Art Projects

November 06, 2006

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I announce the installation of two art and science projects in the Metcalf Center for Science and Engineering complex, sponsored by the Physics, Chemistry and Biology Departments.

The first of these projects is “Evolution of Darwin”, designed by artist Esther Solondz from RISD, which uses images of Darwin and other evolutionary scientists to create rust portraits that develop over time. The process used to accomplish this is to sandwich images composed of iron filings between two pieces of cotton gauze. The images are then placed on the concrete walls in front of the Metcalf Science buildings piled with compressed salt bricks in various stages of crystallization, growth and dissolution. The pieces are out in the open and will evolve by exposure to the weather, unimpeded by human intervention. As part of their involvement, students will be asked to make use of their knowledge of fundamental concepts in science. Interested students will be invited to work with the artist by suggesting chemical and physics alterations to the process that could affect the resulting work. For more information, visit http://www.bu.edu/darwin and this article.

The second project, “Visual Entanglements-The Search for Connections between Science, Art and Life”, will be appearing soon in the entrance of the Metcalf Center. BU students Brienne Rosner and Holland Dieringer won the competition in CFA Prof. Hugh O’Donnell’s site specific art class. Brienne and Holland have taken images from research in the Physics, Chemistry and Biology Departments and stylized them to become artistic images designed to show the link between the sciences as well as their relationships to the natural world. See if you can locate imagery from the graduate students in the laboratories of Profs. Tullius, Redner, Stanley, Grinstaff, Mohanty, Eldred, Kaufman, Goldberg, and Campbell. For a preview of the images, please click on the image below.

Special thanks to Cristi Menard, Hugh O’Donnell, Richard Anders, John Straub, Katinka Csigi, Gil Jones, Geof Cooper, Dave Osborne, and Colleen McGinty

Regards,
Bennett