ArtSci Salon consists of a series of semi-informal gatherings facilitating discussion and cross-pollination between science, technology, and the arts. ArtSci Salon started in 2010 as a spin-off of Subtle Technologies Festival to satisfy increasing demands by the audience attending the Festival to have a more frequent (monthly or bi-monthly) outlet for debate and information sharing across disciplines. In addition, it responds to the recent expansion in the GTA area of a community of scientists and artists increasingly seeking collaborations across disciplines to successfully accomplish their research projects and questions.

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• Stephen Morris:
  
• Roberta Buiani:
  

For more information, please visit the event website

A project by ArtSci Salon, 

With the support of the Fields Institute, Ottawa Scienza (Italian Embassy) and the Centre for Drama (U of T). Apr. 12 reception kindly provided by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura. Community Partners: BYOR Toronto

What is Emergent Form?

Form does not always follow function.  Nature teems with self-organized forms that seem to spring spontaneously from the smooth background of things, by mechanisms that are not always apparent. Think of rippled sand on a beach or regular stripes in the clouds.  Plants, insects and animals exhibit spirals and spots and stripes in an exuberant riot of colours.  Fluid flows in amazingly regular swirls and eddies.  Morphogenesis is not only a biological phenomenon, but is also physical, geological, astronomical and even sociological. 

The emergence of form is ubiquitous, and presents a challenge and an inspiration to both artists and scientists. In mathematics, patterns appear as solutions of the nonlinear partial differential equations in the continuum limit of classical physics, chemistry and biology. In the arts and humanities, “emergent form” addresses the entangled ways in which humans, plants animals, microorganisms inevitably co-exist in the universe; the way that human intervention and natural transformation can generate new landscapes and new forms of life. 

Emergent Form questions the notion of a fixed world.  

With this event, we wish to explore Emergent Form not only as a series of natural and human phenomena that often seem too complicated to understand, measure or predict, but also as a concept that helps us identify ways in which we can come to term with, and embrace their complexity as a source of inspiration.