The L.A.S.T. (Life Art Science Technology) Festival is seeking proposals from artists/scientists/engineers who are focused on interdisciplinary forms of technology-intensive art-making that expand the potential for audience engagement
In the explosion of new art forms that sprang forth from numerous avant-garde artistic movements that co-evolved with the social upheavals of the 20th century, a diversity of contemporary art forms were born. Many of these have developed with an emphasis on the interdisciplinary, often collaborative in nature, and have ranged from utilizing methods from the social sciences, such as anthropology and sociology, in forms of participatory art, activist art, social practice, and other forms of performative art, to the direct involvement of artists in laboratory practices or other forms of research, either as or in collaboration with, for example, biologists, physicists, or ecologists. In such work artists may contribute unique creative potential, create bridges of translation for new audiences to nascent scientific research or new technologies. As the range of sciences increasingly take place with the ubiquitous use of the computer, we find a wealth of new work that takes place not only at the now frequently cited crossroads of art and technology, but perhaps most significantly, in the widening superimposition of art, science & technology.
We welcome any proposals that emerge out of these often unexplored spaces of creativity, from art that uses sociological research, to ecological art; from art that is based in questioning ethnographic practices, to aesthetic engagements with string theory; across the wide range of both historical and emergent forms situated amidst the convergence of art, science and technology. We are interested in the modes in which artists are working in what might be seen as an exciting expansion and adaptation of scientific thinking to new fields, or alternatively perhaps a dangerous expansion of a dominant scientific world-view across the disciplines….
In keeping with its mission to bridge the humanities and sciences, future L.A.S.T. festivals, like the first one, will complement the art exhibition with a symposium in which eminent scientists will discuss topics from the sciences that are shaping the future.
The second LAST festival will take place at a prestigious San Francisco venue on October 23-25 in conjunction with the Bay Area Science Festival.
Please send us a description of work and any images/video you might have (work may be completed, in process, or a proposed idea not yet begun). Make sure to include your full name, contact information, bio, and website.
The artists will have to provide their own equipment, and we would like the artist to be physically present during the festival hours and engage the audience.
Deadline for submissions: September 30th, 2014.
Email submissions to: submit@lastfestival.com
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ABOUT THE LAST FESTIVAL
The L.A.S.T. (Life Science Art Technology) Festival (lastfestival.com), conceived by Piero Scaruffi, launched at art and technology organization ZERO1’s Garage (zero1.org) in San Jose, on June 6th and 7th, 2014. On Friday and Saturday nights the exhibition, produced by Adam Carlin and Erich Richter, featured a selection of sixteen interactive art installations, bringing in several thousand visitors.
Featured artists included: Robert Edgar: “Mergeemerge”; Yuan-Yi Fan: “Qi Visualizer”; Gene Felice & David Kant: “Coactive Systems”; Peter Foucault: “Attraction/Repulsion”; David Glowacki: “Danceroom Spectroscopy: Interactive Quantum Art”; Kristen Gillette: “Sound Relief”; Amy Ho: “Passing”; Leona Hu: “Reverie”; Kinetech Arts: “Time Bubble”; Emily Martinez: “AntiApocalypse”; Nathan Ober: “Samadhi”; OpenLab (Sean McGowen, Ian Ayyad, Richard Vallejos, Joel Horne) : “BioSensing Garden”; SonicSENSE (Jennifer Parker & Barney Haynes): “SoundPool”; Brent Townshend, Wes Modes, Lanier Sammons: “Corelated Space”; Eve Warnock & Kate Harrington: “HERD: Emergence”; Ian Winters: “Horizon Line” and “Vigil”.
Saturday afternoon, a full-house welcomed symposium speakers including Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google, Daniel Kaufman, Director of the Information Innovation Office at DARPA, Jennifer Dionne, Director of Stanford’s Nanotech Lab, Chris McKay, Chief Planetary Scientist at NASA Ames, and Alvy Ray Smith, cofounder of Pixar.
A two-day performance program engaged audiences at the Garage throughout the two-day festival.
The success of the first L.A.S.T. festival (See lastfestival.com), staged right in the middle of Silicon Valley, proved that the general audience is eager to participate in the explosive artistic, technological and scientific progress that is reshaping human society. Hence the motivation to start work on the second L.A.S.T. festivals that will take place in San Francisco at the end of October during the Bay Area Science Festival.
