depending on who you ask, the idea for this grandiose endeavor was born either in some oft forgotten dive bar on the central coast or a sterile lab on the UCSB campus. tomato tomato. and yes, agreed, that's not as well written as said.
either way, as beers and chats evolved into grant writing and planning, we eventually scraped up enough resources, ship time, and money to go for it. when all was said and done, ACIDD was positioned to be the first ever student-led seagoing research expedition, in addition to being the first ever seagoing research expedition to have a whole art/communication team (assembled and directed by yours truly, bingo)
all that to say - check out these fun logos i made for the cruise coupling the classic imagery of Katsushika Hokusai's 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' and some 'sciencey' slope field mesh patterns. and yes, the other one, well, that's just the Santa Barbara channel where the research took place with projections of wave deflection heading to our central coast homeland. fun!
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pumping the breaks here, before we set out to sea, we wanted to target all audiences and bring science out of academic journals and to the people. in this case, 'the people' were K-12 students, not in all cases, but for postcards, pen pals, and curriculum development, yes. after reaching out and establishing a sister school network, we shipped a thousand total postcards to students and asked them what they wanted to ask us: Ph.D. students, post-docs, and professors... "real scientists," and a few of us artsy types.
with the postcards in hand, we filmed a few interviews with our artists and scientists to answer (almost) any questions we got from our new friends.
↑ said postcards ↑
↓ a few of those questions getting answered ↓
↓ a few of those questions getting answered ↓
in the continued effort to appeal to broader audiences and prove that print is still an invaluable medium, we created a hundred-and-something-page magazine. the zine serves as an open-access exploration of coupled art and science endeavors, birthed from encouraging cross-disciplinary collaboration in celebration of the patterns and chaoses, constants and variables that make life just a little bit more magical for all of us.
if you like what you're seeing, and want to download a full copy of the zine, go right ahead, click here for that.
if not, that's alright too, feel free to keep scrolling along 'til something catches your eye.
if not, that's alright too, feel free to keep scrolling along 'til something catches your eye.
in yet another holy stab at reaching an audience disconnected from the norm of novel information locked away in academic publications, we made a short documentary investigating the entangled roles of art and science in making the world a better place. throughout our 26-minute saga, we dive into the parallels in artistic and scientific breakthroughs while pulling back the curtain on the dangerous illusion that science is only reserved for old white men in lab coats.
if you've got the time, i'd recommend giving it a spin - but of course, i would eh? if that's not enough of a sell to press play, the film was selected for numerous film festivals across the country and one or two overseas and maybe even won a few awards; we were also obligated to do a screening and talk at the NASA Goddard campus for this one — my mother loves telling her friends about that...
finally, to tie this mess of entangled pursuits into a grandiose knot, we hosted the 'aquatic cathartic gala' - a free-to-the-public event celebrating and scrutinizing the discoveries and conclusions our science and art teams had come to over the course of our endeavors.
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in addition to securing sponsorships, coordinating vendors, booking bands, budgeting and permitting, etc.
i created the gala's event poster, shown below. frankly, i think it's pretty slick.
i created the gala's event poster, shown below. frankly, i think it's pretty slick.
this has been a long one, if you're reading this well, hey, thanks for sticking around. i'll wrap this one up here with a few nice pictures from my time aboard RV Sally Ride. enjoy
first things last: a special thank you to everyone who took a chance on this expedition with us, for us, and on us. this couldn't have been done without the support of our granting bodies (NASA, NAKFI, Coastal Fund, UC Ships, and the litany of other acronyms and institutions i am forgetting at the moment...) thank you all so very very much. a big thank you is also due to the science party led by Kelsey Bisson and Nicholas Baetge, the captain and crew of the RV Sally Ride, and my two seafaring creative confidants: Celia Jacobs and Dustin Hayes - you and your art are a constant inspiration. muchas gracias y amor