Roundtable 4 // Science & Art: Part Two

Hello, I'd like to welcome you to Techspressionism roundtable number four. Today's date is July 10, 2024. This is actually the second roundtable on this subject of science and art. My name is Michael Pierre Price and I'm an artist out of Phoenix, Arizona. With my background in physics, mathematics, and theoretical astrophysics, this subject of art and science is near and dear to my heart. I'd like to welcome our artists today.

Michael Pierre Price

I'm really impressed by their diverse backgrounds and the kind of art that they're doing, merging science with art. Artists on today's panel are Steve Miller and Moritz Albrecht. And we're going to follow roughly the same format that we did in our previous roundtable. Each of the artists on today's panel will have roughly seven minutes to make their presentation to introduce themselves and the art that they make. Then we're going to go to a series of questions and have some good discussions on this topic. And then we'll do a final wrap up. With our concluding thoughts. So with that in mind, I'd like to introduce our first artist

On today's panel, Steve Miller. Welcome, Steve. Thank you, Michael. Thank you for the invitation, kind invitation, and great to see Moritz as well.

And let's see how we go here.

How are we looking? Good. All right. I'm doing a kind of an overview of technology and it's going to be a lot of years at a short period of time. And I kind of put the dates in the lower right hand corner for people to see, you know, both my progress and the thinking about technology over the years. So I was reading a lot of friends. The French post structuralist theory. You know, who co Roland Bart Jean Baudrillard and it really got me thinking about visual languages of the epoch in which we live. And there's this new thing that happened in the early 80s and there was this universal barcode. And at the time, you know, it really felt like it might change the way we do business. Like, is this thing going to work? And you started to see it appearing. You know, in grocery stores and things like that.

Steve Miller

And obviously it was successful. And I really thought it would have something to do with about how we think about labor, how technology changes relationships, which we all know through social media. And I was starting to look at, you know, computers and how computers could change the way we look at an image of where you got those images from. This is a mapping from an ICBM water. This is an overhead missile that looks at the landscape. Right? That's the digital version of the landscape is this missile is going to go wherever it goes. And I really like the idea that the landscape is going through also a transformation. So all of culture was like changing quickly. And one of the other things I was thinking about is that technology is so at some level dispassionate and we're going to talk more about expressionism and emotion.

Steve Miller

And I was thinking, what kind of images could I use that might actually be have an emotional response? And so I took Herman Rorschach's test. I digitized it. Here you see it on an Apple computer. And I started silk screening these ink blots on canvas. And, you know, the idea was that if these images actually do involve, you know, do you see the bear? Do you see the two women facing each other? Do you see the face? Do you see the face? Had something to do with your, you know, the emotional content of the message and also this sort of tabula rosa that the viewer is now being interrogated in a certain kind of way. And, you know, once I started thinking about the Rorschach blots, I started thinking, well, you know, the small set, the unhealthy set of Rorschach blots is the people that have a pathological problem.

Steve Miller

Like instead of seeing the dancing bear, they see two people with knives murdered. Then they also see two white blood cells murdering each other. So it made me think about pathology and the images of pathology that we could now see through technology. So this is an electron microscopic view of two white blood cells that are HIV positive. And you could see they're sort of sticking together. There's sort of a bridge connecting them and normally those blood cells are bouncing around your body like golf balls. You know, they're hitting each other, but when the cell structure becomes weakened, they touch each other, they glue together, they pull apart, and you've just had two dead white white blood cells at the moment. So I was looking inside the body using electron microscopic images, and then technology and painting are always in a conversation together.

Steve Miller

And one of those conversations always is painting is dead, right? And I started to think, well, what if I could go look at genres of painting and think about ways that technology could change that? So this is actually a Rorschach block in the background with MRI slices, CT scan slices of my therapist, who was the head of a psychiatric hospital. In New York, I named William Frosch. So you know, the idea that through the lens of technology, you could see the world differently or something really compelling. So I did his portrait. This is a genetic portrait I did in 1993 of a woman named Isabel Goldsmith, who was a wealthy English collector who, her father was James Goldsmith, and I convinced her to let me do her genetic portrait. So he grabbed her blood. And in an autoclave that you can see, is my pointer showing at all?

