Category: Node Leaders

Workshop : Making biomaterials with fungi

Cris Silva   (he/his) is a Sri Lankan biologist focused on sustainability and building platforms for innovators to innovate in Sri Lanka. Currently he is focusing on making biomaterials with mycelium. He worked in several academic projects on Sc-rna analysis, plant molecular diagnostics and drug discovery with machine learning. He is the guardian of the Bio Lab at DreamSpace Academy  and Founder of Benzyme Ventures. He likes traveling and mountains.

Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/cris-silva1996/ Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/the_cris_silva/

Workshop:

Microcontrollers for All – learn how to use Arduino, micro:bit, ESP32, ESP8266, and the Raspberry Pi Pico to build, automate, and control things in your world. We will offer a series of workshops that explore each of these different platforms and learn how to prototype using cardboard and other found materials. We can tailor content towards the interests of the attendees.

Bio

Hello! I am a high school physics & engineering teacher from Chicago. I worked as the education engineer for SparkFun Electronics, and I’m the co-founder of HackSchool, a non-profit focused on empowering youth to tinker, hack, and take control of their own communities by leveraging the power of digital fabrication and open-source electronics.

Project: Pom will be working on eco art, a combination of art and environment as concept

Bio: Pom is an eco artist from Thailand who make various kind of works such as sculptures, painting and product design focus mainly in environmental friendly

Here is the Link website to some of her past works
http://remains-of-the-day.com/

Photo Can

Exploring alternative photography in its simplest form. Using can-pinholes for direct negatives on paper, is it possible to obtain positives simply? Maybe cyanotypes? Can you take a direct cyanotype in a camera obscura? Exploring solargraphy to understand how the sun travels in the sky (another use of the simple pinhole can camera). Some of the bottlenecks for analog photography are the darkroom and the chemicals. Can we get around that? What can photography be coupled with to document things our phone usually doesn’t?

Short Bio

A French artist living in Singapore, Isabelle Desjeux has a PhD in Molecular Biology and a MA in Fine Arts. Isabelle is interested in understanding how science is made and knowledge is acquired, by scientists, students or children and by extension the public at large.

Isabelle has also been working with children since 2000, teaching drawing through observation, and scientific methods and runs a studio called “l’Observatoire” where she invites artists for month-long residencies.

www.solargraphysg.wordpress

www.isabelldesjeux.com

While at Dinacon, I’ll be building and testing my new camera-trapping board game, Wild Lives. This game is all about using camera traps to explore the natural world around you and sharing stories about what you find. It’s a combination physical and virtual game, and I’d like to play a couple rounds with the other attendees, get feedback to improve the design and flow of the game.

Alex Hornstein lives at the corner of invention, nature and adventure. A lifelong learner, teacher, hiker and tinkerer, Alex is in a perpetual electron orbit around the planet, oscillating between his lab, classrooms and remote corners of the world. For the past five years, Alex has been building machines to help us tell stories about the natural world, and spends a lot of time thinking about how we can be active participants in our own local environments, rather than passive observers of somebody else’s. When he’s not in the lab or behind a lens, you can find him on the tops of mountains or the bottom of the ocean, but always with his wife and daughter.

Project: Creating Digital Growth Structures from Homemade Microbial Ecosystems

In session one, participants will be given an introduction to BioArt artists and methods and will create Winogradsky Columns from local mud sources. They will be taught ways to collect data from their columns to use in session two.
In session two, participants will learn to create an organic growth stimulator in TouchDesigner. They will take the data they collected over the week from their columns and input that data into their simulators to create their own unique digital growth systems. *

*Class structure can be altered if it needs to be one day. Also the kind of ecosystem can be altered to also me vinegar making.

Key Takeaways:
Introduction to BioArt, Data Collection, and TouchDesigner

Structure:
Two part workshop with ideally 1-2 weeks in between. First part has a focus on bio-art and physical making, while session two has a focus on digital techniques.

Materials:
● Test tubes with lids
● Chemical strips
● Popsicle sticks
● Latex gloves
● Egg shells
● Newspaper bits
● Mud
● Water
● Computer with TouchDesigner installed (program is free)

Organic Growth Structure Example

Bio

Maria Simmons is a hybrid artist from Hamilton, ON.
She investigates potentialized environments through
the creation of multidisciplinary sculpture and
installation. Her work embraces contamination as an
act of collaboration. She holds an MFA from the
University of Waterloo and a BFA from McMaster
University. She has recently exhibited at The Plumb,
Platform, Ed Video Media Art Centre, and the Hamilton
Artist Inc.

Workshop: ART±BIO Public Engagement and Community Outreach
As Node Leaders, Stephanie and Saúl will bring an international, core group of ART±BIO Collaborative artists and scientists participating in a Field Studies of Art+Nature program to DiNaCon to utilize the natural habitats of Sri Lanka as a STUDIO+LAB to make bio-inspired art.  Their group will also lead an open public engagement and community outreach event in Batticaloa that will creatively highlight the local ecology, animal behavior, and natural history of the area through artmaking, taking DiNaCon participants out of the conference and into the community. 
Find us on Twitter @artbiocollab

Bio
ART±BIO Collaborative (ArtBioCollaborative.org) is an artist and scientist-led nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, MA USA, that fosters the integration of Science, Nature, and Art and focuses on broadening participation and accessibility in the Arts and Sciences through novel collaborations, public engagement, education, research, and the creation of Science Murals. The ART±BIO Collaborative strives to create and develop accessible and collaborative opportunities for historically underrepresented and marginalized communities and populations utilizing the intersection of the Arts, Biology, and Natural History as a catalyst for social dialogue and creative exchange of ideas with artists, scientists, and the public. The founders are Stephanie Dowdy-Nava, M.A., artist, arts administrator, and art educator and Saúl S. Nava, Ph.D., biologist, artist, and Professor of Biology at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. 

Workshop: Critters and Code – Naturalism in Videogames

Bio

Jay is a code artist who likes to make interactive digital worlds with a life of their own, inspired by nature.

Workshop: DIY Arduino Sensing

Learn how to build up an Arduino sensor platform with solar charging and more!Some soldering with basic electronics and coding.Walk away with your own Arduino Sensor Node! 

Bio

Joel made kinetic sculpture for years before he became an electronics design engineer. He taught physical computing at Parsons from 2006 to 2014, and has participated in several successful crowdfunding startups since 2011 when he co-founded World Famous Electronics, makers of the Pulse Sensor: an open source heart rate monitor. In 2014 he co-founded OpenBCI, a Brooklyn based company that makes high quality low cost EEG amplifiers for science and education, and was President of the company until 2018. Most recently, he has created and co-developed Tympan, an Open Source hearing-aid development platform. Joel also owns the technology consulting firm, Flywheel Lab. Joel lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

www.biomurph.com