Painting Energies - Artscience podcast by Aalto University
Painting Energies
10 episodes
8 months ago
In this episode, we talked to the Australian installation artist Janet Laurence. Janne met her when he was a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Janet's practice focuses on creating immersive experiences that bring people into an intimate relationship with nature. She is known for her work with plants, which highlights not only their beauty but also their fragility and the need for care and empathy to protect the environment. Her work is diverse, spanning from large-scale installations in forests and ecosystems, to sculptures, and even video and sound pieces. Entangled Garden for Plant Memory, Yu-Hsiu Museum, Taiwan (2020), After Nature, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2019), and Deep Breathing: Resuscitation for the Reef, Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France (2015) are recent examples of her work and exhibitions that relate to our conversation.
Janet tells about her way of working with scientists and researchers, and about her art installations consisting of samples from the vast animal and plant collections of natural history museums. We discuss the controversial feelings they evoke at the border between life and death, preserved but lost. Janne wonders if living nature itself is, to sapiens, like a natural history museum: a collection of increasingly rare species preserved at the brink of extinction.
Janet and Bart share their views on the role of art: could it be conceived as a powerful tool for behavioural change? This leads us to compare the different approaches by scientists and artists in presenting work and questioning: one obsessed in finding answers and solutions, the other avoiding them at all cost; the art of enquiry.
We end the conversation with Janet telling about her upcoming work with researchers of the Antarctic, spells for weather, and the plants in her new garden.
More about Janet: https://www.janetlaurence.com/
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In this episode, we talked to the Australian installation artist Janet Laurence. Janne met her when he was a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Janet's practice focuses on creating immersive experiences that bring people into an intimate relationship with nature. She is known for her work with plants, which highlights not only their beauty but also their fragility and the need for care and empathy to protect the environment. Her work is diverse, spanning from large-scale installations in forests and ecosystems, to sculptures, and even video and sound pieces. Entangled Garden for Plant Memory, Yu-Hsiu Museum, Taiwan (2020), After Nature, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2019), and Deep Breathing: Resuscitation for the Reef, Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France (2015) are recent examples of her work and exhibitions that relate to our conversation.
Janet tells about her way of working with scientists and researchers, and about her art installations consisting of samples from the vast animal and plant collections of natural history museums. We discuss the controversial feelings they evoke at the border between life and death, preserved but lost. Janne wonders if living nature itself is, to sapiens, like a natural history museum: a collection of increasingly rare species preserved at the brink of extinction.
Janet and Bart share their views on the role of art: could it be conceived as a powerful tool for behavioural change? This leads us to compare the different approaches by scientists and artists in presenting work and questioning: one obsessed in finding answers and solutions, the other avoiding them at all cost; the art of enquiry.
We end the conversation with Janet telling about her upcoming work with researchers of the Antarctic, spells for weather, and the plants in her new garden.
More about Janet: https://www.janetlaurence.com/
#7 Seeing at the limit of extreme darkness - with Petri Ala-Laurila
Painting Energies - Artscience podcast by Aalto University
1 hour 30 minutes 43 seconds
3 years ago
#7 Seeing at the limit of extreme darkness - with Petri Ala-Laurila
In its first public exhibition, we connected `Blck Vlvt´ with a blue wire to an LED in a dark room. There, it faintly lit up a small part of a canvas print of JMW Turner's `Snow Storm …´– the painting that `Blck Vlvt´ interprets. Viewing it in that dim light, visitors reported visual sensations that interested us in learning more about how human vision works in the dark. This question belongs to the research field of Petri Ala-Laurila, who joined us for a lively conversation about the fascinating topic.
Petri is an Associate Professor in Biophysics at the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering at Aalto University and the University of Helsinki (Ala-Laurila Lab). In this episode, we seek to understand what happens physiologically in the eye-brain system and cognition-wise in the human mind when that human is experiencing an artwork. How does sapiens' vision work in the limit of extreme darkness – a phenomenon familiar to all by experience but mysterious to science? Is it possible to see a single photon? What is the dimmest shadow we can see? How is the eye doing visual computations, being part of the brain? How do hormones, emotions, and other senses affect what we see?
Petri leads us to the path of the neural signals from the retina to the brain and cognition and a riverbank in Lapland where he goes fly-fishing for salmon every year. We hear about his visions for making good and bold science, practicing open scientific collaboration, working across disciplines, and the immersive moments of measuring neural signals of the live retina alone in a dark lab.
The first part of the conversation deals with the neurophysiology of vision, and from 54:25 on, we move to the overarching topics and personal reflections.
Painting Energies - Artscience podcast by Aalto University
In this episode, we talked to the Australian installation artist Janet Laurence. Janne met her when he was a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Janet's practice focuses on creating immersive experiences that bring people into an intimate relationship with nature. She is known for her work with plants, which highlights not only their beauty but also their fragility and the need for care and empathy to protect the environment. Her work is diverse, spanning from large-scale installations in forests and ecosystems, to sculptures, and even video and sound pieces. Entangled Garden for Plant Memory, Yu-Hsiu Museum, Taiwan (2020), After Nature, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2019), and Deep Breathing: Resuscitation for the Reef, Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France (2015) are recent examples of her work and exhibitions that relate to our conversation.
Janet tells about her way of working with scientists and researchers, and about her art installations consisting of samples from the vast animal and plant collections of natural history museums. We discuss the controversial feelings they evoke at the border between life and death, preserved but lost. Janne wonders if living nature itself is, to sapiens, like a natural history museum: a collection of increasingly rare species preserved at the brink of extinction.
Janet and Bart share their views on the role of art: could it be conceived as a powerful tool for behavioural change? This leads us to compare the different approaches by scientists and artists in presenting work and questioning: one obsessed in finding answers and solutions, the other avoiding them at all cost; the art of enquiry.
We end the conversation with Janet telling about her upcoming work with researchers of the Antarctic, spells for weather, and the plants in her new garden.
More about Janet: https://www.janetlaurence.com/
