Summer Salon Series 2011

The following is a detailed list of the evening's events and participants:

5:00 – 9:00 pm: Brian Goeltzenleuchter and Katharine Whitcomb will present Smelling the city, an olfactory artwork that will be present at each remaining night of the 2011 Summer Salon Series.  This project juxtaposes a poetic text printed on a fragrance blotter against an artist-made scent into which the blotter is dipped. Upon request, Summer Salon patrons receive a blotter which is lightly scented and highly transportable. The blotters become points of personal reflection and conversation pieces.

This project will take place in the Museum's Lower Rotunda.

5:00 – 9:00 pm: Adam Manley will present Build Your own City: Suburban Poolscape, upon which patrons will be able to collaboratively build a city. Manley's sculpture, built out of sawhorses, represents the mapping of swimming pools in a suburban neighborhood of San Diego.

This project will take place in the Museum's Lower Rotunda.                        

5:00 – 8:30 pm: Giuseppe Restaurant will offer beer, wine and light snacks.

The bar is located in the Museum's Lower Rotunda.

6:00 – 7:00 pm: Art Making Activity: Pop Art Join Museum Educator Brian Patterson for an art making activity that is fun and engaging for all ages and skill levels. 

This activity will take place in the Museum's IMAGE Gallery.

7:00 pm: Ben Houge: Live performance of Mobile 4

For this live music performance, Ben Houge has combined his background as a musician and composer with his experience designing musical scores for video games.  Rather than requiring each performer to keep track of sequences and repetitions, a computer will make random or algorithmic decisions in real-time, presenting the results to performers as a scrolling score that combines traditional musical notation with the real-time awareness of music videogames like Guitar Hero or Rock Band. This system introduces a new kind of spontaneity into live performance, much like playing a videogame, which enforces a musical logic while still ensuring that no two performances are ever alike.

THis performance will take place in Gallery 16. 

7:50 pm: Dr. Geoffrey West will present his lecture The Science of Cities and Their Critical Role in Global Sustainability: Growth, Mortality, Innovation, and the Accelerating Pace of Life.

Dr. Geoffrey West, a theoretical physicist and expert on the fundamental laws of cities, says he has found the simple equations that define the variables of municipalities and posits that, as our vibrant centers of innovation, cities are our best hope for solving current and future problems.  Fresh off of his presentation at the 2011 TED Global Conference, Dr. West will join our continuing conversation about building better cities by explaining to us how urban centers function much like biological organisms.

For more on Geoffrey West, please read his bio from the Santa Fe Institute, or the New York Times article A Physicist Solves the City.

This lecture will take place in Gallery 18.