Media Advisory: Robotics, virtual reality and the intelligence of art are topics at WNY’s first LASER Talk

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Artificial life, robotics and human-computer interaction will be the focus of Buffalo’s first LASER Talk, an international program that gathers artists and scientists for the exchange of information and ideas.

The premiere event will welcome artist and scholar Simon Penny to present, “Embodiment, Materiality and Cognition: Reflections on Art, Technology and Culture,” an investigation of how we think, act and understand.

Buffalo is one of more than 30 cities across the world to host a LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Talk, an international series organized by Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology.

When: Tuesday, Nov. 27, at 7 p.m.

Where: Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo.

Media are invited to attend. On-site contact is Paul Vanouse, vanouse@buffalo.edu and 716-982-2078.

Buffalo LASER is sponsored by the Coalesce: Center for Biological Arts in the University at Buffalo Community of Excellence in Genome, Environment and Microbiome (GEM), UB Department of Architecture, UB Center for Architecture and Situated Technologies, and Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center.

About Simon Penny

Penny, a professor of electronic art and design in the Department of Art at the University of California, Irvine, has created interactive and robotic art pieces for more than 40 years.

His work addresses the relationship between machine and the human observer, embodied interaction, and theories surrounding artificial intelligence and materiality. He was part of a generation of artists to engage multimedia computing and the internet for cultural purposes, and produced groundbreaking work in machine vision and virtual reality interaction in the 1990s.