Visual and Performing Arts News

When we scale something, we adjust our focal point, zoom in or out and look at our subject in new and often unexpected ways. Important insights and revelations usually result from this change of perspective and altered mode of observation.

Scale: Balancing Art and Technology will showcase visual and material creations that inspire new exchanges of ideas and unique viewpoints. Participants will be scientists, artists and technicians who use any combination of images, technology, material objects or artistic expression as part of their personal or professional inquiry and process of innovation.

This exhibition seeks to celebrate the role that visual expression can play in sparking alternate perceptions and inspired conversations.

Please submit an entry form by June 1.

Participants will be asked to help install their work on August 3–4, 2015. Work must fit in the Rozsa Gallery, whose maximum ceiling height is 10 feet. Any technology required for submissions should be supplied by the participants, but exhibition staff can help ensure adequate security for equipment during the show.

For more information contact Elizabeth Hoy or Sarah Fayen Scarlett. To learn more about the Keweenaw Science and Engineering Festival (KSEF) visit here.

This exhibition is made possible by KSEF, Michigan Technological University, Visual and Performing Arts Department and the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts.

From Tech Today, by KSEF.

Keweenaw Science and Engineering Festival – Sun, Sand & Science!

What do sun, sand and science have in common? The Keweenaw Science and Engineering Festival (KSEF) is filled with family-friendly interactive and educational events for all ages. This first-time festival needs your support!

To help fund this project, visit Superior Ideas.

Keweenaw Science and Engineering Festival

Michigan Tech and the community will come together to host the inaugural Keweenaw Science and Engineering Festival.

The event is designed to stimulate and sustain interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in the Keweenaw.
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This four-day festival is an open forum to showcase all facets of STEM in the Western Upper Peninsula. Current scheduled events include the Michigan Tech Mind Trekkers, Nerd Night with Tech’s Physics Department, the Family Engineering Day, Summer Concert Series, Science Pub Crawl, The Wonders of Physics, science comedian Brian Malow and David Gaynes presenting his documentary “Saving Hubble” and more!

This event is scheduled for Aug. 5 – 8, with most of the activities free to the public. Check out the current schedule. If you would like to get involved and run a hands-on demonstration or volunteer please contact Amanda McConnon at amcconno@mtu.edu.

From Tech Today, by the Center for Pre-College Outreach.

Visual and Performing Arts students are exhibiting their collaborations with researchers in the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science to address bird-window collisions on the Michigan Tech campus.

“Keep Em Flying” includes posters, paintings, sculptures and window treatments are on exhibit through Sunday in the Noblet Forestry Building, the Library Skywalk and the Rosza Center. More information can be found on Superior Ideas.

From Tech Today.

Migrating Birds Get Boost from Science, Art Collision

A student reports a dead body on the Aftermath Café patio near the windows. The victim is a Ruby-throated Hummingbird and the indirect cause of death is the potted, red geranium just inside the window.

This brightly decorative plant was placed to enhance the atmosphere for students sipping lattes during much needed breaks between their studies. Unfortunately, this well-intentioned decoration presented unintended consequences. The hummingbird was attracted to the geranium’s bright blooms in hopes of a nectar meal but it encountered a window en route to the flowers.

This bleeding lead has a solution. In this specific case, it’s simple: Move the flowers away from the windows. But bird-window collisions go beyond a single geranium. And finding the bigger solutions takes action at the window-scale, yard-scale, town-scale and beyond to make the world a safer place for migratory birds.

This case illustrates a common problem, that of windows causing as many as one billion bird deaths annually in the United States. Glass can reflect trees and plants that make windows appear as forests or habitat to flying birds, but there are many solutions for problem windows.

Not all solutions are as attractive as people would like. There is a need for more aesthetically pleasing designs that can be applied to windows. At Michigan Tech University, science and art students are working together to identify problem windows and then design attractive yet practical window applications as prototypes. This conservation-art collaboration is challenging students to reduce bird-window collisions and also communicate across the science-art divide.

Read more at the Huffington Post, by Amber Roth.

Superior Ideas: Stop Bird-window Collisions!
Reducing bird-window collisions through science, art, & design
Researcher(s): Amber Roth, Lisa Johnson, Andrew Meyer

$8,000 Fund Goal

Why This Project Is Important
Bird migration is one of the great wonders of the world. Sadly hundreds of millions of birds are killed by collisions with buildings, primarily windows, in the United States every year. Help fund this project to identify problematic buildings on the Michigan Tech University campus and to help develop design artistic and aesthetic design solutions that will reduce bird-window collisions.

Learn more at Superior Ideas.

Keep Em Flying

Visual and Performing Arts 2-D and 3-D design students are exhibiting their collaborations with researchers in the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science to address bird-window collisions on the Michigan Tech campus.

Students in Lisa Johnson’s (VPA) design classes are developing works of art and design that raise awareness, minimize bird-window collisions, and provide safe spaces for birds. Over time, Amber Roth (SFRES) and Johnson hope to develop new and innovative solutions that can be tested and prototyped on campus.

“Keep Em Flying” includes posters, paintings, sculptures and window treatments are on exhibit through Sunday in The Noblet Forestry Building, The Library Skywalk and The Rosza Center for the Performing Arts.

From Tech Today, by Lisa Johnson.

Michigan Tech students taking classes in Visual and Performing Arts displayed their works in the Rozsa Gallery April 13-24, 2015, for the Student Art and Design Show.

This year’s winners are:

1st place 3D: Austin Roy– ceramic
2nd place 3D: Adam Roberts – eco tree house
3rd place 3D: Garrison Strand – Water Box

1st place 2D: Anna Brechting – photography
2nd place 2D: Ellyn Hurst – design
3rd place 2:D Amanda Rueff – painting

VIEW THE GALLERY