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A Curious Alliance: The Role of Art in a Science Museum
Among the many things that distinguish the Exploratorium from most other
science museums is its Artist-in-Residence Program, and its use of art pieces
on the exhibit floor. This publication provides a historical and practical view of
how this alliance between art and science came about at the Exploratorium,
and describes the values derived by both the artists and the institution and
the philosophical underpinnings that give the program its strength.
This book is a component of a larger project partially funded by the
National Science Foundation. Recognizing the importance of the arts at the
Exploratorium arid the potential for similar programs at other museums, we
have explored the subject of how art can be incorporated into a science
museum from a variety of perspectives.
We hope that this publication will become a tool for other science museums
who want to include artists in their exhibit development process, a tool that
can help establish a conceptual base for using the insights and methods of
artists in their programs.
Goery Delacote, Executive Director
(ONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PETER RICHARDS
3
THE ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM AT THE EXPLORATORIUM: 4
HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY
MARK BARTLETT
CATALOG OF ARTWORKS 6
PRODUCED IN THE A. I.R . PROGRAM, 1974 - 1994
THE ENVIRONMENTAL ART AT THE EXPLORATORIUM PROJECT 15
MARK BARTLETT
GROWING ART IN A SCIENCE CULTURE 19
ELLEN KLAGES
ART AS A TEACHING TOOL
PAT MURPHY
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
FOR MUSEUMS WANTING TO INTEGRATE ARTISTS
INTO THEIR PROGRAMS
OTHER RESIDENCY PROGRAMS AT THE EXPLORATORIUM
Cover: Two Opposing Streams of Water (proposal/prototype), Bruce Miner, 1975.
25
29
31
A (URIOUS ALLIANtE:
THE ROLE OF ART IN
A HIENtE MUSEUM
BY PETER RICHARDS
DIR ECTOR OF ARTS PROGRAMS,
EXPLORATORIUM
an Francisco's Exploratorium is a
museum housing over 650 interactive
exhibits and artworks that provide
learning experiences about natural phe
nomena and human perception. It is a
creative environment where visitors can
explore on their own terms, linger where they
choose, and experiment as they please.
Perception is the underlying theme of the
Exploratorium because how we see, hear, feel,
smell, and otherwise sense the universe deter
mines what we know about it. The tools avail
able to visitors at the Exploratorium include
scientific instruments and experiments, mathe
matics, language, music, and art. Developing
exhibits from a variety of disciplines sustains a
creative atmosphere, an interactive setting that
is the perfect place to make discoveries and
realize new ideas.
Frank Oppenheimer, the museum's
founder, did not intend the Exploratorium to
be unconventional, but he wanted to start a
museum that reflected his notion that people's
perceptions and feelings were as much a part of
the scientific process as were the physical
aspects of the discipline. He also wanted to cre
ate a place where people could learn through
personal experience. It was this humanistic and,
at the time, unconventional philosophy that also
provided an environment where artists could
have a significant impact on the development of
a science museum.
By basing the core exhibitry on perception,
and by linking broadly diverse disciplines, the
Exploratorium provides fertile ground for peo-'
pie to learn about the natural world. At the
same time, the exhibits demonstrate that
human perception is a logical and rich meeting
place for science and art. Since 1969, we have
pioneered the role of the museum as an active
learning center, developing interactive exhibits,
training teachers, presenting performances,
films, lectures, demonstrations, and workshops,
and creating publications and videotapes to bet
ter communicate the issues that affect society.
We have a long and effective tradition of bring
ing together people from different disciplines.
Artists who work here are trained in the
use of analogy and metaphor, deftly applying
their skills of whimsy, humor, and visual associ-
ations to make fundamental ideas, and in partic
ular ideas concerning natural phenomena,
accessible and compelling to a broad range of
people. The,ir art forms and media range from
poetry and writing to multimedia performances
and theatrical productions, from animated film
making to dance productions and performances
exploring cultural connections. They screen
non-commercial films, present national and
international film festivals, and display paintings,
installations, and exhibits.
The Exploratorium's Artist-In-Residence
Programs provide a place for artists to work
within the museum. Each year we commission a
number of artists whose
interests complement ours.
They participate in a col
laborative research and
development process result
ing in the creation of new
works for the exhibit floor,
and new film and perfor
mance experiences for the
public. Working in our
shops with our creative
staff, these artists add to
and enhance the creative
atmosphere of the place.
"Exploration, experimentation and discov
ery" have been touchstones since the Explora
torium opened its doors in 1969. These are
words that best describe the activities of the
staff and the artists who have built the more
than 650 exhibits now on display. The ongoing
scientific process of inquiry and the ongoing
artistic process of inquiry at the Exploratorium
provide the possibility of new personal discov
eries from many different viewpoints. We have
found that the synthesis of these processes fos
ters the development of artworks and exhibits
that lead to a personal sense of how each indi
vidual is connected to the whole.
A Curious Alliance provides a historical and
practical view of how this syntheSiS between art
and science came about at the Exploratorium. It
describes the values derived by both the artists
and the institution and the philosophical under
pinnings that give the Artist-in-Residence
Program its strength.
Peter Richards is a public artist and has been
Director of the Arts Programs at the Exploratorium
since 1974. He has created numerous works in col
laboration with other artists, including the San
Francisco Marina's renowned Wave Organ, with
George Gonzales.
J
THE ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM AT THE EXPLORATORIUM
BY MARK BARTLETT
The History of the Program
doors opened at the
Exploratorium in August of 1969
because Frank Oppenheimer
neglected to lock them after he
entered one morning. When a curi
ous visitor aCcidentally wandered in and
began looking at the (then) very sparse
exhibits, Frank commented, "I guess we're
open."
Frank began the experiment in the Palace
of Fine Arts building as a collaboration of
three-himself, his wife Jackie, and his son
Michael. He needed to conquer this vast inte
rior quickly and make it at least appear to be
a science museum to attract a public and fun
ders. The very first interactive exhibits were
produced with donated shop equipment and
included models that occupied a lot of floor
space-like the rocket capsules that Frank
convinced NASA to contribute. This accom
plished, he gained the momentum to create
the real museum-filled with hands-on
exhibits-that within a few years would
become the archetype for interactive science
museums.
Faced with the task of drawing attention
to an architectural relic in an outlying neigh
borhood of San Francisco, he used tactics as
ingenious as the Pope's invention of religious
parades to call attention to the Vatican when
it lay outside the walls of central Rome-he
devised the scientific equivalent of the
pageant.
In 1969, Frank agreed to exhibit
Cybernetic Serendipity. Originating in London,
this was a show of technologically generated
art curiosities. It was the first public exhibi
tion to link art, science, and electronic tech-
nology. Frank then joined forces with partici
pants of the Experiments in Art and
Technology (E.AT.) Program and with mem
bers of the San Francisco Music
Conservatory, who produced experimental
sound- and light-works at night. These per
formances were intentionally designed to
make a lot of noise and draw a crowd, and
they worked beautifully. The Exploratorium
qUickly gained a reputation for experimental
work and became a magnet for local artists.
From the beginning, Frank Oppenheimer
believed that art needed to be an integral
part of the Exploratorium's exhibitry. Within
a year of the Exploratorium's "opening,"
artist Bob Miller came to demonstrate his
experiments with light and shadows. Out of
his conversation with Frank came the first
artwork to be commissioned by the
Exploratorium-Sun Painting (described on
page 13). Twenty-five years later, Bob's piece
remains one of the most successful ever cre
ated at the museum. It accomplishes the diffi
cult task of being both a model science ex
hibit and a consummate work of art.
In 1971, artist Peter Richards was hired
as an exhibit builder, one of the first artists
to navigate a shop culture dominated by an
anarchic and challenging group of physicists,
engineers, electricians, woodworkers, and
machinists. In 1974, Brian O'Dougherty at the
National Endowment for the Arts (N.E.A)
suggested that Frank write a proposal to fund
an Artist-in-Residence (AI.R.) Program, and
Pete became the new program's director.
When Pete began administering the
AI.R. Program, a rather feisty shop tech and
avowed art skeptic named Joe Ansel was
asked to take over the position of artists'
mentor. Fortunately for the history of the
program, he accepted. Just as fortunate for
the program was that Doug Hollis, then a
young, unknown artist from Berkeley,
became one of the earliest official resident
artists.
Doug worked closely with Frank Oppen
heimer on a project to build an Aeolian harp,
learning the investigative tools of working
through problems in a scientific way. Joe and
Doug also developed a close working rela
tionship; Doug's artistic sensibilities influ
enced Joe's nuts-and-bolts, task-oriented
approach, and Joe taught the artist skills like
welding and precision metalworking. The
relationship between these three was hand
and-glove, becoming a paradigm for the suc
cessful artist-scientist collaboration. It legit
imized the program and more importantly,
further integrated the Exploratorium's art
and science cultures.
As with every activity in the museum,
the AI.R. Program was the result of many
influences, and because of this collaborative
process, was born almost complete in the
museum's first years. Since 1974, Pete
Richards has qUietly given a home to that
rare artist who, like Bob Miller and Doug
Hollis, actively seeks out the rigors and tech
nicalities of science rather than recoiling from
them. Pete invites four to six artists a year to
come to the Exploratorium and produce
works of art which inspire the discovery of
subtle connections that can be made between
the nature of art and science. The artists
have the opportunity to use a sophisticated
electronics and machine shop, and to work
with a staff that is fascinated by both aes
thetic and technical problem solving.
The relationship between mentor and
artist has, from the beginning, been sponta
neously determined by the mix of the individ
uals involved. The process for developing
each project is a little more well defined,
although it, too, varies with each
individual artist. After the artist has
presented existing work and ideas for
a project to various oversight commit
tees, there is an experimental phase,
resulting in a working prototype of the
piece. The artist may discuss concepts
with staff scientists, explore methods, tech
niques, and materials with technicians in the
shop, and test and sometimes radically trans
form or even abandon his or her original
idea.
