Surfing the Cosmos is an original book of photographs and text that visually explores the high/low of energy in the slums of Rio de Janeiro as compared with the high-tech physics of CERN, where discovering the origins of the universe and the elementary particles from which it is made are examined. Within this visual story are the unplanned beautiful drawings that humans make in space with electrical wires, whether from the favela or CERN. These "drawings" inspired a series of artworks/photographs that are pictured in this book, often along with their photographic source or the spirit of the community from which they are derived (either favela or CERN). The human energy of the favela is also mirrored in CERN with one specific comparison of the graffiti from Rio and the chalkboards of CERN, both viewed as works of art and sources that motivated the author's response as demonstrated in his previous works through examples including paintings, fashion scarves, handmade rugs from Nepal, bamboo cotton face masks along with surfboards (chalkboards) and skatedecks.
Degrasse Tyson, Neil: - Neil deGrasse Tyson is the internationally recognized American astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History as a staff scientist; in 1996, he became director of the planetarium; and since 1996, he has been its director, where he founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997. He has been widely published by magazines and in book form, and is a recipient of the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal as well as the Public Welfare Medal by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for his "extraordinary role in exciting the public about the wonders of science".
Miller, Arthur I.: - Arthur I. Miller is Emeritus Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at University College London. Fascinated by the nature of creativity, he has studied it in humans and presently explores what it means for machines to be creative. He is the author of many critically acclaimed books, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty that Causes Havoc; Insights of Genius: Imagery and Creativity in Science and Art; and Colliding Worlds: How Cutting-Edge Science is Redefining Contemporary Art. He regularly broadcasts, lectures, and curates exhibitions at the intersection of art and science, and has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, Wired, Scientific American and Nautilus. His book on AI and creativity in art, literature and music, The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity, was published in fall 2019 by MIT Press.
Miller, Steve: - New York Artist Steve Miller has explored scientific concepts and experimented with new technologies in his photographic work since the 1970s. He is interested in our relationship to the planet and to each other. In his latest body of work, Surfing the Cosmos, he visually examines the continuum of our energy consumption. This is the third in his trio of books on subjects of humans and their relationship to the environment, to one another, and energy consumption: who consumes it, and how. He is the author of two other books on these themes, Radiographic and Surf/Skate.
On a trip to Brazil, he became captivated by the tangled web of power lines in Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, the largest shantytown in the country. Lacking access to basic services, residents there appropriated electricity by tapping into overhead cables, risking electrocution in the process. He photographed the wires and he incorporates those images into his prints and paintings. He thinks of the wires as "human drawings in three dimensions in space, based on our urgent need for resources." Chaotic and beautiful, these networks of wires look as energetic as the power that flows through them. Miller has lectured at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. In some of his works, he incorporates the mathematical equations and diagrams sketched out on chalkboards by theoretical physics there.
Miller is recognized as an early pioneer of the "sciart" (science-based art) movement). In 2013, and 2017, the National Academy of Science mounted exhibitions of his work, each of which explores aspects of the deforestation of the Amazon and the impact on the fauna living there. The Wired and CERN work presented here evolved from those two earlier bodies of work. Follow Steve Miller on Instagram @stevemillerdotcom and visit stevemiller.com and stevemiller.art.