Steve Miller

Yes. Okay, so here you see that, you know, the matching chromosome pairs, right? Those are two pairs right there. Now you can see the chromosomes are these are like connected, right? They're just about to break off and form new pairs, which is, you know, mitosis, a classification of chroma chromosomes, but it was just this idea that technology could change the way we look at the world. And introduce a new visual language system. So this is actually a cell portrait, as you can see, it's all the blood vessels in my brain. And you can see my name in the upper right hand corner.

Steve Miller

And this was another kind of painting genre called vanitas. And it's sort of a type of still life with a morality play. So I like that idea. And then I had the opportunity to go to Brookhaven Labs, and be invited to work there. And one of the things that I really liked about that was that it was a very, very, very good, I was a really, I was a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really, a really They can, those beams, the protons go through the latticework.

Steve Miller

They leave a bunch of dots on a screen and do different algorithms. You can pull those dots forward and create these 3D models, helix models, surface models, in this case, bubble models. And it was just a way to, you know, look at how science is changing the health industry and also really physically how the electricity inside the body, you know, the body's working. So then now we're in Brazil and you see these electrical lines. And I did this project called Health of the Planet. And the idea was that if the lungs of the Amazon are, you know, the lungs of the planet, then I could give Brazil a theoretical medical checkup. And I x-rayed the flora and fauna, which you'll see later. So one of the, you know, what happens in this, you know, leveling of the Amazon is that all that stuff is being used, you know, for uncontrolled development.

Steve Miller

And these are the wires that kind of represent the energy that I found in the poorest sections of Brazil, which you'll see later. Again, this is x-rays of live animals and getting the idea of this new tableau of looking. Looking at the lungs of the planet and recognizing the fragile beauty. And part of the, you know, so I get into a kind of a very close-eyed look. And then you see on the right side of this painting a green line. These are satellite images of Amazon land clearing. So they put a road in like this, right, going down here. And then they clear off the road. So these are, there's a road and then they're clearing off the road here. Another road. You can see what's going on. And then you see the Amazon through these satellite images and taking a kind of a holistic approach to the earth.

Steve Miller

And I was fortunate to be invited to the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, which is CERN, which is where they're looking for elementary particles of the quantum universe. So I spent over the course of a couple of years, a few weeks there with these guys. And I was really interested in thinking about, well, what was the next visual? What was the next visual vocabulary that would come into the culture? And it's, you know, it's quantum physics. This is the actual collider with a silk screen of some of the chalkboards from the scientists. But you could, this collider, this big circle right here is eight stories across. You might get the scale by looking at these railings that humans would hold. This is the beam line going across. And so they bring these two sections together. And then they fire up the reactor.

Steve Miller

The particles go. They go through all of these different panels where they figure out the electrical charge of the particles that are colliding with each other. And they found something not relevant to the discussion, but a particle called the Higgs boson, which is a particle that helps the other particles of the universe understand what their mass is. So if we get to that, we'll talk about that later. But this is underground at CERN and the complexity and the new kind of visual. I'm a little bit of a fan of the universe of technology that just really grabbed my ideas and information. And then I was lucky to spend time in the favela in Rio. And it's that's another story of how you get in there. You have a bodyguard that, like, tells you when you can shoot photographs. And so those wires in the background are kind of this really chaotic, uncontrolled growth.

Steve Miller

And it's also I thought there were beautiful drawings. And this helix structure is what of it's a mesh. What? It's a mesh model of Rod McKinnon's imaging from the Nobel Prize. And I thought, OK, this is the electricity inside the body. And then you've got this chaotic use of how electricity is needed within the visual culture. And these are the abstract forms you're seeing here are the areas of Amazon land clearing seen from a satellite, different patterns that they make in the salmon color and the yellow. And then the wires of the universe in the background. And then I started thinking about low energy, high energy physics. This is a chalkboard from CERN with some of the wires in the favela. And the idea I was thinking was that human behavior is not going to change, but maybe there's a possibility that science would help offer these solutions.