The collaborative process with the staff
continues during the construction phase, in
which the full-size artwork is built. The public
joins the mix during the shakedown phase,
when the finished piece is installed on the
museum floor. As Pete Richards points out,
the criteria for a successful Exploratorium
exhibit includes "whether it will work,
whether it will last, and whether it will stand
up to heavy use by children."
The AI.R. Program functions not so
much as a studio, but as a laboratory for
artistic investigations. The program has
evolved as new types of problems have been
attempted and personnel has changed. But
the main goal is identical to the mission set
out in the museum's first days: to provide
artists with the chance to use the shop with
its rich human and mechanical resources; to
explore the unique opportunity for expert
scientific instruction, construction, and the
collaborative investigation of the artist's
vision; and to provide new exhibits for the
museum's collection.
Frank Oppenheimer compared both the
museum as a whole and an individual exhibit
to a play or a musical composition. He
wrote: "A tension is built up by something in
the exhibit that elicits curiosity or an inter
esting task or a lovely effect, then the tension
is resolved as the result of an aesthetic or
intellectual payoff." It is this aesthetic philoso
phy that in fact presides over every exhibit,
over every note struck in the scientific and
artistic symphony that reverberates in the
cavernous space of the Palace of Fine Arts.
It is important to remember that the
Exploratorium is a very public place, and that
its artworks occupy a unique niche of public
art. As a fully defined genre, public art had its
beginnings in the seventies, evolving
through the eighties, and
has entered yet another phase in recent
years. From the beginning, public art has been
driven by the dual impulses of urban renewal
and artists' separation from the art-for-art's
sake dogmatism that had alienated the gen
eral public for decades. This type of techno
logical and science-related experimentation
has remained largely tangential to the main
course of the art world, and only recently is
it beginning to receive widespread attention.
The Exploratorium's Artist-in-Residence
Program has evolved, meanwhile, on its own
independent and somewhat idiosyncratic
track. It has often seemed virtually invisible to
some of the art world because its works
have been "camouflaged" as science exhibits.
Only in today's climate of technological
explosion and acknowledged scientific influ
ence in the cultural sphere are the works of
Exploratorium artists coming to the attention
of the art world, and gaining the long over
due recognition they deserve.
The Exploratorium's artists practice an
art/science synthesis that avoids the limited
A BRIEF SUMMARY OF ARTlST·IN·RESIDENCE PROJECTS AT THE EXPLORATORIUM
[P] indicates that this project is a
permanent exhibit on the floor of the
ExploralOrium. The other projects are
either in storage, have been dismantled,
or were temporary installations.
TACTILE TREE RICHARD REGISTER (1974) Tactile 'l1'ee was a study in tactile sensations-texture, hot and cold, cool and moist , mists, moving air and radiant heat-presented as components of a large ferrocement tree with truncated branches.
I QUIET LIGHTNING BILL PARKER (1974) [PJ Quiet Ugbln ing uses high voltage to produce a violent (but quiet) li ghtning storm in a glass sphere. Its co lors are those of fire-mostly reds and oranges-with violets for contrast. The gas discharge is modi fied by the hands and produces an almost X-ray- like pattern.
2 A.M. LIGHTNING P.L.B.B. BILL PARKER (1974) [PJ A.M. Ligbtning, P.L.B.B. is a sculptured fiberglass and wood base which supports blue lightning in a glass tube. The lightning "bolt" is composed of slowly moving beads of blue li ght; touching the tube causes distinct changes and interruptions of the flow of li ghtning.
II CASTLE RUTH ASAWA (1974) Ruth Asawa conducted several dayand week-long sessions in the Exploratorium during which she and groups of young people made complex geometric structu res with empty milk cartons. In addition, she made two beautiful panels of folded paper with black-and-white patterns .
... JUPITER FLY·BY GEORGE BOLLING (1974) Video artist George Bolling presented a real-time broadcast for the five days that the Piol/eel' XI satel lite approached and orbited the planet Jupiter. As events unfolded , the artist, who was located at NASA's command center, fed information to the Exp lorato rium via a special microwave link, where it was presented on large-screen video monitors.
FOREFRONT READINGS: THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY AND SCIENCE MURIEL RUCKEYSER (1975) Poet Muriel Ruckeyser spent two months at the Exploratorium,
perspective endemic to much of today's tech
nomania. These creators are using low-tech
as well as high-tech mechanical and computer
means to make art that concerns music, wea
ther systems, erosion patterns, mathematics,
water currents, wave motion, light, and color.
The pedagogical orientation, far from being too
didactic, enriches the works, adding another
layer of interest and cultural significance.
Although most of the AI.R. Program's
art has been out of the mainstream of the art
world, Doug Hollis points out that the
AI.R.'s artists have served as emissaries to
the community at large. They have caused a
ripple effect over the years, disseminating the
Exploratorium's attitudes, interests, methods,
and philosophies wherever they go. The
museum itself has been one of the strongest
influences on artmaking in the Bay Area,
equal to any of the private or public art
schools. It has become as much a resource
for the arts as for the science commu
nity- locally, nationally, even
internationally.
This dual nature is at the core
of the history of the AI.R. Program.
It is a unique cultural and public
program-one that sets out to
reveal the inexplicable, the
metaphoric, and the symbolic won
ders that bridge the extraordinary
space between art and science.
The Philosophy of the Program
In anthropology, the term "going
native" is applied to an anthropologist
who abandons all pretense to objective
investigation into a culture other than his
own, and instead becomes indistinguishable
from the "native" population he came to
study. The anthropologist who has gone
native is judged a failure by the scientific
community and is shorn of all credibility.
By exactly the opposite logic, the more
an Exploratorium artist "goes native," the
more he or she is considered a successful
resident. As the artist becomes immersed in
the Exploratorium's culture, he or she is
judged a genuine member of the museum's
society. Jim Pomeroy, an early resident, once
said, "by becoming a resident at the
Exploratorium, one belongs for life."
Artist Anna Murch described her resi
dency as recreating the "pure" experience of
artmaking normally encountered only while
studying art in school. It provided discussion
for its own sake, and in that sense, generated
interest, excitement, curiosity, and a willing
ness to engage, free of the normal day-to-day
business that commonly inhibits extensive
dialog about the artist's ideas and work.
Anna compared her time at the
Exploratorium to the time of a traveler who
is free of commitments, free from preconcep
tions of the foreign places she is traveling
through, and open to simply experiencing for
experience's sake. It was a time to play, a
time for development and for ideas to con
dense. For her that was the greatest gift of
the program.
The Exploratorium's Artist-in-Residence
Program is unique among the many types of
residencies artists have to choose from. Over
the years, the program has defined a philoso
phy that closely links art to science in a num-
ber of ways. Because of its
museum setting, the pro
gram has forged close
ties with the practices
and problems of pub
lic art. Framed by
the philosophy of
science, and by
the require
ments of
effectively
communicating with the pub
lic, the AI.R. Program has developed an
unusual set of methods and goals:
• The creation of every piece is a collab
orative venture, closer to the team method
of designing buildings than to the solitary
working style typical of most artists.
• Artists within the program assume a
scientific attitude by adopting the methods
and standards of science. They investigate
their problems by developing hypotheses,
building prototypes, and testing them.
• The museum context requires that
each work produced by these artists commu
nicates successfully to as large a cross-section
of the general public as possible, and that
each relates, in a significant way, to current
interests.
contributing to our graphics, and formulating plans for an exhibit section dealing with the perception of meaning in language. She also organized a series of twelve readings in which both a poet and a scientist read their work, which was followed by very penetrating discussions about the ways in which language can convey imagery, experience, and message.
I FORMS IN MOTION DIANNE STOCKLER (1976)
This animated film is composed of moving geometric fig
ures, lines, and fluidly evolving shapes which are projected into a large, smoke-filled
glass chamber. The twodimensional images of the
film are seen as moving threedimensional figures , thus integrating cinema and sculpture.
!I DRUM STEPHAN VON HUENE AND JAMES TENNEY (1976) This 5-foot-diameter Plexiglas drum has 32 pneumatically actuated hammers mounted around its rim . They are controlled by a microcomputer which receives its instructions from a large rotating disc that contains musical compositions which are read by a light sensor. Composer James Tenney wrote three percussion pieces for the project.
II AEOLIAN HARP DOUGLAS HOLLIS (1977) [Pj Named after Aeolis, the Greek goddess of wind, this wind-activated acoustic sculpture is mounted on the roof of the Exploratorium. The sounds produced by the wind blowing across the choir of strin gs are transmitted mechano-acoustically to speakers located just above the north entrance of the building .
• PROFESSOR PULFRICH'S UNIVERSE GERALD MARKS (1977) [Pj This piece is a whimsical shadow environment which houses several motorized mobiles and a large metronome. With a dimming glass over one eye, visitors can observe the rotating shadows which seem-quite arbitrarily- to reverse their motion.
5 PAINTING IN PROGRESS GUSTAVO RIVERA AND GRADY MCDONALD (1978) These two painters used the Exploratorium as a studio to demonstrate to the public how the work of a painter evolves over an extended period of time. The concl usion of this project was celebrated with a large showing of paintings in our special exhibition area.
J-
I .
Producing works of art for the AI.R.
Program, like producing scier:lce exhibits, is a
collective process. Some of the staff have
been involved with the museum since its
beginning, that is, for almost twenty-five
years. The reservoir of experience accumu
lated during a quarter of a century runs deep,
and stores the lessons learned from both the
failed and successful projects. Individual
artists bring their own experiences to the
mix, and the AI.R. Program recruits those
from whom it can learn as well as those it
can teach. As Nick Bertoni, a former artist
in-residence and the current project manager
for the AI.R. Program says, "we are growing
ourselves as we encourage the artists to
grow."
