On the R/V Liberty, the University's research vessel, an artist and scientist collect data side by side to collaborate on an experimental exhibition at the University of Nevada at Lake Tahoe. The exhibit, which makes up only a piece of the annual Tahoe Art-Science Co-Lab, is part of an effort to bridge science and art and push the boundaries of what sustainability research and discovery can look like. This fall, artist Lawrence LaBianca from California College of the Arts and scientist Rene Henery, California science director at Trout Unlimited, are working through the Tahoe Co-Lab to collaboratively explore themes of place and space at Lake Tahoe.
There are two iterations of this collaboration. First, the collaborators visited the Lake Tahoe campus to collectively research and brainstorm for their shared exhibition. The Tahoe Gallery in Prim Library was then activated as a studio, lab and research space. In the second iteration of the collaboration, the final exhibition is installed in the gallery and there is a collaborative lecture.
The art-science connection
The Tahoe Co-Lab is a semester-long, experimental, collaborative research residency situated within the Lake Tahoe Basin and hosted by the University of Nevada at Lake Tahoe. The Co-Lab positions the Tahoe Gallery as an active site of interdisciplinary inquiry, where artistic and scientific practices intersect: for scientists, collaboration with artists provides alternative modes of inquiry and communication, expanding how research is visualized, interpreted and shared with broader publics, and for artists, access to scientific data, methodologies and fieldwork enables deeper engagement with environmental systems and expands the conceptual and material scope of their practice.
Most importantly, for the broader community, the Co-Lab increases access to complex environmental research through experiential and interdisciplinary presentations. By translating scientific knowledge into accessible and affective forms, the program fosters public awareness, dialogue, and connection to the Tahoe Basin.
A day on the lake
To gather inspiration and data, LaBianca and Henery spent a day with Tahoe Institute for Global Sustainability faculty members Sudeep Chandra, Katie Senft, and Eli Everest who were collecting data around Tahoe for the Tahoe Environmental Observatory Network (TEON). Everest, in scuba gear, cleaned the sensors and retrieved data for TEON while LaBianca and Henery collected their own data using an invented tool called a “fishing guitar,” and an acrylic lens designed to gather water from the middle of the lake.
In an interview with Chris Lanier, teaching assistant professor in Interdisciplinary Art at the University of Nevada at Lake Tahoe, LaBianca and Henery discussed the nature of water, the ways artists and scientists use and modify tools, and the ways tools of investigation offer, in their use, portals to heightened experiences.
Lanier: Let's start with what you did today – going out on the boat, what you collected, the types of equipment that you used to collect it, and unpack what we did this morning.
LaBianca: We had a couple conversations before meeting each other. I drafted some sketches and journal entries about my thoughts, and where it could go – maybe some book recommendations. And Rene looked at those and then responded. One of his responses, one of the conversations we had, drew me to this one sketch of looking through the lake at each other – a duality theme. So, one of the things we brought out there was this acrylic lens that we filled with the lake water today. That's something we'll start working with. It's an opportunity for us to look at something together, and see where a scientist and an artist might go.
Henery: Lawrence made this really simple but really cool instrument that he graciously invited my daughter to name – and she named it the fishing guitar. It's a tool for capturing resonance in a medium. And in a very core sense, that's what we've been up to – moving between these different mediums, the mediums of water and air and landscape, and also the mediums of different people, different perspectives on the world, different interests, different desires to engage with us and be part of what's going on. We're just keeping that rolling. I’ve been appreciating how little difference there is between this thing we've been doing together and any sort of field work I’ve done. There's a part of it that's just an excuse to get out there and observe things deeply together.
Lanier: The fishing guitar, that’s where science intersects with sculpture, right?
LaBianca: Using those devices that we're creating and using them in the environment attunes my presence to the environment, and that's really important for me in general. A really simple example would be today, filling up the glass water lens that we created. I had to submerge my arms into the lake and hold it and look at the lake. I was on my stomach on that front end of that boat, leaning over. I was getting wet as water was splashing over. I would have never done that before – leaning off the front of this research boat, cradling this thing, and it probably took 10 minutes for it to fill up. I had an experience with the lake that I normally wouldn't have. That's where art happens – when the experience essentially transcends the medium. You're no longer looking at it as a piece of plastic that we're filling up. It becomes this lens that we're going to have a conversation about. The tool itself is incidental.
Henery: I’m having a ton of joy listening to Lawrence because I feel like, he's created these things – and it's through everybody engaging with them that they get consecrated. They become sacred objects, even though there wasn't much to them to begin with. I also think that, for being simple, they didn't need to be overly complex – they've been really doing their job. There's a function of scientific tools that are absolutely just vehicles for engagement and presence in place, beyond just collecting data.
Lanier: I think of this in terms of the diving Tahoe Institute scientists did off the boat today. Eli’s out there to clean the sensors, right, and to get the information. But there's clearly pleasure in being in the water.
Henery: Yeah, totally. She loves diving.
Henery: There is a thing in the scientific space, where tools are designed to be able to record the experience, and for some facet of the engagement to be replicable, so someone can go out and record the same data. But to your point – or between the lines at least – I'm really interested in the part that's about presence. It usually isn't written up in the methods section, but it is the primary reason why the person was out there to begin with – because they were inspired by that place.
Special recognitions
The Tahoe Co-Lab is made possible by the support of the Department of Art, Art History and Design, the Tahoe Institute for Global Sustainability, the College of Liberal Arts, the School of the Arts, Artist in Residence funding, the Sheppard Contemporary and University Galleries and the Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Arts program.