Steve Miller

So this is in the favela in Rio. And now we're looking at. The Large Hadron Collider. You can see the image that we saw before on the top of the background that's now black and white in a Nobel Prize winner's office below. But sort of combining research and an idea that maybe the quantum universe of the future will help us. So now we're back to the favela and with sort of the whole history of energy, the helix being the energy inside the body. The. The culture of using energy and then high energy physics that might give us a shot at the future. And this is just the last slide. So I did a book with Neil deGrasse Tyson and it was called Surfing the Cosmos. And it was sort of like kind of stepping way back and understanding where we are in the universe. And so and these are the chalkboards from CERN.

Steve Miller

Some of the solutions that might come from science and bringing this into my painting. Practice as a new content for discussion.

Thank you. Wow. That's a lot to take in and unpack. Steve is brilliant. And I'm looking forward to after Moritz's presentation to discussing some of that. So thank you so very much. Okay. So following

Up from Steve's presentation, we now have Moritz Albrecht. Moritz, it's all yours.

All right. Thank you, Michael.

Yeah, thanks first, Michael, for setting this up. It's a great honor to be here. Talk with you and talk with Steve about two realms which are very crucial to me. So I'm a. Radiologist at first and on the science part. I published for instance 138 papers. One was in radiology at first authorship, which is our highest journal. The second authorship in New England Journal of Medicine was another important milestone.

Moritz Albrecht

So I really had significant work on this side, but also on the artistic side. So I founded a project radiology art.com. It's a website. Which serves as an online gallery, which displays radiology art from all over the world from various artists. So right now there are 24 artists featured overall, and it's a great pleasure to also curate this in order to stimulate the radiology art movement a bit more as a new branch of modern digital art.

Moritz Albrecht

And there's also an Instagram related to this artsy radiology. So I'm very into this radiology art matter. And it interferes. A lot, which you see here also. They are very comparable, maybe art and science in general. And you see art on the other hand, like. My preference is slightly towards art, but yeah, otherwise I am also an abstract painter. I do other digital art than radiology art and installation art. So let's start and with the first piece I want to show it's a preview. From.

Moritz Albrecht

The exhibition. Hello Brooklyn, which is upcoming in a few weeks, and it's happening in Brooklyn. I call this dynamic variety. So first there's an abstract acrylic painting in the background. I photographed it and then I superimposed computer tomography images from a lemon shark. And what I think is always important to. Say is that I didn't make any further editing, but the radiology software. Real. So there's no filter or no Photoshop or something. It's really a drawn or colored by traditional radiology techniques. We call this in radiology centering and windowing. It's normally on the gray scale to make the image brighter or less intense and so on. But when you.

Moritz Albrecht

Use the software and exploit it in a way that was not actually intended. You can come up with. Very nice images with also like a shadings and so gradual differences. And clinically, this doesn't make so much sense to. To color everything. But of course, from the artistic way, there are endless capabilities. And in many radiology softwares, the features are hidden. But when you search for it.

Moritz Albrecht

But it's always for me. Interesting. That. Not so many people use this actually, but it's there. So you can start. Very easily, actually, but you just have to know the software a bit better. And what I want to say with that is like the shark. Is always the same, but on the spectrum for all those colors also diverse, like also what we humans are in the end equal, but also very. On the spectrum different. And. We should stick together, especially in this times. And also be maybe less gentle sometimes to fight for the issues that the world is facing right now. And that's why I choose also the shark.