A word one hears often at the museum
to describe the interaction between the artist
and the rest of the staff is "co-creation." It is
a process, not a product, and as intangible
and shifting as cloud formations . Its medium
consists of dialogs among many people and
extensive experimentation. Nick describes
the development of a project as the interac
tion between two opposing types of thought
processes-the more goal-oriented, or linear,
step-by-step approach, typical of engineering,
and the more open, nonlinear, associative and
intuitive approach common to the artistic
process.
Each approach puts demands for quality
on the other. The knowledge taken for
granted by the scientist or engineer may
assume a very different meaning in the mind
of the artist; the artist's working style may
reveal something that the scientist had not
considered before and lead to a new line of
inquiry.
The artist at the Exploratorium does not
conform to the cliche of the genius, striving
alone; he or she bows to the pragmatic con
ditions of museum life and to attaining the
' highest possible clarity in the work. This type
of artist learns to take the scientific attitude
completely to heart and must continually
monitor the work against the demands of
the 'public.
Artist as Experimenter
The Exploratorium artist is a unique
blend of the experimental investigator and
maker of well-crafted objects. This artist fol
lows a two-fold path. The first path leads
toward playful expression of natural phenom
ena, such as the way light reflects or diffracts.
Perhaps the investigator is fascinated by the
chaotic patterns of fluid motion in water or
cloud formations. Or perhaps inspiration
leads toward bending the science of sound
toward a whimsical musical performance
using, for instance, blow torches against metal
sheets.
The second path then leads to discus
sions between the artist and members of the
Exploratorium staff. What is the best way to
harness these phenomena? What are the
technical skills necessary to build a work that
is interactive, and yet retains its autonomy as
a work of art? The piece that results is less of
an object-a sculpture or painting-than a
site meant to orchestrate a particular experi
ence or event.
The works developed and exhibited in
the AI.R, Program are an intersection
between art and science; the two are
not easily separated, especially during the
conceptual stage. Artists, physicists, and engi
neers come to share both scientific and artis
tic methods, attitudes, and vocabulary. Both
types of inquiry are sources of inspiration
here, and people work together to focus
their efforts on bringing to light the beauty,
mystery, simplicity, or complexity of the nat
ural world. As they work, the bOl}ndaries
between art and science blur.
A ~ t " a s, Pro tot y pi n 9
What, makes the AI.R. process unique is
its ,close similarity to the protocol of scientific
inquiry-each step along the path to the
completed work is a hypothesis to be tested,
accepted, rejected, or reformulated. It is the
raising of this formal testing procedure to
the level of a deliberately conscious activity
that distinguishes the art process at the
Exploratorium from the ways in ~hich art is
usually made.
Just as the sharing of ideas and skills gov
erns the successful collaboration between
artist and scientist, the process of prototyp
ing governs the actual making of the artwork.
A wonderful presentation of the philosophy
and practice of prototyping is contained in
another Exploratorium publication, Working
Prototypes, a collection of Frank Oppenheimer's
writing.
I LIGHTWEIGHT PHANTOMS JIM POMEROY (1978) Using a home-built stereoscope based on the 1832 invention by physicist Charles Wheatstone, coupled with a series of double-image slide projec-tions, the artist's images are cast upon a screen by a carousel projector. Viewed with Polaroid glasses (Pomeroy's own modification to Wheatstone's original system), one is presented with the illusion of solid three-dimensional images.
2 CLASSROOM WINDOW: DREAM CHART OF FOUR GONE CONCLUSIONS RICHARD POSNER (1978) [P] This work consists of four leaded glass panels installed in the northeast sec-tion of the classroom building. The windows are a surreal juxtaposition of dream imagery, cu ltural history, and scientific phenomena, which refer to and complement exhibits on the museum floor . While looking at the images, the viewer can simultaneously see into the classroom (through large sections of clear glass) as well as see his or her own reflection (through the use of mirrors).
PERFORMANCES KIRK ROBERTS (1978 -79) Kirk Roberts used theatrical tech-niques to present his unique ideas and observations about perception and natural phenomena. 71le Search Jar Shcldowman, a shadow play, and other performances were shown to students in our School- In-The-Exploratorium (SITE) program. After each performance the students experi -mented with the props and staged their own versions of the show.
i VORTEX DOUGLAS HOLLIS (1979) [PJ This se lf-renewing vortex is formed by water pumped from the bottom of a 6-foot-high , 2-foot-diameter PleXiglas cylinder and then returned to the top at a high rate of speed. The resu lting swi rl forms a beautiful whirlpool which can reach all the way to the bottom of the cyl inder or disappear completely at the whim of the visitor.
THE MUSICAL JET PATRICK READY (1979) This project was based on a book by C. V. Boys, who wrote about late 19th-
I
, -":("1 ". 't',
'\1 ct- J concerning trans-
~ .. , \~."~" ," ," ,ft ' :::::z:::
water. An installation was created consisting of a large pool of water, speaker horns, and jets of water through which visi tors transm i tted thei I' voices.
As Frank showed, a prototype is a
first rough draft of an exhibit, usually made
from inexpensive, readily acquired materials,
assembled in qUick-and-easy fashion simply to
test an idea with the least amount of effort.
Prototypes usually evolve toward more and
more refined stages, until the bugs and kinks
have been worked out-or the idea is aban
doned. The exhibits that become part of the
museum's permanent collection are the most
refined and successful prototypes.
Not all prototypes work-at least
not the way the artist may have originally
intended. But science is rife with anecdotes
about "accidental discoveries," and artistic
"errors" have often been as enlightening as
successes. It is in the ability to recognize
when accidents and errors are significant-an
ability that no method or principle or tech
nique guarantees-that aesthetic decision
making is most apparent. It is a kind of judg
ment, an ability to make decisions and
choices based on intuition.
While everybody "knows" what
intuition is, it is difficult to define. It has
something to do with refined observation,
long experience with the subject, a facile han
dling of theory and practice, a gift for being in
the right place at the right time, an accep
tance of failures, and a knack for being provi
dentially accident prone. The most successful
AI.R. pieces are a result of the artist and sci
entist working together, following their intu
ition about what will work, and then trying it
out.
During the prototyping phase, artist and
scientist engage in a dynamic interchange
between theory and practice. This inter
change is governed by what many scientists
would call experimentation, and many artists,
free imaginative play. In either field, it is an
aesthetic process. When art and science
come together, new findings emerge that
would never appear if one or the other were
absent.
The Science Exhibit and the
Artwork in Context
At the Exploratorium, the artworks
and scientific exhibits collaborate in the task
of engaging the audience. While many of the
art pieces cannot be completely explained
scientifically, they draw the museum-goer
into an inquisitive frame of mind. In a similar
way, the science exhibits prepare the partici
pant for a deeper understanding of the art
works by creating a curious attitude that
bridges the gap between rigorous inquiry and
playful exploration. Rather than explaining the
phenomena, the scientific component deep
ens the visitor's experience of the often hid
den dimensions of the natural world. The
artistic frames the scientific with delight, cul
tural commentary, or metaphor.
Though some visitors may have a
different experience of the art at the
Exploratorium than they do of the science,
the two disciplines are tightly interwoven; in
some cases the differences dissolve com
pletely. Together, they create an environment
in which nature's exquisite poetry is revealed
and can be understood. It is just this alliance
of art and science that makes the works pro
duced by the AI.R. Program such effective
means of education. The Exploratorium's
teacher development programs use both sci
entists and artists to demonstrate concepts,
and many of the classroom exhibits are
scaled-down versions of works developed by
AI.R. artists.
The coherence of the museum's many
exhibits is modeled on the unity of nature
itself. While exhibits are loosely organized
under the categories of Electricity and
Magnetism, Color and Light, Waves and
Motion, etc., paths organized by a common
theme can be traced from section to section.
Artworks are not in a section by themselves,
but are distributed through each area. Such
interrelationship and unity demonstrates the
museum's mission statement:
Both art and science are needed to fully
understand nature and its effeas On people.
The inclusion of art is, therefore, not a
whim, nor simply the interest of an eccentric
breed of artist, but a necessity.
The claim is a strong one: that art and
science do indeed form an inseparable paral
lelism, each extending and elucidating the
meaning of the other.
Art Content-Science Content
Both the science exhibits and artworks
take the visitor on an excursion through per
ceptual, conceptual, and aesthetic experi
ences. In this very interactive environment,
visitors may read texts, manipulate exhibit
apparatus, concentrate on the phenomena,
and assimilate new concepts and ways of
understanding them.
In this setting, the artworks can provide
a change of pace, a change of perspective, or
a different kind of sensory experience meant
to evoke amazement, delight, and curiosity.
The artworks do not try to explain the nat-
I
!l
J
•
PIN SCREEN WARD flEMING (1980) [P] Pin Screen is a tactile sculpture which consists of special straight pins hung through a four-foot square of finely perforated metal screen. The pins reflect light from colored lamps mounted overhead. As visitors move their hands across the dangling pins, the path changes colors as the pins reflect the light from the lamps.
DISCERNIBILITY EO TANNENBAUM (19BD) [P] Discernibility is an interactive video sculpture that allows people to manip-ulate images of themselves. By alter-ing the gray levels, or by stretching their own video portraits, they can do experi ments to find out how much information is needed to discern an image.
SOUND COLUMN DANIEL W. SCHMIDT (19BD) [Pj Sound Cotumn is a musical instru-ment whose resonatin g chamber is a 60-foo t-hi gh room in a column of the rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts. Six polished aluminum bars are mounted on a stand in the room. When struck with a mallet, the bars vibrate, inter-actin g with the air column to create a se ri es of deep resonatin g sounds of specific pitch. A ramp inside the col -umn lets visitors experience the changes in the resonating sounds at various heights .
