“Art Meets Technology” presents work by ten individuals whose accomplishments reside at the intersection of art, science, mathematics, and technology. The exhibition draws on manuscript collections in the holdings of the Stanford University Libraries and includes selections from the papers of physicist and music acoustician Arthur H. Benade; architect and visionary Buckminster Fuller; artist and computer scientist Rich Gold; eco-artists Helen and Newton Harrison; media artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson; artist and design theoretician György Kepes; computer scientist and typographer Donald E. Knuth; mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot; and computer music pioneer and engineer Max V. Mathews.

Among the items on display in the Peterson Gallery and Munger Rotunda, Green Library, are sculptures from the Buckminster Fuller “tensegrity” museum series; lab notes, site photographs, video, and correspondence from the Harrison Studio’s ecologically-based installations in Europe and California; handwritten code and computer-generated alphabets from Donald Knuth’s 1977 work in digital typography; and pen-and-ink story boards and film clips from Lynn Hershman Leeson’sConceiving Ada. Materials from the Kepes archive include experimental photographs, publications, and book cover designs by him, as well as interview footage. Max Mathews’ work in computer music is represented through audio recordings and correspondence related to his development of the electronic violin and the “MUSIC” computer program. Also represented are Arthur Benade’s notes from his research on the acoustical properties of the clarinet, and Rich Gold’s marker-on-paper musings from his pioneering artist-in-residency at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Selections from the recently acquired archive of mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot focus on his work with fractals, and include pigment prints and correspondence by visual artists whose work was inspired by his computer-generated drawings.

Art meets Technology is co-curated by Stanford University librarians Peter Blank and Anna Fishaut, Art and Architecture Library; Henry Lowood, Humanities and Social Sciences Group; Jerry McBride and Mimi Tashiro, Music Library; and Roberto Trujillo and Becky Fischbach, Department of Special Collections and University Archives.

A November 6, 2013, symposium will engage the Humanities, Science, and Engineering communities in a discussion of innovation and interdisciplinary research, with a focus on the arts and technology. 

The exhibit and symposium are presented by the Stanford University Libraries with generous support from the Stanford Arts Institute.