Please join Scott Billings for Latent Life, a presentation based on his recent research in the Ars Scientia residency. Drawing from a 1933 lecture in which Neils Bohr asserts that the impossibility of using a physical explanation for the phenomenon of life is analogous to the insufficiency of using a mechanical analysis to understand phenomena of the atom, Billings will discuss his seemingly conflicting dual practice as both visual artist and mechanical engineer. Reflecting upon a preoccupation with the animality of cinematic machine, among (many) other things, Billings will relay his recent direct experience with photonic writing at QMI’s NanoFab Lab and the wonderful new conundrum of making and exhibiting micro-sculptures that are far too small to see with the naked eye.

Funded by UBC’s Research Excellence Cluster program, Ars Scientia is a tripartite partnership between UBC’s Blusson QMI, the Department of Physics and Astronomy and The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, fostering new modes of knowledge exchange across the arts, sciences and their pedagogies.

Date & time: March 28, 1:00-2:00pm

Location: 311, Brimacombe Building (2355 East Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4)

Ticket: This event is free and open to the public – register below.

REGISTER HERE

IMAGE (ABOVE): AN ARS SCIENTIA COLLABORATION BETWEEN VISUAL ARTIST JG MAIR AND PHYSICIST ALANNAH HALLAS AT BLUSSON QMI; THE TWO WORKED TOGETHER IN HALLAS’S LAB TO TURN “INSIGHTFUL FAILURES” OF HIGH-ENTROPY OXIDES (A TYPE OF QUANTUM MATERIAL) INTO AN ARTIST’S MEDIUM – PAINT. PHOTO: RACHEL TOPHAM PHOTOGRAPHY.