Please join us for another Leonardo Art and Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) March 31 in the Digital Arts Research Center (DARC) 108. There will be refreshments at 6:45 p.m. followed at 7 p.m. with presentations by the conceptual artist/photographer Catherine Wagner, Mills College; documentary filmmaker Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, UCSC; composer, artist, and bio-acoustic reseacher David Dunn, UCSC, and archeologist/anthropologist J. Cameron Monroe, UCSC.

David Dunn “Communication within the Soundscape”

J. Cameron Monroe “Cana in Dahomey – A West African City in the Era of the Slave Trade.”

Jennifer Maytorena Taylor “Selfies, Surveillance, and Social Documentation”

Catherine Wagner “Art & Science: Investigating Matter”

The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available for $4 in the adjacent Theater Arts parking lot.
 

David Dunn is Assistant Professor of Sound Art and Design in Music and Digital Arts and New Media at UC Santa Cruz. Dunn is a a composer, artist, and bio-acoustic researcher who prefers to lecture and engage in site-specific interactions or research-oriented activities. Much of his work is focused upon listening strategies and technologies for environmental sound monitoring in both aesthetic and scientific contexts.

J. Cameron Monroe is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Archaeological Research Center at UC Santa Cruz. Specializing in the Archaeology of West Africa and the African Diaspora, Professor Monroe directs the Abomey Plateau Archaeological Project (Bénin), which explores the dynamic histories of urbanism in West African during the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. He has published numerous articles and two books, including The Precolonial State in West Africa: Building Power in Dahomey (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Jennifer Maytorena Taylor is Assistant Professor in Social Documentation and the Department of Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz. She imakes character-based films about real people with extraordinary stories, often with Latino themes and Spanish-language content. Recent films include the award-winning feature documentaries New Muslim Cool and Special Circumstances and Street Knowledge 2 College, a 15-part web series for PBS.org.

Catherine Wagner is an artist and Professor of Studio Art, Mill College. She has received many major awards, including the Rome Prize , a Guggenheim Fellowship, NEA Fellowships, and the Ferguson Award. Her work is represented in major collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, SFMOMA, The Whitney Museum of American Art, MFA Houston. Wagner also published several monographs, including American Classroom, Art & Science: Investigating Matter, and Cross Sections