NASA shuttle launch
On Friday May 14, 2010 I saw the launch of the NASA space shuttle Atlantis at Cape Canaveral. My friend Beau Watson is a Senior Scientist at NASA and got a pass to park on the causeway. I sketched the launch (graphite on paper 7″ x 5.5″). I was surprised that the launch lasted long enough for me to make six drawings before the shuttle dropped its fuel tanks and disappeared. The causeway is 10 km from the launch pad, so the launch is eerily silent until the sound arrives, seconds later. It was a beautiful day, with a few clouds, light breeze, birds courting, and fish jumping.
Recent sketches
Four sketches. April 9-15, 2010. At various NYC Village bars and restaurants. Graphite on paper, 7″ x 5.5″.
Shark lady & Forest queen
The New York Academy of Sciences is presenting a series of talks by women scientists, Girls’ night out. I’ve been to two, Eugenie Clark: Shark Lady and Nalini Nadkarni: Queen of the Forest Canopy. Both were great. Good science told by fascinating speakers. I invited my nieces, Iris and Delia, to the talks, but they couldn’t come—school nights. So I sketched the speakers to make posters for my nieces: Shark lady & Forest queen. And I got books autographed.
Gallery tour
Today I took ten prospective graduate students in Cognition and Perception on a tour of art galleries in Chelsea. With advice from Madeleine Hatz, I read a hundred blurbs, visited twenty galleries, and picked six. Here’s the one-page flyer, and past flyers for 2008, 2007, and 2006.
Beyond journals: A media workshop at NYU
“Beyond journals“—a media workshop held at NYU on January 26, 2010—gives a glimpse of academics on the brink. Six professors—Amodio, Heilman, Jost, Marcus, Pelli, Phelps—and a savvy publicist—Cerand—present diverse views of old and new media. I convened and reported the event.
Drawing dancing
Drawing dancing. On Wednesday, December 9, 2009, I took the 19 students of my “Experiments in beauty” class to Terry Rosenberg’s painting studio in SoHo to sketch Jody Sperling dancing. Most of the semester was devoted to learning what science is by doing it. This session was devoted to learning what art is by doing it. We present photos, a sketch, and a video of the event, and nearly 125 charcoal sketches, by the students, of the dancing.
Observing Turrell’s skyspace
Observing Turrell’s skyspace at PS1. James Turrell “Meeting” skyspace at PS1 Museum in Long Island City, NY. 4-5 PM, Monday, November 23, 2009. A very faint rain fell for most of the hour. The sun set at 4:32 PM. We report nearly twenty observations recorded by the students of my “Experiments in Beauty” undergraduate psychology class at NYU. This is a one-page epilog to my 2005 chapter “What is observation” on taking students to observe Turrell’s piece. “Skyspace“ is a 2006 NPR Studio 360 radio interview of me about this by Kurt Andersen, produced by Laura Starecheski.
Publishing is the new literacy
Published “The Writing Revolution” with Chuck Bigelow in Seed: Science is Culture (October 2009) on the history and future of reading and authorship. Cody Brown summed it up as “Publishing is the new literacy.” Received one thousand links and ten thousand visitors. See comments and our responses at the New York Times.
The uncrowded window
Of all my journal papers, I’d single out this one, with Kat Tillman, to represent my research to date. “Crowding” is a breakdown of object recognition due to the combining of features over an inappropriately large area. Most of our visual field is crowded most of the time. The spared central field is the uncrowded window through which we recognize objects and read.
Pelli, D. G., & Tillman, K. A. (2008) The uncrowded window of object recognition. Nature Neuroscience, 11(10):1129-1135. [PDF, including supplement]