THE SEA AS SCULPTRESS RUTH WALLEN (19BO) Ruth Wall en placed wooden sculptures consisting of blocks of wood sur-rounded by a frame in three sites in San vranci sco Bay. Us ing macropho-tography, these blocks we re examined photographically at monthly intervals to provide a detailed history of the intricate changes in the li fe forms on small areas of each piece of wood over time. Four perfo rmances included multi-im age slide pro jections of the evolving anim al and pl ant life, a nar-rati ve, and the recorded sounds of Wave Organ (see page 20).
VIDEO PILOT PROJECT MYA SHONE AND RICK SMITH (1980) A seri es of short videos were made relatin g the themes and exhibits of the Exploratorium to people's everyday life experiences. The bas ic properti es of wave motion were examinedducks movin g th rough a pond, boats in the ocean, waves created by rocks in a stream, etc. Three pilots were produced with the .intention of developing a full thirteen-week se ri es of educati onal science videos entitled "Frames of Reference." The artists were princi pally invo lved in the setup of the fac ility and initi al experimentation with the concept and format of the first tape.
".
ural world as much as to foster an apprecia
tion of it. They often reflect back on our
human condition and its significance, provid
ing a balance between observing and partici
pa~ing in the ext.raordinary world of physical
events.
One of the best examples of this type of
work is Sun Painting, by Bob Miller, which
sup rises in a number of ways. A visitor walks
right into the piece without realizing it, sud
denly caught by rainbow colors dancing over
his or her body. The colors of the spectrum
are cast on white hanging panels-not in
their usual strict geometric pattern of vertical
bars, but like the patterns of leaf shadows
that shift as the branches move in the wind.
As the viewer changes position, the patterns
also shift. In searching for the source of this
effect, the visitor discovers a vertical arrange
ment of prisms that fracture sunlight directed
to them by a series of mirrors-a path that
begins on the museum's roof. Unwittingly,
the spectator becomes an actor in this
drama, and is engaged in a playful investiga
tion of this exquisitely beautiful event.
Other works commissioned by
the Exploratorium could be
described similarly; but in each case,
the difference between a "science
exhibit" and an "artwork" depends
largely on the visitor's active participa
tion in the experience. The visitor can
play with one piece to produce the
highest projection of a cloud ring. A few
steps farther on, this same visitor might
arrange sand to observe and test erosion
patterns or direct water-comets as they
snake over an inclined glass plane.
Beauty and the element of surprise are
the hooks that lead the participant to ques
tion what's going on. Art, in many cases,
simply takes a different point of view from
that taken by science. Rather than explaining
the spectrum of a rainbow in terms of
physics, an artwork might consider how peo
ple perceive the same phenomenon. The sci
ence exhibits and the artworks complement
and complete each other.
It is important to remember that this
synthesis between artwork and science
exhibit takes place in a science museum-an
institution that frames its exhibits and their
contents within its philosophical orientation.
Both the exhibits and the artworks are insep
arable from their context. Take a piece out
of one museum and put it in another with a
different philosophy, and the piece will take
on new meaning.
Many Exploratorium artworks are
thought-poems wrought of earthly materials,
earthly dimensions. They are aesthetic expe
riences, but also foundations for scientific
study. They provide the visitor with the
opportunity for a type of scientific reading
between the lines, a wondering at the order
in nature. They provide the pleasure and the
excitement of discovery that, once experi
enced and understood, bind us more closely
to the inner workings of the physical world.
The Exploratorium was founded in order
to make scientific knowledge available to
everyone. Frank Oppenheimer meant,
through an educational process, to put the
non-scientist in an informed position to bet
ter make decisions about everyday life. His
hope was to invest everyone with an under
standing of science on the one hand, and on
the other, to provide a basis for
a deep
commitment to the
phenomena of the natural world, to
the environment, and to human life.
Against this background, art plays no
small role in the Exploratorium's mission. In
Frank Oppenheimer's mind, at least, it played
a role equal and parallel to that of science. It
was this understanding he most wanted to
promote--that all facets of the natural world,
like the exhibits themselves, interconnect in a
unified scheme.
Mark Bartlett was a Writer-in-Residence
at the Exploratorium in 1993. His writing has
appeared in Artweek, Cameraworks Quarterly,
and Art Issues. He curated a show, Color in
the Shadows: Bay Area Cyberart, exhibited at
Oliver Art Center in Oakland, January-March, 1994.
LIGHTWEIGHT PHANTOMS JIM POMEROY (1981) [P] The ori ginal work (see page 10) was displ aced during the constructi on of the Exploratorium 's mezzanine, providing an opportunity for the artist to reconfi gure the optics and projec tion system and to add a se ri es of new images.
I PERCEPTUAL PARADIGM TOM PETRILLO (1981) [P] These 18 color photographs toy with our assumptions and expectations of the wo rld. One qUickly accepts the fac ts presented in the photographs and then becomes aston ished to fi nd a paradox ical situation of vis ion or color. The museum's exhibits were the basis for the photographs and are the lin k between the phenomena and the poeti cs of the artist's wo rk.
2 MUSIC ROOM PAUL DEMARINIS (1981) [P] Music Room is a unique multi -pl ayer computer music system which enables visitors with no previous musical training to participate in an ensemble experience and to compose toge ther.
Each person is responsible for a distinct musical part and performs on one of the five touch-sensitive guitars. One controls rhythm, meter and tempo, pl aying percussion sounds. A second pl ays bass lines and coordin ates harmonic movement, while two others di rect harm ony, voicing, orchestration, and
melodic figurations. The fifth instrument is capable of pure melodic inve nti on.
J RECOLLECTIONS EO TANNENBAUM (1981) [P] Th is wo rk addresses the poeti cs of moti on, time and color. A video camera picks up head-to-toe movements of a viewer/participant. A sequence of these im ages is stored and displayed on co lor monitors or projected in controlled modes based on ti me and space. The visitor can expl ore ani mated effec ts-how sequences of im ages create movement. By displ ayin g sequences Simultaneously, Duchamp-li ke forms are created .
• KINETIC LIGHT SCULPTURE CHRI STIAN SCHIESS (1981) [P] Killel ic Ligbl SClltptll l'e consist of two thin , clear glass tubes, one pum ped with mercury argon and the other with neon, producing bo th radi ant blue and orange-red li ghts. The sealed gas tubes are independe ntly connected to the shaft of two variable-speed elec tric motors. Visito rs manipul ate three controls th at vary the rotati onal speed, intensity, and frequency of the moving light sources, crea tin g infinite and subtle visual effects.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL ART AT THE EXPLORATORIUM PROJECT
BY MARK BARTLETT
National
Science Foundation awarded the
A.I.R. Program a grant to
support four
artists working
with environmental sys
tems, resulting in an exhibi
tion that opened at the
Exploratorium in the sum
mer of 1993. Each of the
artists-sculptors Ned Kahn
and Michael Brown, film
makers Andrej Zdravic and
AI Jarnow-built a piece
that captured the pheno
mena of chaotic, indetermi
nate fluid systems. The art
works allow the visitor to
experience exquisitely
arranged performances of
water in motion-water
eroding sandy slopes, a
donut-shaped steam ring
projected fifty feet into the air, water
meandering over its own shadows.
Ned Kahn's Cloud Rings
Ned Kahn is an exhibit builder for
the Exploratorium and a sort of permanent
artist-in-residence. He has completed a num
ber of public art projects and been exhibited
all over the United States. His works are
Merlin-like forays into immensely instructive
play- visitors can leap into a steam tornado,
turn a crank to direct wind against dunes, or
spin sediment-filled globes to produce spec
tacular, swirling results. Each of these "sculp
tures" has the feel of an Oz-like magic ball
that provides a window onto stunning,
unknown worlds. Through these elegant
miniaturizations, Kahn gives the museum visi-
tor experiences of awesome forces that in
reality would never be so benign.
For the Environmental Art show Ned
built an ingenious exhibit, Cloud Rings, a five
foot-diameter concave aluminum dish that
sits horizontally at about waist level. Riveted
to its top, with a circular opening in its cen
ter, is a rubber membrane stretched taut
over a flexible skeletal frame. The cavity
below fills with mist pumped into it from a
humidifier. As the visitor pushes the rubber
membrane downward, the mist is com
pressed, forced to escape through the hole in
an eighteen-inch-diameter donut shape, and
hurled fifty feet into the shadowy heights
above the Exploratorium floor.
Michael Brown's Meanderings
Michael Brown is able to bring the out
side inside, and
scale, bring our
attention to what
usually goes
unnoticed.
Meanderings,
consists of an elegant shallow
box about 3 x 5 feet by 3 inches deep,
mounted horizontally between metal A-frame
legs. Spanning the width at one end of the
box is a transparent tube drilled with small
holes. Water pumped into the tube seeps
out onto an inclined, water-repellent glass
surface.
The visitor is able to vary the incline of
the plane, controlling changes of momentum,
size, and duration of the water droplets as
they stream comet-like into a pool of water
at the box's opposite end. Lights focused on
the surface create high contrast shadows on
the white plane beneath the glass. The con
trast of real streamlet to shadow streamlet is
a compelling detail , transforming a gleeful
physical phenomenon into a resonant shadow
play.
I SEEN CLEARLY IN HAZY CONDITIONS DIANNE STOCKLER (1981) Anyone watching a film in a movie theater has turned toward the projector and seen the multicolored beams of li ght that shoot across space and eventually land on the screen. Dianne Stockier works with li ght beams such as these to shape, structure, and choreograph her films. The fi lm loop is projected through a large glass chamber filled wi th smoke, which acts as a three-dimensional screen for the geometric and abstract imagery on the film. The forms seem solid, as though they possess mass and weight, yet they behave in ways that are impossible fo r solid objects. (See page 8.)
2 UNSUNG VOICES JOHN DRI SCOLL (1982) Each of these four related sound sculptures employs ul trasonic Signals to create instruments that play in response to subtle movements of museum visitors. The phys ical disturbances caused by the visitors' movements transl ate inaudible ultrasonic signals into distinct and melodic tones that are within the range of human hearing.
