Inside CAMBAM

Ellwood Epps playing at Empty Sets, while a guest takes over an installation (bottom left and projection).

“Lennart, what do you think we do an art show with CAMBAM?”
“But Grace, we are scientists.”
“Some great art has been done by simple minds.”
Lennart, clearly out of arguments: “Ehhhm, I guess we do an art show then?!”

Grace (organizer) & Groj (artist)

So, the CAMBAM student chapter organized the 18th of August launch day of Empty Sets with/at The Plant, and in coordination with Eastern Bloc. The idea? Allow scientists and researchers in/around CAMBAM to express the aesthetic connected or emerging from their work vs. allow artists to express their take on science and modern technology. Oh, and let them do it in one place at the same time, of course, in the hope they will actually talk.

The result was fantastic! The Plant itself offers a surrealist  environment, located north in the Mile End, the collective based in a large loft converted in an artistically efficient creation space. Since The Plant is used to opening their doors for experimental artistic projects and illustrious musical performances, it wasn’t much of a problem for them to provide the space required for this activity. Under the direction of Grace Brooks, CAMBAM student and part of The Plant collective, a line-up of impressive, intricate, and introspective works; a succession of musicians; and a populated party all come together. Throughout the day we saw artists playing scientists, scientists playing artists, and while it almost sounds like a cliché – we learned more form each other than we possibly expected, and it was a lot of fun. Here is an exposé of the work that our sciento-artists and artisto-scientists put together:

Territories: Terrain was conquered using limited (dyed salt) resources.

Cardiac tissue dynamics projection (the stuff under the ceiling is paint).

Participating artists’/scientists’ links:

ahundredhuevos on wordpress

Aaron McConomy on cargocollective

Fred Simard’s ‘In the mind of a coder’

Groj’s homepage

Lennart Hilbert and Groj’s ‘Fabric of Experience’

Ellwood Epps on Blogspot

Thanks to Carolyn Hance for supplying photo footage.

[Those missing in this list, please just contact Lennart and we will fix that -> About the Bloggers section]

Further Empty Sets events at Eastern Bloc are in the planning phase. Stay up-to-date for further Empty Sets events, as well as the CAMBAM student chapter: Join the CAMBAM facebook group, or the Student Chapter mailing list