Pronounced Folk :-)
FOLCHLABART
BAIT (Bringing Art Into Technology) was born as a vehicle to publicize our scientific work to the wider public using Art.
We started in March 2007 with a free Picasa repository of >2,000 images, still highly visited. In 2009 we added a YouTube Channel (>121,000 visits!). We have produced 7 exhibits (two outside Seattle, at Duke Univ. and in Savannah, GA) and I have been interviewed on TV (on NTN24 and UWTV) and on the radio (KUOW) about my art. Our images have appeared on conference brochures and book covers. Learn more here about BAIT and the various locations on campus where you can find FolchLabArt.
The overwhelmingly positive responses allow us to conclude that Art is an equalizing language -- so , if properly packaged, Science can be appreciated by all. Simply put, Science is beautiful.
We are now ready to expand the scope of BAIT beyond merely publicizing our lab’s work.
We scientists work with verifiable hypotheses within an experimental framework. This “cage” most often restricts the range of solutions that the experimenter is capable of imagining.
We adhere to the old Humanist belief that, by combining Art and Science, it will be easier for students to rid free of the cage. As artists, we force our brains to break into subjective directions, against gravity and time, in zero-viscosity and negative-temperature states, for no reason other than the fun of it.
With Art, we play and dream. And in those dreams, we are better scientists.