Polytechnic University, in conjunction with the New York Academy of Sciences, will host a day-long symposium that highlights cutting-edge research on Bioactive Systems. It will highlight the recent advances in molecular design, self-assembly, gene circuit, artificial cell design, and evolution with applications in biology, medicine, environment, and energy. The symposium will be highly interdisciplinary and will bring together recognized scientists and engineers who are performing research in bioactive systems with core knowledge in the physical sciences and engineering. A poster session at the symposium will provide individuals the opportunity to present their research and interact with the attendees of the symposium.

Speakers: Jay Groves, UC Berkeley; Randy Lewis, University of Wyoming; Adam Arkin, UC Berkeley; James Liao, UCLA; Homme Hellinga, Duke University Medical Center; Stanislav Shvartsman, Princeton University; Jeffrey Moehlis, UC Santa Barbara

Organized by: New York Academy of Sciences
Sponsored by: Hot Topics in PS&E
Location: New York Academy of Sciences, 7 World Trade Center 250 Greenwich St 40th Floor, New York, NY 10007

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Moderated by Haeyun Park, Museum as Hub Fellow

Independent curator Shinya Watanabe and artist Hiroshi Sunairi discuss the philosophical meaning of Article 9, the so-called Peace Constitution in Japan drafted by U.S. occupation forces after the war in the context of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. Sunairi will speak about his recent work Elephants Never Forget shown at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art in 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima.

This open discussion is part of the Museum as Hub project "Dongducheon: A Walk to Remember, A Walk to Envision," organized by Insa Art Space, Seoul, and on view in the fifth floor Museum as Hub space until July 6, 2008.

Born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1980, Shinya Watanabe is an independent curator based in New York. After acquiring his MA at New York University, Watanabe traveled thirty-four countries as a backpacker and started to curate an exhibition on the relationships between nation-state and art, "Another Expo--Beyond the Nation-States" (White Box, NY, 2005). He is currently preparing the exhibition "Into the Atomic Sunshine--Post-War Art under Japanese Peace Constitution Article 9" (Puffin Room, NY, 2008, and Tokyo, 2008). spikyart.org/atomicsunshine/index.html

Hiroshi Sunairi was born in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1972, and currently lives in New York. His work Elephants Never Forget, was shown at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art in 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Most recently, Sunairi exhibited White Elephant, a memorial of the events September 11, for a group exhibition at the Japan Society in New York during Fall 2007. He is part-time faculty in the Department of Art and Art Professions at NYU.

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Beyond Bike Lanes: Retrofitting the 21st Century Metropolis for Bicycles and Pedestrians. Presented by Tom Angotti, Hunter College.

Tom Angotti is Professor in the Hunter College Department of Urban Affairs & Planning in New York City. From 1995 to 2001 he was Professor and Chair of the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. He is the author of Metropolis 2000: Planning, Poverty and Politics (Routledge, 1993), Housing in Italy (Praeger, 1977), and many articles in professional journals. He has worked and written extensively on urban planning and community development in the United States, Latin America and Europe. He is a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, Associate Editor for America of Planning Practice and Research, Participating Editor for Latin American Perspectives, and Editor of Planners Network. He was previously a city planner with the NYC Department of City Planning, and worked for state government in New Jersey and Massachusetts. He taught at the graduate level at SUNY, Columbia University, Harvard, and University of California at Berkeley. He holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Policy Development from Rutgers University.

Governors Island
Pershing Hall

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Heidi King, senior research associate and curator of the exhibition, Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, MMA will present a lecture entitled "Amazonian Bird Feathers in Ancient Peruvian Art: Color-Texture-Symbolism."

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The Austrian Cultural Forum of New York and Forum Gallery present "Sensual Insight" a discussion of the artwork of Xenia Hausner, featuring the artist in conversation with the celebrated German critic and historian, Bazon Brock. The discussion will take place on Monday June 16, from 6 to 8 PM in the Austrian Cultural Forum's second floor auditorium at 11 East 52nd Street.

The discussion references and informs the current exhibition of Xenia Hausner's work, You & I, at Forum Gallery, New York. Mr. Brock and Ms. Hausner will explore the ways that her powerful figures and bold use of color and mixed media relate to recent artworld phenomena and methodology, and to Austro-German sensibility and thematic content.

Admission is free. Reservations are required; to reserve, please call 212-355-4545 and ask for Ilana Holmes during business hours, or e-mail to ilana@forumgallery.com stating your name and how many will attend.

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The Goethe-Institut New York presents What Is Green Architecture?, a new series of conversations, lectures, and events exploring the cutting-edge developments in the field and their impact on contemporary life as well as implications for the future. The series continues with a talk by noted architect Matthias Sauerbruch followed by a conversation with Andres Lepik.

