus,” a person can find a place of artistic research and innovation that they would be unable to find without relaxing the mind. He also talked about how this helps artists find “spaces beyond contextual anticipations.”

Damianisch talking about focus and relaxation in art

This all combines to his overarching theme, which is you need freedom and focus to set the tone for milieus of change. In order to use science to better society, you should be able to relax and renew your thoughts and mental space to hone your artistic creativity to be innovative with science and change.

Gabriel Harp followed him up to discuss “What is Arts Research?” Harp, who is a part of Arts Research University (ARU) discussed how language is an important communication device across various domains and locations. This was relevant to the ARU survey asking “what do you understand arts research to be” across a multitude of educational platforms.

Harp discussing arts research

Some of the larger responses in this survey talked about “practice-led” arts research (24% of responses) as well as “creating and disseminating new culture” (19%). Harp mentioned how arts research is most successful as it itself is a communication device between human beings across the globe. The way a large portion of respondents understand art research involves working together in human relationships, both from a ‘practice-led’ standpoint and mutually creating new culture through art.

Lastly, Harp talked about how art research is impactful on higher educational interdisciplinary practices. He mentioned how university students are impacted in the classroom [directly and indirectly] by the effects of art research.

Greg Lynn spoke about art based research in social and academic settings of climate change. He talked about woven fiber constructions that  use energy from water and wind to move at speeds of 35 miles per hour, not needing a motor. He talked about studies testing sustainability by building houses with carbon fiber as opposed to wood or brick.

The coolest part of his presentation, in my opinion, was talking about microclimate by showing a chair he helped work on to keep athletes warm for peak performance. NBA players and Olympians break down every detail of their body from nutrition to compression clothing, and this chair helps keep their bodies ready to excel.

This chair is an example of an environmentally friendly machine yet helpful and innovative. Another innovation he discussed is related to AI while still ecologically conscious. Lynn helped design GITA, an intelligent device like an iPhone that carries stuff for you. It works similarly to an autonomous-car and can navigate and weave through crowds on the street because it can actually see and understands how people move, down to the details of pivoting and following you back. This is also intended to keep people active by walking more instead of driving, which helps the environment as well.

Lynn talking about GITA

Overall, I would recommend this event. The entire event, on which I wrote about for all 3 of my event blogs, gave cool insights to the infusion of art and science. I particularly liked this set of speakers because they were very differently informative and innovative. I liked how Damianisch basically talked about relaxation for creative purposes, Harp focused about the human-relation elements of arts research, and Lynn discussed a multitude of environmentally friendly inventions to improve society.

Me with Gerald Bast, the keynote speaker, on April 4th

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