~ MAGNETIC FIELD PATTERNS ("PUMPING IRON") HEATHER MCGILL AND STAN AXELROD (1983) [Pj The beauty of magnetic fields is captu red by magnetic fl uids that are excited by a seri es of electromagnets. The dark, oily fl uid assumes "impossible" shapes in response to the manipu lation of the magnets .
• LUMEN ILLUSION SCULPTUR E CHRIS TI AN SCH IESS (1983) [Pj This work is a companion piece to Kinetic Ligbt (see page 14) . Lumen
Illusion explores the illusion of circuI ar motion created by an array of neon and argon tubes. Apparent motion is created by the sequential
li ghting of the tubes, arranged in a large
circle. The duration of each light flas h, the du ration of the apparent motion (clockwise and
counter-clockwise), the interval of
time between each fl ash, and the fl ashes (red neon on blue argon fi eld and vice-versa) are controlled by the visitor.
AI Jarnow's Terralorms
AI Jarnow brings the sensibility
and technical skills of a seasoned film
maker and a landscape painter to his
exhibit about erosion processes,
Terraforms. The work combines real-time
video, computer interface, erosion phe
nomena, and the participant, in an assem
blage that bridges the gap between rigor
ous investigation and naive play.
A video camera mounted overhead
aims at an inclined, sand-filled box. Water
pools at the high end, oversaturating the
sand. As it moves to the lower end, it sim
ulates a variety of familiar erosion pro
cesses such as canyon carving, river mean
dering, and delta and alluvial fan construc
tion. The event is displayed live in the mon
itor inset and recorded at the computer
terminal. The user can then replay any por
tion of the event. AI provided the comput
er with a library containing easily accessed
explanations of geological principles,
processes, and examples like the Grand
Canyon. The participant can browse
though this information to understand the
event he or she has just created, or investi
gate subjects of related interest.
An open-ended work, Terraforms might
best be described as a work site, an experi
mental laboratory in its own right. The
powerful visualization capabilities of film
are here used to full advantage; the visitor
can freeze the erosion-events at any point,
replay them, speed them up, slow them
down, zoom in, zoom out. Processes that
actually take hours, months, years, or
decades are compressed into a timeframe
that we can witness in a few moments.
Long-term geologic history is translated
into the range of human memory. In
Jarnow's work, the catastrophic forces that
have sculpted the surface of our planet are
brought under the control and observation
of each visitor, personalizing an awareness
of environmental forces.
Andrei Zdravic's
Waler Waves
Andrej Zdravic is a filmmaker who has
for years made films about environmental
phenomena such as wind, water, and light.
During his reSidency at the Exploratorium,
he built a video installation entitled Water
Waves that consists of ten high-resolution
monitors. Arranged horizontally in a shal
low arc against a black backdrop, they pre
sent an examination of all varieties of water
waves. The monitors are not large, but
when multiplied by ten, arranged in a dark
ened setting, separated by half-foot incre
ments and spanning a range beyond the
sixty-degree cone of vision, they give the
effect of a full-scale cinema screen.
Andrej is able to transform the video
installation into a complete experience
through a manipulation of scale-enlarging
and cropping phenomenal events outside
our usual perceptual frame of reference. As
the waves appear to flow serially across
the screens, rhythmically freezing, slowing,
reversing and leaping ahead, they metamor
phose-pond becomes river becomes
ocean becomes sky.
The power of wave movement, from
the ripples caused by rain delicately falling
on a river's surface to the Pacific waves
crashing against the shore, actively engages
the visitor in an expectant, heightened
awareness. It arouses responses that are
both emotional and analytic. The effect is
that the setting erases the technology, and
what comes forward are the phenomena in
all their sensuality and symbolic power.
I VIDEO FEEDBACK SKIP SWEENEY (1983) Video Feedback presents images cre-ated by a video camera that is aimed at an angle into a video monitor. The system allows the viewer to control and manipulate the camera's rela-tionship to the monitor as wel l as the f-stop, zoom, and focus of the cam-era's lens. The black-and-white images pulsate and evo lve as the camera responds to the images that it sends to the mon i tor.
t TRIPLE-AYE LlGHTSTICK BILL BELL (1983) [P] The Ligbtstick is an array of blinking li ght-em itting diodes that flash in computer-controlled sequences. The sequences, taken all together, make up whole images, but at any given instant on ly one ve rtical slice of an image is present. These slices follow each other in such rapid success ion that the visitor's eye cannot perceive the blinking images when looking directly at the Ligbtstick. But when his or her eye scans across the Ligblstick, it sees the whole image flash across the room- a strong and surprisi ng effect. When the visi tor looks back, it 's just a bar of li ght again .
11 FLAME SPEAKER NICK BERTONI AND MAGGI PAYNE (1984) Fiame Speaker is a sound scu lp ture whose IO-inch-high gas flame becomes the medium through which one can speak or play music. lis one approaches the piece, remarkab ly hi gh fidelity music can be heard com-ing from the flame itself, as the ion-ized gas of the flam e vibrates to the electrical impulses provided by an enclosed amplifier. By speaking into a microphone or pl aying on a small keyboard, one can control the sounds comin g from the fl ame, and explore the seq uences and dynam ic ranges .
... INTERACTIVE ROBOT CLAYTON BAILEY (1984) This robot is a hand-shaking copper humanoid constructed of found objects and hand-fabri -cated metalwork. It rewards dona-tions with a display of static electri ci-ty, fl ashing li ghts, and thunder-clapS- With the intensity of the dis-play proportional to the amount of money donated.
5 PENTAPHONE JONATHAN GLASER (1984) [P] Pelltapbone is a five-sided marimba-like inst rument that is comprised of five sets of bars tuned to different reg-isters of the same pentatonic scale. :-The bars are made of paduk wood, aluminum, magneSium, flame-treated bamboo, and glass. The characteristic timbres of each type of bar and the constant pentatonic scale to which they are tuned allow even untrai ned
GROWING ART IN A SCIENCE CULTURE
BY ELLEN KLAGE S
nlike Minerva, the artworks on
the Exploratorium's exhibit floo r
do not spring full-grown from the
minds of their creators. Each
piece undergoes a remarkable
process of evolution, from idea to prototype
to an exhibit on the museum floor.
The Environmental Art exhibition
opened at the museum in 1993. It featured
four works created by artists working in the
Exploratorium's Artist-in-Residence Program.
Although the pieces themselves are very dif
ferent- two involve video and computer
technology, the others are wholly mechani
cal- each underwent a similar process of
evolution and co-creation. This process is
illustrated by a detailed examination of the
creation of Michael Brown's Meanderings and
brief examples from the work of the other
Environmental Artists.
Meanderings by Michael Brown
The growth of Michael Brown's artwork
is very much like its title-Meanderings. From
his original idea, the project flowed, branched
off, and changed directions as various forces
came into play. Before he came to the
Exploratorium, Michael said he had been:
... doing these fountains, playing with water. I
was making wall hangings with water run
ning down, trickling, doing this meandering
thing. I had a sheet of copper- highly pol
ished-and the water meandered beauti
fully. But people wanted to play with it, stick
their fingers in it, and the copper patina'd.
That was when I started to use glass,
because it's so much easier to keep clean.
The Arts Program at the Exploratorium
offered Michael a residency to build a piece
that was originally conceived as water, fed by
copper pipes, running down a sheet of glass.
He began constructing a prototype, and dis
covered that working in the Machine Shop
fostered the growth of the piece in directions
he hadn't imagined.
I started with a vertical piece of glass, then
people in the shop came over and kicked
around ideas. What happens if you tilt it?
What happens if you use lights? What shad
ows does it make? We discovered, among
other things, that if you placed a piece of light-colored material below the surface of the glass and added a pinpoint light source,
the water acted as a lens. We played with it
and got these beautiful optical effects.
Within a few months, Michael 's sheet of
glass had become a glass-topped table with an
elaborate t ilting mechanism, a pump, and a fil
ter. Construction cont inued, but sometimes
pushed the limits of Michael's experience.
I thought: Oh no. I've never worked in a
machine shop. I've never used that tool. I've
never welded before. So I got the chance to
learn to weld. I'd go up to someone and say,
"How do I do this?" and they'd teach me. All
I had to do was ask questions. It was a
totally open environment to learn in.
Michael Brown and visitor.
One of the strengths of the A.I.R.
Program is that artists have full use of the
resources of the Exploratorium-tools,
space, and staff expertise. Like many artists
who are used to working on their own,
Michael sometimes found the process of co
creation to have its drawbacks as well.
In the shop, when I'd start to experiment with
something, people would stop by and take a
look. Everyone felt free to interject their ideas.
It was great, because everyone had good
ideas, but it was also weird for me. I was
making decisions about what I wanted the
piece to be, and at the same time I had to fig
ure out what advice to accept, and whether
it was okay to reject someone's idea. There's
only so much I could do, or it would turn
into someone else's piece. A good piece, real
interesting, but not mine.
Meanderings
by Michael Brown, 1993
The patterns water makes as it
flows down an incline are demon
strated by Meanderings, a 3-foot
by 5-foot glass-topped box.
Visitors can change the course of
the trickles of water with their
fingers and watch both the
streams and the shadows cast on
the white surface below the glass.
players to conduct engaging musical conversations without fear of playing "wrong notes."
I FICKLE ORACLE LEWIS ALQUIST (1986) Fickle Oracle has a va ri able focal length parabolic mi rror created by spinning a circular basin of mercury on a turntable. People can vary the mirror's foca l length by making the device sp in faster or slower, watching their own image or images of people walking pas t go through a remarkable range of distortions. Its sculptured housing is made from vent cowli ngs found at a shipyard.