Matthias Sauerbruch is most famous for his "city-landscapes": this is what he calls the design of his colorful and energetic buildings, such as the Federal Environment Agency in Dessau or the GSW headquarters in Berlin. Sauerbruch understands the work of architects and urban planners as landscape-gardening by means of shaping their surroundings with colorful and organic buildings. Sauerbruch believes that it was his time in architecture school in Berlin and later in London which led him to his success today. From 1985-1989, he worked in Rem Koolhaas's London office as a project manager, and helped him build the Checkpoint Charlie Haus Friedrichstrasse 214 in Berlin. He founded the company Sauerbruch Hutton in London in 1989 with his future wife, Ms. Louisa Hutton. In 1993, a branch of the office was also opened in Berlin. Matthias Sauerbruch was a professor at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste (Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design) in Stuttgart from 2001-2007. In the spring term of 2008 Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton were visiting professors at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has won several prizes, including the Fritz Schumacher Preis fuer Architektur (2003), the Deutsche Fassadenpreis (2001), the Deutsche Architekturpreis (2001), and the Erich-Schelling-Architekturpreis (1998).

What Is Green Architecture? series curator and moderator Dr. Andres Lepik studied art history and German literature at universities in Augsburg and Munich, earning his Ph. D. in Rome on Architectural Models in the Renaissance. He has curated noted architecture exhibitions, including solo shows highlighting the work of Renzo Piano, Rem Koolhaas, and Oswald Mathias Ungers at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, and the German venue for The Museum of Modern Art's Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Die Berliner Jahre 1907-1938 at Altes Museum. He is currently Curator in the Architecture & Design Department of The Museum of Modern Art, as well as author of Skyscrapers.

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"Unnatural" in Architecture by Elizabeth Diller

Monday, 06/16/2008, 8:00pm

Elizabeth Diller is a principal and co-founder of the inter-disciplinary studio, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, one of the most creative firms in America. DS+R's work encompasses architecture, urban design, temporary and permanent site-specific installations, multi-media theater, electronic media, and print, including the Lincoln Center redevelopment project; The High Line; the Mott St. Townhouse, and Brown University's new Creative Arts Center. DS+R's new building for the Boston Institute for Contemporary Art opened to great acclaim in December 2006. Join Ms. Diller as she speaks on her work and on the "unnatural" in architecture.

Sponsored by: The National Arts Club, Architectural Committee
Location: 15 Gramercy Park South
Telephone: 212.475.3424

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EAI presents a special evening with Michael Smith and Joshua White. Smith and White will screen works that they have produced together and speak about their long collaboration.

Over the last 11 years, Michael Smith and Joshua White have collaborated on a series of increasingly sophisticated videos and installations that incorporate Smith's deadpan and wide-eyed alter-ego, "Mike." Gullible and ever-hopeful, Smith's eponymous character is an Everyman living in a media-saturated hyper-ordinary world that he does not really understand.

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Mistreatment of the elderly is a problem that affects all segments of society, regardless of socioeconomic status, living environment, race and ethnicity, and physical or cognitive condition of the aged individual. Its scope extends beyond physical abuse to include psychological and emotional harm, neglect (abandonment or failure to provide proper food, shelter, companionship, medical care, or other necessities of life), sexual abuse, exploitation, and fraudulent diversion of property. Perpetrators include victims' relatives, professional caregivers, friends, and neighbors. Too many victims and witnesses do not know how to report elder abuse or where to go for help.

This New York-area conference brings together experts in gerontology and advocates for the elderly. Panels and lectures focus on exposing the realities of elder abuse in New York City and around the country, describing the kinds of responses and services that currently exist to protect the older people from abuse, and discussing ways of improving public and personal responses to abuse in all its forms.

Co-sponsored by the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (JASA), the Institute for Retired Professionals at The New School, and the New York City Department for the Elderly.

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Efforts to overcome discrimination based on sexual orientation have been part of a more generalized agenda of civil rights. These efforts have been played out in the streets, in major institutions, and in the courts. What do the politics of statewide elections and the presidential race of 2008 tell us about efforts to remedy the effects of discrimination on gays, lesbians and transgendered individuals?

The panelists who will deal with issues of marriage and the family, employment, health and well-being to assess electoral politics and the interests of a gay constituency include Judith Stacey, professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, Sociology Department, NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and author of In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age; Shannon Minter, legal director of The National Center for Gay Rights and lead attorney for same-sex couples in the marriage case recently decided by the California Supreme Court, and Richard Goldstein, journalist and author of Homocons: Liberal Society and the Gay Right. Moderated by Robert-Jay Green, Executive Director, Rockway Institute, Alliant International University. Sponsored by the Wolfson Center for National Affairs in partnership with the Alliant International University's Rockway Institute for Science and LGBT Public Policy.

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