News & Events

Art & Science Jam Session

The Role of Metaphor in Art & Science Collaborations

What are the similarities between scientific and artistic creativity? How can creative processes in art and science impact each other?

Join this participatory Art & Science Jam Session, where we will explore how art and science can work together. We will discuss how employing creative processes can generate new scientific ideas, improve scientific communication, and open potential pathways for innovation. Elvira Hufschmid will introduce her and Margit Schild’s research on an Aesthetic Transformation methodology for cross-disciplinary collaboration through which ideas and concepts are passed on in form of a ‘creative chain reaction’, thereby promoting dialogue between disciplines.

Hosted by the Arthur B. McDonald Institute at Queen’s University and the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, this online event will bring together physicists, artists, and members of the public for an interactive discussion on how artists and scientists can collaborate when metaphor and analogy operate as ‘carrier substances’ between different fields of knowledge.

The Jam Session will include a panel discussion on the interdisciplinary potentials of physics and art, featuring 

• Seung Jung Kim, University of Toronto art historian and physicist
• Margit Schild, artist from the Berlin School of the Provisional, 
• Aaron Vincent, theoretical astroparticle physicist at Queen’s University,
• Kristine Spekkens, astrophysicist of the Royal Military College.

The panel is co-hosted by Renée Hložek and it will be moderated by Queen’s University cultural studies scholar Elvira Hufschmid.

ASL interpretation will be provided for the event, and a summary ‘live drawing’ will be made available to all participants.

Event Details

•     Monday, September 18, 2023
•     1 – 3 PM EDT
•     Online, free
•     Open to all

• Register

This research was undertaken thanks in part to funding from Canada First Research Excellence Fund through the Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute, and to funding from the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto.