Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg
Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology
Part of Getty's Regional Initiative PST ART: Art & Science Collide
Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles
October 17th, 2024 to March 2nd, 2025
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"Artists Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain harness the beauty and power of trees through tree-ring sculptures."
Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg with their sculpture,Tree of Knowledge. The artists used pyrography to burn over 160 historical questions that underlie our collective pursuit of knowledge into a 10,000-pound, salvaged Eucalyptus tree section. Questions include: “Do we have free will?” “Is there a grand unified theory of physics?”
“Can machines be truly intelligent?” What is the meaning of life?
The Exhibition Fuses Art with the Science of Tree-Ring Dating and Artificial Intelligence.
"A mind-bending installation..." ~
“Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg, who both understand the power of art to raise questions.
This exhibition is a rare combination of exquisite craftsmanship and dedicated scholarship…” ~
"Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg harness the beauty and power of trees." ~
“Artists Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain transform centuries of tree rings into a stunning exploration of humanity’s evolving relationship with nature and technology.” ~
"One of the most intriguing pieces in the show is titled “Abstract Expression.” A giant slab of redwood shows a series of 39 equations, which charts the progress in mathematics from Pythagoras to ChatGPT." ~
“Shlain’s arresting and philosophically charged sculptures made with salvaged wood and fire-writing, with Goldberg’s artistically expressed data-gathering and AI-enhanced “tree census,” in a tech-driven and human-sourced case for an expanded way of looking at time and human history”-
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The Getty Museum’s landmark regional initiative, PST ART: Art and Science Collide, which explores the intersections of art and science, includes an evocative exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time and Technology. Artists Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg draw inspiration from Artificial Intelligence, dendrochronology (the science of tree-ring dating), and the complex landscapes of Los Angeles, to re-examine our human relationship with trees and nature. The exhibition features eight tree-ring sculptures that reimagine our past and collective futures in new ways, a video portrait of Los Angeles that draws from open-source ecology datasets, and a participatory system using AI that allows visitors to create their own visual and textual "tributes" to specific LA trees.
THIS EXHIBITION IS TRAVELING
About the Artists
Partners in life and frequent creative collaborators, Bay Area-based artists Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg have worked together on art projects and numerous documentaries, including the Emmy-nominated series The Future Starts Here, which includes episodes “Why We Love Robots,” “Robots, Botox, and Google Glass,” and “Tech Shabbats.” They received multiple awards for their documentary short, The Tribe, “an unauthorized, unorthodox... history of the Jewish people and the Barbie doll,” which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and continues to be screened worldwide. Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain have also worked independently for decades as artists—including being shown at the Whitney and at MoMA in New York. Shlain is an interdisciplinary artist whose works in film, sculpture, and performance explores ideas in feminism, neuroscience, philosophy, technology, and nature. Goldberg is an artist and professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he questions the boundaries between the digital and natural worlds. They are co-founders of The Association of Free Association. Tiffany Shlain is represented by Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York and Ken Goldberg is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.