Fathomers’ Spotlight
A Conversation with Programs Manager Annie Zeng
Fathomers' merch lab offering art x science objects and apparel at the PST ART Street Festival. Image credit: Jordyn Doyel
“Art is a container that can hold many contradictions.”
Natasha Boyd, Communications Manager: Annie, tell me about some of the ideas currently energizing Fathomers’ programming department?
Annie Zeng, Programs Manager: Coming out of Getty PST ART and Emergence, we’re reflecting on what it means to have experienced a truly expansive collaboration between art and science—to work with the people that we did, to still be in conversation with them, and to see how that has led us to further connections within Los Angeles. A big part of programming has been enabling these collaborations.
NB: What are you seeing come from these new connections?
“Artists are asking questions that scientists believe will push their research along in new ways.”
AZ: It will be interesting to think about how that drives our collaborations at Fathomers going forward as we continue to support interdisciplinary work. For us, PST ART was a call to think about the ways that institutions of art and science can embolden one another.
NB: I feel like one can get sort of siloed as a researcher. One of the cool things about having an artist enter that space is that they're not trained to be thinking about scientific research in typical ways. They’ll ask different questions.
AZ: Yeah, I'm interested in just these dynamics. For example, how do the questions that Henry Tan and Masato Takemura ask through Pillars of Creation challenge researchers to think differently about organic computing and memory? That's interesting to me.
Emergence lab technician Maria Cabrera Abad wrapping up a tour of the lab during The Lab Behind the Artworks. Image credit: Jordyn Doyel
Dustin Wong performing a live sonic interpretation of Emergence during The Lab Behind the Artworks. Image credit: Jordyn Doyel
AfroRithms Futures Group performing MultiPlanetary Garden at the Emergence opening reception. Image credit: Jordyn Doyel
NB: Talk to me about bioremediation.
AZ: In the most basic sense, bioremediation is the use of biological organisms to remove toxic compounds, like heavy metals, from the soil. Different planting or fungi-based strategies can actually draw out harmful pollutants from the ground. Following the LA fires earlier this year, bioremediation became a point of interest for multiple team members. Some of what I’ve been learning has been what current and potential postfire remediation efforts look like—from the blanket removal of top soil to embedded bioremediation possibilities. Simply, where do the toxins “go” after a big natural disaster like this, and what agency do we have in the matter?
Interestingly, there are a lot of people I’ve come across in this space who had been working in the arts and then found themselves in the sciences because they wanted to get deeper into understanding techniques to do more engaged community work. It’s amazing to see how they're utilizing different forms of artistic thinking—weaving it in and out whenever they need to find new life for these projects or figuring out how to engage more deeply in a social layer.
“Simply, where do the toxins ‘go’ after a big natural disaster like this, and what agency do we have in the matter? ”
Interestingly, there are a lot of people I’ve come across in this space who had been working in the arts and then found themselves in the sciences because they wanted to get deeper into understanding techniques to do more engaged community work. It’s amazing to see how they're utilizing different forms of artistic thinking—weaving it in and out whenever they need to find new life for these projects or figuring out how to engage more deeply in a social layer.
Jaron Lanier and David Rothenberg perform with instruments, hydrophones, and cacti at Interspecies Improvisation co-produced by Nonhuman Teachers at their studio and greenhouse. Image credit: Fathomers
(L to R) Eduardo Padilha, Corinne Okada Takara, Annie Zeng, and Dr. Yewande Pearse enjoy opening night of Emergence. Image credit: Jordyn Doyel
Still from Cell Memorial Service video documentation. Image credit: Carson Davis Brown
NB: As somebody with a background in science and art yourself, where do you feel like those come together for you?
“I think my career has been a bit of a transverse journey—a navigation from the heart of science and technology to the contemporary arts.”
AZ: I started doing engineering research and development work among a lot of scientists, and I realized that there were a lot of smart people next to me and a lot of smart people being hired—they had plenty of brain power. But some of the questions that I was coming up against actually felt more social, behavioral, or normative than technical—so I followed those.
NB: And art is kind of the discipline that you go to when there's not already an existing vessel for figuring something out.
AZ: Yes—it’s a container that can hold many contradictions. Art can somehow soup it all together and let it stew. In some ways, it gives you more direct access to bigger questions around what we need to solve together.
NB: What's some cool art that you've seen recently?
AZ: The Interspecies Improvisation with Jaron Lanier and David Rothenberg, which we co-produced with Nonhuman Teachers, was pretty wonderful. I actually didn't get to see too much of it—it was so crowded! So I walked around the greenhouse and listened to it instead.
“The event was at night, and the cacti were coming alive. You could practically feel them metabolizing the air. Though I didn’t have a seat, I felt like I had the best seat in the house.”