Moritz Albrecht

And all this thing is kind of going from the left to the right. This was an important piece. Serotonin for me. And in general, that's. Where? I had this idea. I have. I have. I have. I have. Is a major part of radiology art but with ct for instance here you see always in ct this beautifully volume rendered surface reconstruction and so the human heart it's flipped like the heart emojis and then you have the ventricles the atrium and this was very complicated to get in this photorealistic life like visualization it was a prototype software with that a friend of mine we manipulated this and modified it a lot and came up with this colorful combinations and still it should is supposed to give this impression of a beating heart enjoy status like euphoria or like other positive feelings which would re release serotonin which is like a one of the so-called happiness hormones like dopamine is the second most common and when you see here it's also an effect of course this looks nice beautiful first you could say it's pop art or something like that but in the end it's just the opposite of superficial or like a consumption or something this is no consumption at all it's addressed or it's actually every body looks like this in the end so in I think it has more meaningfulness in a way despite that it looks so cheerful and so colorful at first glance like that's why I like it a lot and with magnetic resonance imaging I imaged many fruits with a friend of mine sophia santos and we had for instance here this is my favorite it's a pom grenade and this pom grenade is then again with radiology software's colored it's hard to get this like shapes from red orange to green yellow and then with this turquoise in the end like this would be the surviving one from maybe a series of a couple of hundreds so it takes really long time to digitally get a feeling for this digital coloring with radiology software since they are actually not intended for this but why do I think this is so important it's because you see this in the whole integrity with all radiology techniques basically with x-ray and ct as well but like to have fruits or soft tissue you need magnetic resonance imaging and you could cut the pomegranate of course you would also get a slice but then you there's juice coming out there is a cell is damaged and ruptured and sliced and so in the end a pomegranate in my perception can never be as beautiful as here because it's like not damaged

And it's still in

Full integrity shown this is the piece I would like to show because we're talking about science and technology in general and as a scientist also I'm a big fan of easy bullet-lit sentences like key points like in scientific papers like everybody understands so I questions myself what were actually really crucial substantial inventions from the cheaper ones so then things like the wheel would come to mind but the wheel is like not so interesting to him to x-ray but like gliders I think the control of fire like first the production of fire is I think an evolution a critical step towards being humans and then also to have this just in your pocket controllable I mean nowadays we are so into really advanced AI and other softwares and developments that we sometimes forget that actually a simple lighter is a great invention and I wanted to simulate here the evolution of lighters from a petrol lighter to a gas slider and then this is from the company who has the most expensive lighters to my knowledge and you also again this is like a as I said before you can of course unmount the lighter or you can google it how does it look on the inside whatever also for watches like for very advanced swiss watches for instance the you can do that yes but you will always destroy the integrity and you don't see the hole and that's the beautiful about radiology techniques that you can see through it and you see the full functionality and arrangement of the also engineering that is used here so now it's like a more recent development in my artistic like same with radiology art I'm like there's the scientist in me I guess I always try to find new ways to express artistically as well and it's super hard of course to find a new idea or a new concept that's always the most critical part so I was in the builders market once and then I saw construction foam and thought hey let's start doing some paintings and with texture reliance with construction foam and gypsum the gypsum and then I was starting and right now it's the most important work that I do I guess I do this in very large numbers because I can express a lot of things that I could express I could express many different ways I could express many that are not graspable on Earth.

Moritz Albrecht

Like for instance here, it's supposed to give an impression on the wealth of gold, which is found on Psyche 16, which is an asteroid 150 miles in diameter. It's reachable. NASA has just launched a spacecraft to it last year in October, and now it will take six year until they will get to Psyche. And the spacecraft is also named Psyche. So I think the asteroid is completely made from metal almost, so iron, nickel, but also a wealth of gold. So there's so incredibly much gold on this asteroid.

Moritz Albrecht

I also put gold leaf on it, not completely, but there is gold contained. And when I see this, also I didn't want to make a gold jewelry effect or something. Of course I want to have a raw asteroid shape and impression. And that's one of my favorite art pieces actually. And it's not that big, but the effect is wonderful.