2 WAVE ORGAN PETER RICHARDS AND GEORGE GONZALES (1986) [PJ Wave Organ , a wave-activated sound sculpture, is located on a nearby jetty and utilizes wave action from the bay to create a symphony of sound that emanates from a series of pipes that reach down into the water. A wo nderfu l co llection of granite building materi al th at existed on the site was utili zed to create a se ri es of sculptured terraces and seating areas. The listening pipes, made of PVC and concrete plaster, extend from the seating areas to the water. The intensity and complexity of the wave music is di rectly related to the tides and weather.
;J FRIENDSHIP ACROBATIC TROUPE CARL CHENG (1987) [PJ p,.iendsbip Acrobatic Troupe consists of a large acry lic water tank with air jets mounted in a geometric array at the bottom. Programmed bursts of air create an array of different-shaped bubbles that slowly travel in formation to the surface of the tank. Some of the bubbles are spherical in shape, others look like mushroom caps, and still others are shaped like doughnuts or miniature UFO 's .
• LIGHT STROKES RICHARD GREENE (1987) [PJ Ligb/ Strokes is a graphic input device which allows visitors to create a full co lor image on a computer screen. The image, which can be printed wi th the help of an Exp lainer, is created by "painting" on a flat Plex iglas surface using only ordinary water and tools (brushes, fingers , etc.). The Plexiglas acts as one face of a transparent prism. A video camera views that surface from an angle that lets it record the image as it's being created on the screen . These images are digitized and processed in real time to build up a drawing as th e tools are moved along the su rface.
Over the year that Michael worked on
Meanderings, it grew and changed, first in his
concept, then in successive approximations,
experiments, and prototypes in the shop, and
finally as a "working prototype" on the exhi
bit floor.
I was surprised at how much the piece
changed once it was out on the floor.
Physically, the first thing we had to do was
make it lower, because it was too tall for a
lot of kids to reach. But it also grew concep
tually, which blew me away. Paul Doherty [a
staff physicist] walked up and watched it for
a few minutes, then said, "Do you know why
it does this? Or this?" He spent an hour
explaining why all these things were happen
ing, and it was amazing. I'd thought about
the physics of resistance and cohesion, but
Paul kept showing me so many other ways
to look at the same trickle of water.
Throughout their residencies, the artists
in the AI.R. Program work in collaboration
with staff scientists, craftspeople, and techni
cians. Once a piece is out on the exhibit
floor, this collaboration extends to the public.
Visitors walk by, stop, and play with
the piece, or pass it by, uninterested.
Some spend a minute or two, others
spend hours discovering aspects of
the piece the artist may not have
planned.
I'd worked with it for months and
months, and I thought I knew every
thing it could do. But within a week,
people on the floor were playing
with it in ways that never even
occurred to me. That's the way
things work here. You create some
thing, and even when you think it's
"done," it keeps going from there. I
made it originally, so I can claim it as mine,
but other people are continually reinventing
what it can do.
Meanderings spent a month out on the
floor, back in the shop for fine-tuning and
changes, then on the floor again before it
went on display in the two-month-Iong
Environmental Art show. The installation in
the museum's special exhibition area came
with a new set of problems to solve.
Meanderings was set up near Terraforms,
and just outside the entrance to the show
was the Bubble Tray exhibit. Every day there
were dozens, hundreds, of kids with sand or
soap all over their hands. It was a real logical
thing-they rinsed their hands in the nearest
running water, which was Meanderings. But
the sand clogged the filter, and the soap scum
made it almost impossible to keep the glass
clean.
Meanderings is now on display in a sec
tion of the museum far away from soap and
sand. Every day, visitors walk by the water
that flows steadily down the glass. Some of
them stop and look, some of them dip a fin
ger into the stream and watch as the path of
the water and the shadows change. Most of
them learn something about water, about
rivers, about the natural world.
Like the stream of water, the process of
building Meanderings was not a straight line. It
zigged and zagged, took some unproductive
turns, and a few surprising detours. That is
how artists in the AI.R. Program work. The
unexpected is part of the process.
Terralorms by AI Jarnow
One of the main design problems that AI
Jarnow had to solve in building Terraforms
was the unlikely juxtaposition of loose, wet
sand and computer equipment. After weeks
of having to dismantle and clean the trackball
mechanism (which controlled the computer)
when it ground to a sandy halt, he replaced it
with a more durable joystick, and covered
the computer's buttons with plastic shields.
The video monitor on the piece was
designed to allow visitors to observe the
process of erosion, but some people found that
it could be used for other entertainment.
One group of teenagers discovered the
automatic timing and recording sequence, and
they were able to move the rocks in the
sandbox in between shots. They pulled their
hands away during each shot, and kept at it
long enough to produce a flawless animation
of the rocks taking an apparently unassisted
walk.
Terraforms
by AI Jarnow, 1990, 1993
An unlikely juxtapositioning of
a sandbox, video camera, and
computer, Terraforms allows
the visitor to simulate erosion.
Processes that normally occur
over months, years, or even
decades can be slowed down,
speeded up, replayed, and
observed in minute detail.
I SILAGE BEACH MOWRY BADEN (19B7) [P] Based upon experiments by Richard Gregory, Silage Beach induces the illusion of self motion. One or more persons enter a revolving cylinder whose walls are made of vertical stripes. After staring at the stripes moving past, soon the stripes seem to slow down and stop while at the same time the viewer has the sensation of revolving in the opposite direction.
2 LARIAT CHAIN NORMAN TUCK (1987) [P] Lariat Chain consists of a motordriven bicycle-wheel rim mounted approximately 10 feet above the floor on a tripod with a continuous loop of light chain that fits over the rim. As the wheel turns, the chain runs with it. Left undisturbed, the chain loop revolves in a smooth and flowi ng manner. By tapping or touching the chain, beautiful standing waves and serpentine convolutions can be created along its circuitous flow .
iJ LlGHTSHIFT M-2 PETER TEN EAU (1987) [P] Ugblsbifl M-2 consists of a series of perforated metal screens with holes of different sizes and spacing. By superimposing these screens over each other in various ways, they filter and interfere with the light coming from behind, creating shimmering effects called moire patterns. Taking the form of our architectural frieze , the piece is mounted over the main entrance into the building from the lobby. As people pass by, the images created by the shapes of the screen and their overlapping relationships change, evo lve into new shapes, and sometimes disappear.
• PANDORA Bill MAXWEll (1988) Pandora was both a fountain and water sculpture located in the lagoon at the Palace of Fine Arts. By means of a time-sequenced display, the foun tain literally "carved" romantic visual images in the water, then displayed these images on , and eventually below, the su rface of the lagoon. As visitors watched, the water began to ripple, and from it emerged graphic watery visions of weeping maidenslike those located at the top of the Palace of Fine Arts colonnade. As the fountain 'S ten-minute cycle continued, the moving water formed a series of terraced planes, which stepped down from the surface of the water to form the interior of the box into which the maidens gazed. From the bottom terraces appeared a staircase of water which seemed to continue down to the bOllom of the lagoon. This residency was a joint effort with Capp Street Project in San Francisco.
·1 t
Water Waves by Andrei ldravic
Andrej Zdravic's multi-monitor video dis
play is the most technologically complex of
the four Environmental Art show pieces. For
him, a lot of the exhibit-development process
involved experimenting with videotape,
laserdiscs, and computer synchronization and
programming-areas familiar to him in his
work as a filmmaker. It was his intent to use
the technology as a tool to present the phe
nomena in an interactive way, but his first
installation took him back to the drawing
board.
Initially, I thought the exhibit would be inter
active in the sense of allowing visitors to sit
in the "editor's chair" and manipulate the
playback of the waves. There were three
buttons-stop, reverse, and a frame-by
frame step. I found that, invariably, everyone
just plunged for the buttons, not paying
much attention to the images on the screen.
They'd tweak the buttons for a while, and
leave. Meanwhile, everyone who was watch
ing was frustrated because the images were
always being interrupted.
The presence of the buttons led to an infat
uation with the technology itself, negating
the learning process I'd hoped the technolo
gy would foster. So I removed the controls,
and most people-even small children
began to intently observe the waves.
Without the buttons, Water Waves became
mentally interactive, compelling attention
and arousing a curiosity and an appreciation
for the energy and beauty of the water.
Cloud Rings by Ned Kahn
Ned Kahn's interest in atmospheric
physics and vortices led him to experiment
with the creation of vortex rings. He began
with a coffee can, a hole punched in its bot
tom and a rubber membrane stretched over
its open end. When he filled it with smoke
and thumped on the rubber, a small, perfect
smoke ring issued from the hole.
The scale of the exhibit grew, from coffee
can to garbage can to the five-foot diameter
aluminum and rubber structure that now
sits on the floor of the Exploratorium. But
size was not the only element that evolved
during the process of creation. Kahn devel
oped, prototyped, and ultimately discarded
one mechanism that produced the rings, and
found that his second attempt came with
unexpected benefits.
At first I had an elaborate system of cams.
When visitors turned a large crank, the
cams would slowly lift a heavy metal plate
with a hole in the top over a basin of fog,
then let it fall. The impulse drove a fog ring
up to the ceiling of the museum. It worked
fairly well, except that if people turned the
crank too fast the mechanism would make
an annoying clunking sound. If they turned it
really fast, it didn't work well at all.
It dawned on me that I could simply support
the metal plate on strong springs, and let
people push down on it directly. I built a
model that way, and all the technical prob
lems vanished. The human interaction also
became much more direct and tactile. The
springs allow visitors the opportunity to be
more creative and open-ended in the way
they use the piece. I've watched people cre
ate a slowly rolling ring by pressing gently,
then follow it with a quicker, harder push to
send another ring up to interact with the
first, way up in the heights of the museum.
Each of the four pieces in the
Environmental Arts show presented a set of
unique problems to be solved by the artists,
but all four shared in the process of collabo
ration and co-creation that characterizes the
Exploratorium's Artist-in-Residence Program.
