Janna Levin

I found the lecture with Janna Levin really interesting, I'm glad that I was able to go. The part that I thought was so interesting was the intellectual and scientific community that shes apart of that is located on the seventh floor of a building in Brooklynn. Combining the work of architects, designers, artists, geneticists, biologists, computer scientists, and Janna Levin as the one theoretical physicist in an organic space that puts emphasis on collaboration is what she called the Third Culture.

Throughout her presentation the part that really grabbed me and made me want to know more about this was her examples of the types of work that they do. She focused on explaining about five different projects that are going on, some of them which occur simultaneously. The projects that more closely relate to art practice integrated with technology were the works called the Gravity Harp and Corine's World. The Gravity Harp was a collaboration between an engineer, electrician and designer to create a scientific instrument to perform along with Björk. The resulting harp was a beautifully crafted instrument that used the science of pendulums to create the strumming of a harp that corolated with Björk's song. Corine's World was a series of window installations in Barney's NY, a store in Manhattan. It was created to give homage to the life of the editor of Vogue Paris, Corine. It included three video installations depicting different films of Corine. 

                                                                        Gravity Harp


The Gravity Harp reminded me of a project that I was assigned in Design II. We were asked to make an instrument, but the parts had to come from things that weren't meant to be used in the creation of instruments. So, instead of guitar strings we had to come up with something else, like different gauged wires. It was really cool seeing what everyone came up with based on their knowledge of instruments and what ideas they could imagine.


Anyway, I really enjoyed her presentation about that group and how the merging of science and art can be beneficial and have very interesting outcomes.