Moritz Albrecht

Or mercury was an element which always fascinated me. Of course it's highly poisonous, which is a pity, but from the viscosity and from its behavior and how it looks like, like liquid silver, which drop like appearance, I was always fascinated. And then I tried to express how would it look like to have stream of mercury or fall of mercury or a river or a lake or something. I mean, somewhere in the universe, it must be there, this planet. We don't know yet, but just another example how, and it, it is supposed to look very extraterrestrials. So that was always my aim to be a bit more, to do that. You can find this pattern so easily. On the other hand, I realized the tissues in radiology, they also looked at sometimes like this. And then when you go on the microscopic level membranes of cells, they can also look like this.

Moritz Albrecht

So that's a bit funny that you can go in the, you can go greater in the dimension, you can go lower in the dimension. And sometimes you see a similarity. And I want to close with this one. When I saw the photos from Hubble and James Webb telescope from Pillars of Creation, I was fascinated from the first moment. I think this is one of the most beautiful structures I've ever seen really. And with the technique with this construction foam, I tried to imitate it. Not copy the shape, but also make a star dust formation. Like this is like a star dust and gas interstellar.

Moritz Albrecht

And they are like stars are inside are created. And so I also tried to build columns, which would be looked like star interstellar gas and dust. But I darkened the image a lot. Like this took forever like to paint it and to make this a bit darker. I didn't want to make just a beautiful star image. I just want to have this, this title, which is Latin from Seneca.

Moritz Albrecht

It means rough paths lead to the stars. And in the end, I think this is kind of permeatively coming from the background wood towards you. And it's a very interesting shape. It looks like nothing from the world when you are in front of it. So, these are the images that I have. These are like topics from my current work. Yeah.

Moritz Albrecht

And yeah, with that, thank you, Michael. Again, I think it's fantastic that we have the session today.

And I'm looking forward to the other discussion now. Wow, thanks, Moritz. Beautiful. Oh, man. There's so many things that we can sort of follow some threads here. And I think the first thread that I see really strongly in both of your works is your creative mind as an artist working with science and technology to, you know, use a very worn out phrase, you know, think outside the box here.

Michael Pierre Price

How do you see creativity as something essential, not only for science, but also for art? You know, traditionally, artists have been on the vanguard of new ways of thinking. Obviously, in more recent times, science is the same thing. So, talk about just for you personally, what is it? What creativity is it? What creativity within you is drawn to that sense of science and art or the merging of it or the using of it or technology? I'm just kind of curious. So, whoever wants to go and try to tackle that first, you have the floor.

Yeah, I think... Go ahead, Moritz. All right. Thank you, Steve. I think it's very much the fuel and the motor of both fields, like to have creativity, because in research and science, it was always interesting to see. I was relatively... I had a lot of ideas about study hypothesis. So, these hypothesis, I could just like...

Moritz Albrecht

Very many, just like sometimes I had to do a hypothesis and to create it for the next three years for agenda or for my entire half department. And I was like, okay, what should I do? Like, but somehow it worked. Of course, I did not only alone. I was always in the research group. But I was like the head of this and I was responsible. So, and so hypothesis was my strength. I was just like, okay, can we do this on the other disease? Can we do this technology setting? Can we just try it out? And then it was a try and error in experimental all the time. And for me now saying about science that this was like the most important part.

Moritz Albrecht

It's also an art. Like what makes the revolution artists? Revolutionary. They were the first who had like a new concept and idea and thinking or like Picasso was seeing the world differently than others. And this is like very similar. And I can really say when I think about new art pieces or like what is actually meaningful, what could I do? Like it's like it feels completely analogous in both fields. So this is like interesting that I think that creativity and also this thing outside the box being experimental or innovative curious. Curiosity is also a big factor, which is true for both. On the other hand, then afterwards the conduct of the research in the scientific in the science of medicine, at least can very be repetitive also hard work. And then you have to keep going and spend nights with writing the paper and everything.

