Inside the groundbreaking 9e2:art, science and technology event at King Street Station in Seattle is a show-within-a-show. Synaptic Lexicon offers nine visual artists’ collaborations with newly emerging scientific principles – including dark matter astrophysics, neuroscience, mathematics, and cultural biology, curated by Ellen Ziegler.
Synaptic Lexicon starts Friday, October 21. Buy your tickets now.
Three performances and a party on Opening Night of 9e2!
Timea Tihanyi, Perfect Imperfect.
Bone china porcelain, various porcelain clay bodies, glaze, wooden table, chalkboard paint, projection, and chalk. 2016. Courtesy of Linda Hodges Gallery
Nine Seattle artists – Nola Avienne, Gala Bent, Jazz Brown, Romson Bustillo, Sue Danielson, Bradly Gunn, Timea Tihanyi, Ellen Ziegler and Susan Zoccola – collaborated with dark matter researcher James V. Sloan, neuroscientists Thomas Deuel and Siddharth Ramakrishnan, developmental biologist Jason Berndt, and mathematicians Ken Brakke, Jadayev Athrea, and Henry Segerman, as well as investigating cutting-edge ideas such as the Allen Brain Atlas and the function of mirror neurons.
“Synaptic lexicon” refers to a compendium of ideas and insights, resulting in this artistic investigation that anchors 9e2: art, science and technology. Both scientists and artists are trained to look for the unexpected; the connections made between the disciplines yield just that. Read about 9e2’s history here.
The nine participants are visual artists with established practices, responding to 21st century scientific concepts with compelling, materials-based experiments. The group has met every three weeks since the spring of 2016 and has been advised by Emily Zimmerman, Associate Curator of Programs at the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington.
Walkthrough with curator and artists: Wednesday, October 26, 7 pm.
Tickets HERE for the Wednesday events: two dance performances and a curator/artists talk. Synaptic Lexicon artist Romson Bustillo will be presenting a performance activating his work.
Romson Regarde Bustillo, The Biology of Culture: Cue Signaling, serigraph on muslin. Six 3'2.5" x 10', 2016. Pratt Fine Arts: print studio. Artist Trust: documentation
Gala Bent, Drummed Drawings (Particle Physics). Work on paper: graphite, gouache, drawing pencils. Dimensions variable. 2016. Courtesy of G.Gibson Gallery
Curator Ellen Ziegler: "In the act of perceiving our surroundings, we forge a link between our inner and outer worlds. Artists work in this interface – between the physiology of perception and the exterior world with which we engage.
"At Antioch College, Yellow Springs, I learned to seek out and allow accident, failure and chance occurrences – it was this influence that led to Synaptic Lexicon. I owe a debt to my professors there, who had been students of legendary artists and thinkers at Black Mountain College. This hub of the avant-garde included John Cage, Ruth Asawa, Buckminster Fuller, Jacob Lawrence, Josef and Anni Albers, Cy Twombly, and the co-organizer of Nine Evenings in 1966, Robert Rauschenberg."
Bradly Gunn, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World). Lumber, vellum, paint, tape and fluorescent light, 72”L x 29”W x 60”H, 2016