SPACES & PLACES
Science and Art Shape the Future in Boston
By Alberta Chu
Guest Contributor
Science, art, technology, and design are intersecting, colliding, transforming, and fusing in
established science laboratories as well as in new
experimental venues in
the Boston area. The inertia of thriving academics, innovative science
museums, and public
arts programs has gained
momentum over the past
decade. As we explore
Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
(MIT), Harvard University’s Wyss Institute, and
the Museum of Science,
we find that scientists
and artists—sometimes
one and the same—are at
it like never before in a
town that cultivates and celebrates what happens at the intersection between the two.
Science by Design
The Wyss Institute for biologically inspired
engineering at Harvard is the embodiment of
science-based art. For Wyss Institute Founding
Director, Don Ingber, “Design is central to my
science.” He recalls, “As an undergraduate at
Yale, I took a class in sculpture and learned of
the ideas of Buckminster Fuller and Kenneth
Snelsen. That was my a-ha moment. Over the
next thirty years, I did experiments applying
the concept of tensegrity to biology and cells.”
That Dr. Ingber lives at the design-art-science
interface is evident in his approach to answering big scientific questions. In his research,
Ingber envisions the essence of the organ, then
Above: Organs on Chips recently acquired by MoMA NY.
Photo credits: Wyss Institute at Harvard University.
SciArt in America April 2015
builds it by the simplest means. With a nod to
Buckminster Fuller, Ingber says, “You chip away
at the incredible complexity of life to reveal the
essence of it. Not only meaning but also mechanism, and not only to make a model but to be
able to use that model to make predictions.” Dr.
Ingber’s work, in which he grows living cells on
computer chips, shows that the cells begin to
exhibit emergent behaviors, just like cells in the
body’s organs, that specialize and work to function together. Surprisingly, Ingber’s work has
been embraced by the design world. Organs on
Chips can be seen at MoMA in New York City
in the current exhibition “This is for Everyone:
Design for the Common Good,” curated by
Paula Antonelli, MoMA’s Senior Curator of Architecture and Design. Additionally, MoMA has
acquired Organs on Chips for their permanent
collection. “That was certainly a dream, but not
an intention,” Ingber remarked happily.
When Don Ingber met David Edwards, the
two immediately realized their art-science connection and began to produce public events,
programs, and book projects together. Ingber
makes the point, “Great scientists are like great
artists. They have vision: the ability to envision
is important in all great discoveries.”
Boston is buzzing about Le Laboratoire Cambridge, the hybrid art gallery, restaurant, and
lecture venue in Kendall Square conceived by
David Edwards also of the Wyss Institute, who
is also director of Le Laboratoire’s first branch
in Paris. Edwards explains, “Many of the questions facing us about innovation and change can
no longer be dealt with in a classical lab setting.
We are opening the creative process up to the
public.” A splashy red-carpet worthy opening
in the fall featured performances of Vocal Vibrations, a collaboration between architect and
designer Neri Oxman and composer and inventor Todd Machover (both of MIT Media lab),
drawing celebrated area technology and design
cognoscenti. With world-renowned chef Patrick
Campbell (previously of No. 9 Park) at the helm
and featuring coffee from Parisian coffee roaster
Antoine Nétien, Le Laboratoire Cambridge/
Café ArtScience is a unique destination for
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