Working with scientists, technicians, and
craftspeople in the setting of a science mu
seum, the artists create pieces that are the
result of free, creative inqUiry- the border
where art and science meet.
Ellen Klages is a writer and editor at the
Exploratorium. She is the author of Harbin Hot
Springs: Healing Waters, Sacred Land.
Cloud Rings
by Ned Kahn, 1993
An aluminum dish filled with
mist produces an 18-inch diam
eter donut shape that floats up
toward the ceiling of the
Exploratorium when a visitor
presses on the rubber covering.
Water Waves
by Andrej ldravic, 1993
Water Waves is a video installa
tion that consists of ten high
resolution monitors showing
sequential images of waves and
water movement in oceans,
rivers, and ponds.
I
2
II
THE GHOST OF AMELIA EARHART BERNI E ZUBROWSK I (1988) [P] A carefully lit swath of di aphanous ye llow cloth undulates slowly in a large tank of clear water. Steady streams of bubbles rising from the bottom intercept and interact with the waving cloth enhancing the meditative mood of the wo rk. It is located in a quiet, dark area and has seating fo r people to sit and watch.
ALIEN VOICES PAUL DEMAR INIS (1989) [P] Alien Voices initi ally looks and sounds famili ar, but these two sideby-side oak and glass structures, like old-fashioned telephone booths, conta in telephones with a difference. Each phone has a touch-control panel with sixteen different options fo r changing one's speech with the help of a computer control. Visitors holding a conversation wi th someone in the neighboring booth can suddenly vary their vo ice from a monotone to a th roaty whisper or add a Gregori an Chant line to what they say. By letting us exaggerate or eliminate the nuances that are present in each of ou r individual speech patterns, Alien Voices demonstrates how, despite the meaning of wo rds, the "music" of our speech can change the intent of what we say.
CHAOTIC CHAINS ANNA VALENTINA MURCH (1989) This work desc ribes light, motion, rhythm, resonance, order, and chaos in fo ur dimensions. Chains of mir-rored balls are suspended from the ceiling and attached at the fl oor to motor shafts. The turning shafts cause the chains to sweep and undul ate through space. Their beautiful and often chao tic moti on is captured by a fl ashing strobe. Cbaotic Cbains is dependent upon feedback from its own ebb and fl ow to transform and evolve its movement from the regul ar into unpredictable patterns.
SUCH RUINS GIVE THE MIND A SENSE OF SADNESS ELLEN ZWEIG (1989) [P] Drawin g from a quote of architect Bern ard Maybeck for the title of her piece and usi ng turn-of-the-century technology, the artist created a series of camera obscuras that captures real-ti me images of Maybeck's Palace of Fine Arts and projects them into the Ex ploratorium 's exhi bi t hall. This livin g cinema, with Wide-angle views and soft lenses, provides a ) 9th-century view of the world.
A PENDULUM CLOCK NOR MAN TUCK (19 89 ) [P] At fi rst glance, the giant see-through erector-set-like structure seems to be a rea li zation of one of Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical inven ti ons. Totally open and exposed, it is constructed of
ART AS A TEACHING TOOL
BY PAT MURPHY
rank Oppenheimer, the founding
director of the Exploratorium, began
building exhibits while teaching
physics at the University of
Colorado. Rather than having stu
dents do a different experiment in the labora
tory each week, Frank created a "Library of
Experiments." Throughout the semester, stu
dents could use the exhibits that made up
this "library," experimenting independently
with a minimum of instruction.
The Exploratorium reflects Frank's desire
to create an environment in which people
can learn and discover on their own. The
Exploratorium is a teaching laboratory where
visitors wander freely among exhibits and art
works, experimenting, observing, playing, and
learning by making their own dis-
coveries.
Frank Oppenhelme, In the Sound Column.
The staff uses the museum's exhibits and art
works to train teachers to use hands-on and
inqUiry-based techniques in their classrooms.
Teachers also bring their classes to the mu
seum to learn and discover.
Artworks created through the museum's
Artist-In-Residence Program are a vital part
of the museum's library of teaching tools. In
Rift Zone, an art piece created by Ned Kahn,
jets of air bubble through loose white sand,
creating patterns that are reminiscent of vol
canic cinder cones, bubbling mud pots, and
other geological formations associated with
geothermal activity. The patterns are con
stantly changing; the sand is always in motion.
In the summer of 1993, a group of half a
dozen elementary school teachers sat and
watched the bubbling sand for half an hour,
observing the changes over time. The intent,
according to Exploratorium teacher and
physicist Barry Kluger-Bell, was to capture
the teachers' imagination and encourage
them to notice things that they might ordi
narily overlook.
After just a few minutes of observation,
the teachers were enthralled. ' 'They saw one
thing after another after another," Barry
recalled. ''They noticed how the sand would
pile up and then at a certain point there
would be a little avalanche. They noticed
there were ridges being built up. They
noticed particular patterns that were devel
oping and they tried to predict what would
happen. They tried to figure out why
avalanches occurred at a certain point, why
the sand took the shape it did. There were a
couple of teachers who came away from that
experience saying 'That's my favorite exhibit
in the whole museum now.' "
These teachers were attending the
School in the Exploratorium (SITE), a pro
gram that trains elementary school teachers
to use inquiry-based learning in their class
rooms. To help these teachers learn to
observe natural phenomena, the SITE staff
had them observe a number of the muse
um's artworks, including Michael Brown's
Meanderings , Bob Miller's Sun Painting, and
Ned Kahn's Cloud Rings.
Barry felt that the artworks were
particularly useful for calling the teachers'
attention to details that they might ordi
narily ignore. "Working with artists at
the Exploratorium, I've learned that one
of the things artists do is take things
that you don't normally notice and sort
of grab you by the head and make you
look at them," Barry explained. "The art
works tend to bring interesting phenomena
up to the surface, so that you can make bet
ter observations."
Physicist Paul Doherty shares Barry's
enthusiasm for teaching with the museum's
art pieces. Paul teaches in the Explorator
ium's Teacher Institute, a program that
works with middle school and high school
steel, ropes, bicycle cha ins and a bowl in g ba ll , and stands 24 fee t tall. The clock has gear-like teeth protrudin g from it, markin g off the sixty minutes of the hour, as well as a large and a small hand. It is powered by the weight of a large metal basket fill ed with artifacts which in turn acts on the crown wheel: the key to the clock 's turnin g.
TERRAFORMS AL JAR NOW (1990 PHASE I) (PHASE II , 1993) [P] See detailed description, page 17.
I VIBRATING PIN SCREEN WARD FLE MING (1991) [P] The pin screen has a ro und table- like fo rm, and consists of a perforated metal sc reen stretched li ke a drumhead wi th in a metal frame. The screen has 97 pe rforations per squ are inch. Each perfo rati on is fill ed with one hi ghly refl ecti ve, nickel-pl ated pin , whi ch swings li ke a tiny pendulum. A vibrator attached to the underside of the screen's frame causes the pins to move in unison through sequenti ally vary ing wave pa tterns. This vibration resu lts in a display similar to a digi ti zation of the refl ection of li ght off movin g water. Changin g colors are added by three overhead li ghts, with ro tatin g gels shining on the surface of the screen.
'I REFLECTION ON AN INCIDENT IN THE OFFICEMARLOWE BILL CULBERT (1991) [P] A depiction of the comb inant properti es of li ght and a light-object collision, Marlowe consists of a set of offi ce furniture: a desk, chair, filin g cabi net, trash can and coat rack fu sed together as one un it with all components intersectin g the surface of the desk. Some twenty-odd li ghted tubul ar fluorescen t lamps also in tersect the surface at varying points, as if incli vidual "rays" of li ght. The scul pture is suspended in space above the ex hibi tion fl oor.
J WELL OF LIGHTS TO SHIO IWAI (199 2) [P] An extension of ea rly 19th-centu ry movin g im age technology: f1ipbooks, zoe trope, etc. , Welt oj Ligbls goes we ll beyond fi lm and the video monitor/TV form at to consider some revolutionary ways in which an object and image can appear to move in space. Welt oj Ligbts is an image sculpture, a three-dimensional piece employin g layers of movin g imagery th at are generated by a combin ation of computers, strobing video projections and spinning transparent discs .
• ORIENTATION SCULPTURE FOR THE BLIND WILL NETTlESHIP (1992) [P] Seven tacti Ie maps, at va rious
science and math teachers, helping them
make use of hands-on learning in their class
rooms.
Watching Paul at Michael Brown's
Meanderings , you might guess that the piece
was designed by a physicist to be used as a
teaching tool. Paul tilted the glass to send
streams of water flowing down the glass.
"Meanderings is one of my favorite teaching
exhibits," Paul said. "There are so many
things you can explore with it, and it's
beautiful."
He began by pointing out the meanders
and starting a discussion about why the water
acted as it did. What forces were affecting
it? Gravity pulls the water down the glass;
cohesion holds the streams together; adhe
sion attracts the water to the glass; inertial
forces come into play when the water goes
around a bend.
"You can directly interact with the
water," Paul said, demonstrating by making
two small streams merge to make a larger
one. "You can also change the angle of the
glass or the flow of the water. All of these
give the piece great depth."
Paul also uses Meanderings to teach
about light. The meandering streams of water
focus light from a small bright light to make
bright streams on the white surface beneath
the glass. The light reveals the pattern of tur
bulence created when the streams flow into
the pool of still water at the bottom of the
incline. The shadows of bubbles in the pool
have a bright star in the middle, another
effect of the focusing of light by water.
According to Paul, one of the strengths
of Meanderings as a teaching tool is the
tremendous range of exploration it makes
possible. " I expect to find something new
every time I come to it no matter how many
hours I've spent teaching at it," Paul said. "In
general , the artists seem to approach their
work with a different perspective than the
scientists. Often a scientist will start with an
idea of what they want to teach and build the
exhibit to teach that. The artists create
exhibits that end up being more open-ended.
