The Senses
This heady mix of presentations and activities aimed to intensify our engagement with the sensual world.
Highlights
Rachel Herz, renowned expert on the psychology of smell and author of The Scent of Desire (2007), examined the emotional power of scent and UCSF's David Julius discussed how spicy plants inform chronic pain research.
Bryan Alvarez, synesthete and Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley, explored the unusual blending of the senses known as synesthesia and Artist-in-Residence Meara O'Reilly helped visitors "see" sound by singing into a microphone to vibrate sand into geometrically resonant patterns.
Philipp Reist, a Ph.D. student at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH–IDSC), demonstrated the Blind Juggler, a robotic device he developed that relies on mathematics (rather than cameras or other sensors) to keep multiple balls in play.
Bay Area artist Jeff Hull hosted an installation in the darkness of the Tactile Dome, and Artist-in-Residence Paul Clipson hypnotized viewers with his flickering video installation Night Signal.
After Dark: The Senses was a collaboration with swissnex San Francisco and was being presented in association with the Bay Area Science Festival (BASF).
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