Art AND Science 2015

Art and science aren’t incompatible subjects, running forever on parallel tracks, never to intersect. In fact, these two fundamental ways of explaining and understanding the universe interplay and overlap in surprising and enlightening ways. That’s the idea behind “Art AND Science: Dedicated Desire and Unmatched Reason,” an interdisciplinary event now in its third year at UW-Eau Claire.

In its inaugural year, “Art AND Science” featured a film about the origin of matter in the universe, while last year it coupled live music with narration about (and images of) the solar system. Now science is being brought to the stage for a free “readers’ theater” performance at 7:30pm on Thursday, Dec. 1, in Schofield Auditorium on the UWEC campus.

Students will perform selections from four science-related plays, “along with dramatic and visual portrayals of the science involved,” according to a press release. The plays include  The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence by Madeleine George (which explores artificial intelligence); Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson (about astronomy); Copenhagen by Michael Frayn (about uncertainty and nuclear physics), and Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin (in which Pablo Picasso meets Albert Einstein).

The event’s steering committee, like its subject matter, is diverse, and includes UWEC faculty members from a variety of disciplines, including Jennifer Chapman and Arthur Grothe (theater), Matt Jewell (materials science), Jim Rybicki and Paul Thomas (physics and astronomy), and Jack Bushnell (English).

This year’s “Art AND Science” event promises to be an enlightening evening that will engage audience members’ right AND left brains.

Art AND Science: Dedicated Desire and Unmatched Reason • Thursday, Dec. 1, 7:30pm • Schofield Auditorium, UW-Eau Claire • FREE • uwec.ly/artandscience