WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS
The festival collaborates with a diverse number of participants of all ages, both professionals and non-professionals, drawing together individuals from across the arts, sciences, architecture, engineering, this year including members of the UB Nanosatellite Laboratory, along with a number of community organizations throughout the city, including dancers with Parkinson's, Buffalo String Works, Starlight Studios, 5 Loaves Farm, and Our Lady of Hope Youth Choir. We will show the award winning documentaries little green men (a documentary about searching for pulsars) and The Farthest (about the Voyager Mission that carries the Golden Record) as lead up events, as well as a number of hands-on workshops and other events.
"All of planetary exploration to me is a story about longing, its a longing to know ourselves, a longing to understand the significance of our own existence." - from THE FARTHEST
We will screen two works this evening, one that grapples with the relationships between individual and object here on earth and the other which goes outwards, leaving Earth behind to link our relationships with what lies beyond.
LIAISON is a work for piano and dancer conceived by Megan Beugger and made in collaboration with dancer/choreographer Melanie Aceto.
THE FARTHEST explores NASA’s epic Voyager mission Launched in 1977 which revolutionized our understanding of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and their spectacular moons and rings. In 2012, Voyager 1 pierced the bubble of our solar system and ushered humanity into the interstellar age. Voyager 2 is expected to join it in interstellar space within the next few years. Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 continue to function, and send daily updates back to Earth from almost 13 billion miles and almost 11 billion miles away, respectively.
THE FARTHEST features more than 20 original and current Voyager team members, providing never-before-seen insights into one of the greatest feats of exploration our species has ever undertaken.
What if we turned our trash into music? Paraguay’s LandFillhamonic has already begun this trend building a full orchestra of instruments out of repurposed materials. Drawing upon such inspiration, participants will create their own musical objects out of recyclable objects. Visiting composer in residence Ben Zucker, will lead the instruments’ production in collaboration with co-leader and local photographer Alexis Oltmer, and Cradle Beach’s Living Classrooms director Intefada Wardia.
Thursday May 15th: Build Your Own Transmitter
Media Lab, 201 Crosby Hall, UB South Campus, 1-5pm
Visiting artist, Emiddio Vasquez will be in residence during the week of the festival to prepare a musical score for the finale weekend using radio transmitters. During this workshop participants will collaborate with Emiddio and UB Media Study faculty Jason Geistweidt and his students to make their own FM transmitters originally designed by radioartist Tetsuo Kogawa. They will have the opportunity to contribute to the musical score including the possibility of performing with the Indeterminacy Ensemble during the festival weekend event PastFuture/FuturePast. Ages 14 and up, materials will be included in cost of participation.
Join us for an afternoon of discussion and activities to learn how to make your own compost and start your own backyard garden. Afterwards stay for hands-on time in the 5 Loaves Farms’ garden and a delicious light dinner made with ingredients sourced from the farm. Dinner is pay-what-you-can.
2:00 - 3:00 How-to workshop on residential composting with Ignacio Villa, The Farmer Pirates
3:15 - 4:00 Panel conversation on farming and healthy soil with Ignacio Villa, The Farmer Pirates and Sharon Bachman, Cornell Cooperative Extension
4:00 - 5:45 Volunteer time in the garden
6pm Dinner
This evening is dedicated to the exploration of waves. We will open the event with a sound performance created on monochords, based on a one-stringed instrument that was used throughout the middle ages as a tool to explore the relationship between mathematics and sound. Following this performance, we will screen the award winning documentary little green men, a film about high school students searching for pulsars, a certain type of collapsed star, using radio astronomy data from West Virginia's Green Bank Telescope through the Pulsar Search Collaboratory (PSC). Director and Producer sarah jm kolberg, Co-Producer Dr. Maura McLaughlin
A Q&A will follow the screening with Director and Producer sarah jm kolberg, Co-Producer Dr. Maura McLaughlin, and cinematographer Vincenzo Mistretta.
Mission to the Moon.
Why does the moon look so different each month? What exactly is a blue moon? We'll be looking at how the moon revolves around the Earth using models, before making moon phases using cookies.
Star Lab.
Let's take a look at some stars and constellations in our inflatable planetarium. We'll be looking at stars much like how we do at night, and tell some stories that relate to each constellation. We'll also provide a star chart for participants to use at home, to identify constellations in their own night sky!
