Masks and vaccinations are recommended. Plan your visit
After Dark: Maker Faire Edition and Copper
Thursday, May 17, 2018 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.
Free for After Dark Members
Adults Only (18+)
Note: The Tactile Dome and some programs have limited capacity and are available to visitors on a first-come, first-served basis.
Lose yourself in over 650 interactive exhibits exploring perception, art, and science at our adults-only After Dark. Grab your friends and a drink and get immersed in mind-bending experiences and unique, thought-provoking programs.
Featured Program
Maker Faire Edition
6:00-10:00 p.m.
Maker Faire—the world-famous three-day celebration of invention, creativity, and resourcefulness—comes to After Dark. Grab your friends and join us as we kick off the 13th annual Maker Faire Bay Area 2018 weekend with a sneak preview of makers and exhibits to be found May 18–20. Immerse yourself in maker culture with a bounty of exhibits, stages, interactive art, hands-on making and learning that inspire the future of innovation.
Featuring
Mousie
With Margaret Long
Throughout museum
Meet Mousie, a playful and mischievous mouse built on a remote-control car modified with accessible materials and techniques. It’s been to Maker Faire since 2014, zooming around, interacting with robots and people and being chased by (or chasing) children.
Astro Botanicals: Space Garden
With Stan Clark
Bechtel Gallery 3
Walk among towering, inflatable plants shaped like ornamental flowers. Artist Stan Clark designed these hand-sewn, color-changing sculptures to promote creative play and symbiotic awareness with the natural world.
Big Face Box
With Yuji Hayashi
Bechtel Gallery 3
Use Big Face Box to make your face bigger, and make people laugh! You will notice that making people laugh is fun. This very simple structure is an open source project.
BioLuminOids
With Erick Dunn
Bechtel Gallery 3
Interact with Erick Dunn’s BioLuminOids, light-and-sound animated artworks fabricated from glass, resin, and molds take of plants and other natural elements. Alter computer code on the fly to change animations in real time.
Firefly Stomp and Sound Wave Dancers
With Mike Sullivan
Bechtel Gallery 3
See fluorescent “fireflies” bounce inside a globe as you tap or jump on a stomp pad at Mike Sullivan’s Firefly Stomp. Then mix sound to control a glowing dance within a standing wave sound tube at Sound Wave Dancers.
Sewn Scenarios
With Paul Nosa
Bechtel Gallery 3
Think of any scenario. Put it into five words or less. Now watch as artist Paul Nosa interprets your words and uses a sewing machine to draw the resulting image on fabric.
Embroidered patches will be available for purchase.
Slime Lamps / SIProp
With Hirotaka Niisato
Bechtel Gallery 3
Touch the light and watch it beat along with your heart. Hirotaka Niisato designed these flexible slime lamps with heartbeat sensors. As you stretch, shape, and mix the lights, they shine in tandem with detected heartbeats.
Channeled Alien Mechanicals
With Justin Kohn
Bechtel Gallery 3
Encounter hand-machined mechanical sculptures unlike anything you’ve seen on planet Earth. Justin Kohn bases his unique artworks on joint designs used for stop-motion animation armatures, the internal structures of stop-motion creatures, robots, and other characters.
Flock
By Zachary Coffin
Gallery 5
Inspired by murmurations of birds, this thirty-foot-tall kinetic sculpture employs complex geometry to counterbalance flock-shaped sails, resulting in ever-changing and astonishing visuals. Flock was built in 2014 as a wind-powered piece with two-axis rotation. In 2018, Coffin modified his design to include a rotating base, adding another layer of complexity to the sculpture.
Everything Matters: Copper
8:00 p.m.
Phyllis C. Wattis Webcast Studio
Malleable, conductive copper enabled the Bronze Age and is an essential element for life. In some invertebrates, copper binds to oxygen in the blue blood pigment hemocyanin. Explore its significance with host Ron Hipschman and environmental scientist Seira Ashley Adams, who’ll share its chemical role in spiders.
Seira Ashley Adams is a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley conducting research of the chemical ecology, behavior, and evolution of spiders.
Tactile Dome
$10; purchase tickets onsite at the Information Desk6:15–10:00 p.m.
Bernard and Barbro Osher West Gallery
Take an excursion through total darkness in our Tactile Dome. Crawl, slide, and bump your way through the pitch-dark Dome using your sense of touch as your only guide through its chambers and mazes.
Please Note: Due to the nature of this experience, certain restrictions apply. Guests who are afraid of the dark; claustrophobic; have back, neck, or knee injuries; or are in their third trimester of pregnancy should not participate. Guests wearing casts are prohibited. Also, please wear comfortable clothes.
Learn more about the Tactile Dome.
Explainer Demonstrations
6:00–9:45 unless noted
Various locations throughout the museum
Drawing Board
Ticketing at 6:00 p.m., first come, first served
Bernard and Barbro Osher West Gallery
Draw hypnotically flowing patterns with a swinging table, and watch friction cause the patterns to slowly shrink along a spiral path. Pick up a ticket to reserve your spot in line for this popular activity.
Speaker Dissection
Bechtel Central Gallery
Tune in to surrounding sounds by experimenting with strings and vibrations, and use electromagnets to build a basic speaker. Learn how to listen with your bones, and explore the workings of the inner ear.
Cow Eye or Flower Dissection (alternating)
East Gallery
Do cows see color? How does a lens work? Examine the intricate structure of a cow eye to learn about similar structures in our own eyes, as well as some key differences.
Stigma, stamen, pistil, anther, style: Uncover the beautiful architecture of flower anatomy, and gather some surprising strategies that plants use to reproduce.
Magic Demonstration
Bernard and Barbro Osher West Gallery
Everything is not as it seems—at first. Pick a card, any card, and watch the Explainers reveal some surprising aspects of human perception.