Especially this piece. There's a spectrum of
both scientific exhibits and works by artists,
and Meanderings happens to be at one
extreme of the spectrum, allowing explo
ration in ways that even the artist never
expected."
Paul uses many A.I.R. pieces as teaching
tools. At T erraforms, he teaches about geo
logical processes, considering erosion and
deposition. He makes teachers get their
hands dirty, shaping landforms from sand and
watching the flowing water erode them away.
At Water Waves, he encourages people to
watch the waves and look for connections
and patterns. He finds many of the art pieces
are particularly effective in encouraging peo
ple to make observations, and then connect
those observations with phenomena that
they see in the world around them every
day. He finds that the artworks direct the
viewer's attention, but allow enough space
for experimentation.
The teachers at the Exploratorium make
use of the artworks just as they do the
exhibits built by scientists-to help people
learn about the world around them. Thomas
Humphrey, a physicist who has been involved
in both teaching and exhibit-bUilding at the
Exploratorium, sees that as the museum's
main role in education. "What museums do
is provide rich and memorable experiences
for people. No one comes away from the
museum remembering anything that's quanti
tative. When they talk about an exhibit later,
they don't use the language of physics. But
they remember experiences they have."
Thomas feels that artists play an essential
role here. " If our job is to provide visitors
with rich experiences of the natural world,"
he says, "who can help us do that? Who
should we call into our museum to make
exhibits to do that? There are scientists and
there are engineers and there are artists. You
could go on and on. If what you want to do
is provide memorable experiences that cen
ter on natural phenomena, then artists belong
here as much as anyone else does- maybe
more."
Pat Murphy is a fiction writer and the
Director of Publications at the Exploratorium. Her
books include The City, Not Long After, the
Nebula Award- winning The Falling Woman,
and By Nature's DeSign, a book on patterns in
nature created in collaboration with photographer
William Neill.
locations inside the Exploratorium, guide visitors by shape and by surround in g floor textures. As an artwork, the maps function as a navigational aid for visuall y impaired guests.
MOBILE: A PERSONAL AND HISTORICAL NAVIGATION JIM PAUL (1992) A slide/lec ture presentation on human migration. In attempting to trace his matriarchy, the artist followed his fam ily from Virgi ni a to Mobi le, Alabama at the start of the Civil War, to Ca li forni a in the 1920s in an attempt to illuminate the relationship between personal events and largerscale historical movements.
I DANCE OF THE HONEYBEES: AN EXPLORATION OF SAN FRANCISCO'S MISSION DISTRICT MARK THOMPSON (1992) Artist/beekeeper Thompson translated the foraging movements of honeybees, housed in a hive on Capp Street, into coordinates on a city map, which he then followed. Along the way, he col lected raw materials-stories, visual impress ions, pressed flowers, street objects. At the Exploratori um, an observation hive was on display, along with a city map showin g the progress of Thompson 's exploration .
2 LIFE MAPPING: PORTRAITS FOR THE TWENTY·FIRST CENTURY MORGAN O' HARA (1992) This install ation offered two ways to make se lf-portraits. The first was a drawing table with a map of the world on which visitors could track their individual travel paths by hand. The second was a computer graphics system which allowed visitors to transform their lifetime travel patterns in to printed images.
J MUSIC INSECTS TOS H 10 IWA I (1992) [P] Music I7lsecls consists of an RGB monitor with fou r "insects" moving about randomly on the screen, each corresponding to a different instrument (pi ano, bass, percuss ion) in a MID i sound modu le. There is also a palette of colors which correspond to the individual pitches of a two-octave diatonic scale. The user paints his/her music on the screen by selecting and plaCing a color from the palette wi th the cu rsor or "brush." As the insects on the screen cross the lines drawn by the "composer," they sound the pitch indicated by the color on their particul ar instrument. Certai n colors cause the insects to change directions, allowing them to move around the entire screen. in short, users find themselves emp loying the visual medium of painting wi th colored li ght to actua ll y compose their own beautiful music.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION FOR MUSEUMS CONTEMPLATING AN ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM
he following are particular points
that the Exploratorium's Artist-In
Residence Program has found to be
important for integrating artists into
a working museum environment.
• Have an artist on staff to coordinate the
program and to act as a liaison between visit
ing artists, staff members, and the public. This
person, or another, should be designated as
the shop mentor or project manager- the
person who makes sure that things go
smoothly in the shop.
• Establish an Arts Advisory Committee of
interested and sympathetic arts professionals
from your community. They are helpful with
finding artists, with the selection process,
with supporting and contributing to the art
and science dialogue, and with resolving
issues. They can also help with fund-raising
activities .
• Commission artists who have experience or
are willing and interested in working collabo
ratively with your staff. Working collabora
tively enhances the quality of the piece and
the learning experience of all involved.
• Establish criteria so that projects are the
matically related to content areas of your
museum. This provides a frame for both the
artists and the institution to make decisions
about how (or how not) to become involved.
• Structure each project so that the idea or
piece can evolve, but maintain control by hav
ing a clearly written, but flexible budget. This
allows the project to take a new direction if a
discovery is made in the development
process, without going over budget.
• Negotiate a fee for the artist that is approx
imately one-fourth to one-third of the total
project cost (this should include travel and
housing, materials and equipment, and staff
assistance). Factors that will affect this formula
are the scope and/or the time needed to
complete the project.
• Have the artist make a presentation of his
or her proposed project to your staff. This is
a nice way to inform the staff and to provide
an avenue for establishing contacts.
• Have the artist do development work and
fabrication work on the premises, so staff can
offer suggestions and ensure that the piece is
durable and safe. (State in the contract that
the artist has control of the aesthetics and
content of the piece but must be open to
suggestions concerning durability, safety, and
compatibility with your other exhibits.)
• Structure the project into three phases:
experimental phase, fabrication phase, and
shakedown phas . The experimental phase
should result in a working prototype. At the
Exploratorl um w put an escape clause in our
contract that allows us to terminate the pro
ject after the experimental phase if we decide
that insufficient progress has been made to
warrant going ahead. The shakedown period
allows time fo r working out all of the unan
ticipated problems that occur once the piece
has gone on display.
• Require that the artist write a maintenance
manual for the piece and a critique of the
process.
I WATER WAVES ANDREJ ZDRAVIC (1993) [PJ See detailed description , page J 7.
2 MEANDERINGS MICHAEL BROWN (1993) [PJ See detail ed description, page 15.
~ CLOUD RINGS NED KAHN (1993) [PJ See detailed description, page 15 .
• LAGOON RESTORATION PROJECT LAURIE LUNDQUIST (1993 -97) [PJ The goal of this three-phase effort is to improve the flow of energy in the Palace of Fine Arts lagoon, just outside the Exploratorium, and to create an informative water feature inside the museum. Phase I and Phase II wi ll include the design and construction of a sculptural fountain inside the museum th at remecliates water fro m the lagoon and educates museu m visitors about the dynamics of a wetland system. In Phases 11 and III Lundquist and the Exploratoriu m staff plan to augment the biodiversity of the lagoon and implement biological modifications to the lagoon's eco logi cal system th at will abso rb excess nutrients out of the water and cycle them hi gher into the food chain.
ESSAYS- ON THE ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM MARK BARTLETT (1993) As a writer-in-residence, Mark Bartlett wrote two essays for A Curious Alliance: The Role of Art in a Science Museum, a publication outlining the importance of the arts at the Exploratorium. This publication will hopefully become a tool for other museums wanting to include artists in their exhibit-deve lopment process.
"
RESIDENCY PROGRAMS
AT THE EXPLORATORIUM
n addition to the Artist-in-Residence
Program covered in detail in this publi
cation, the Exploratorium offers two
residency programs for artists working
in other media.
The Exploratorium's Artist Research
Program (AR.P.) offers residencies for per
formance and installation artists-in a wide
variety of disciplines- whose work explores
aspects of nature, perception, and culture.
One element of the AR.P. is Cultural
Rhythms, a performance program which
encourages artists to examine culture as a
perceptual phenomenon. The common bonds
all these performing artists share are an inno
vative approach to their art forms and a
desire to explore technical and creative prob
lems in the development of their work.
Artists working in this program have created
and performed pieces involving dance, per
cussion, theater. storytelling, song, accor
dions, robots, poetry, puppets, synthes izers,
harps, and even canaries. Finished pieces are
presented as temporary installations, presen
tations, or performances at the museum.
The Exploratorium's Film Program col
laborates with other departments in the
museum, as well as with various film festivals
and community organizations, to provide
films, videos, and multimedia presentations. A
Filmmaker-in-Residence Program provides for
an extended exchange with artists who use
the moving image as a tool for inquiry and
who are working in an experimental mode
with film, video, and new media. Residencies
have explored media literacy, persistance of
vision, cognitive and diverse cultural process
es, personal histories, and the relationship
between image and sound. Finished projects
are projected in theaters or presented as
temporary installations at the museum.
Requests for further information about a
particular residency program at the
Exploratorium should be sent to:
A.I.R. Program
Peter Richards-
Director of Arts Programs
Nick Bertoni-
AI.R. Projects Manager
Melissa Alexander
Program Assistant
Artist Research
Program/Cultural Rhythms
Pamela Winfrey-
Director, Performance Programs
Film Program
Liz Keim-
Director, Film Programs
Marina McDougall
Curator
) 1
Michael Rudnick
The address for all programs is:
The Exploratorium
360 I Lyon Street
San Francisco, CA 941 23
For the AI.R. Program information packet.
please include an ay, x I I envelope with
$1 .50 postage.
Shadow play performance by Kirk Roberts.
3601 Ly Street CA 94123
• ..
Non-profit organization US Postage Paid San Francisco, CA Permit No. 10380