Moritz Albrecht

So this is sometimes very uncreative as well. Like so and this is different from art on the other hand. So I have thought about this a lot. And so art in the end, like of course, it's also hard work and there's a lot of other things and managing around. But in the end, like the creativity is always there in some extent. There's always expression and emotion and feeling. And this is sometimes in science different. But again, like the diamond on both things is like the you have to have the idea. And this is like in the end, it's in that regard is the same maybe.

So I think that's the way I would approach it. Thank you. Yeah. All right, Steve. Michael. Yeah. Thanks. The question

Is, how do these two things meet or how does one start on this path? I guess for me, it's I'm really interested and intrigued by your creative process and how that ties into creativity. That's really I think inherent in both science and

Medicine. And in art. And so you can you can follow the thread.

However, it feels. Okay. There's a lot of threads there, you know, as I, you know, started out looking at that, you know, universal barcode in 1980, right? I made the painting in 82. But you know, this idea that science and more importantly, technology was invading the culture like and, you know, I was doing a lot of reading and I was reading philosophy really to understand better what the function of art should be in the culture. And one of those deconstructive, you know, pathways of thinking is like breaking down structures and analyzing structures and one of the common structures with all of us is language and you know, and then in visual art, there's also a visual language just like, you know, vanitas turned a still life. Into a morality play in the 16th century. So, you know, what's the function and meaning of art?

Steve Miller

And so I was reading a lot and I understood that art always had a relationship to the visual language of its culture. And so pop art is the visual language of commercialism and shopping and, you know, materialism and very relevant as a movement and it made me realize that there was. New language system coming down with this Universal code and new signs and symbols of technologies that was going to change the way we look at things and the computer being one of them. So that ICBM ICBM missile mapping system was like, wow, you know, it's a it's a weapon of war and it's digitizing the landscape into a different kind of structure. Just as way that he tossed change still life. So it was clear that technology was going to offer the opportunity. To follow what the new visual language system was in our world coming up and then and then keeps morphing.

Steve Miller

So that's how I ended up in CERN because I had done this project with cork glue on plasma at Brookhaven, which I didn't put those slides up because I was doing 40 or 50 years in a few minutes, but they were, you know, understanding the kind of nature of the birth of the universe by understanding that, you know, the. The plasma state of matter at Big Bang was forks gluons and Higgs bosons actually. So it made me understand that I had to keep looking at science as a way to understand the world better. And that's kind of how I came to it.

And that visual language then just invaded everything I do. So what one of the things I find fascinating about the work that both of you have shown. Today and knowing a little bit about what you all do. I think tied to that creativity is you both make connections that aren't necessarily obvious.

Michael Pierre Price

And Steve in your talking about the favela along with the work at CERN and about how important electricity is within the body within the brain. And then. Talking about how it's important in the lifeblood of us human beings and all of that. And then Moritz with your connection of the heart and being able to see inside pristinely in ways that we couldn't do with just, you know, the electromagnetic spectrum that were used with our eyes. I find fascinating the way that you make connections. And I don't know if you have anything else that you might want to add about that, but it's something that I find it intrigues me about your work. And I think it goes beyond just the surface of the visuals that there's something that you can chew on that you can think about.

Michael Pierre Price

And so if either

One of you wants to address that at all, I'd appreciate that. Well, I'll say one thing. You know the you mentioned the favela in Rio, the poorest neighborhoods, and the you know this chaotic need for resources. And really I just looked at the wires which you see in any poor neighborhood in India. It could be anywhere you see those, and it made me realize that it was a drawing made in space by humans out of necessity. So it's like wow I've got this ready made right it's a it's a. New kind of ready made that looks like a drawing and I thought I could not make a drawing as beautiful as those wires. And you see you know like similar kinds of mesh networks. Maybe people might disagree with me but I'm I love Bryce martin's work especially the last work when he starts making those kind of mesh backgrounds.

Steve Miller

I guess I respond to that because that's what I use in my own work. But you know in art. You're always looking at this. You're always looking for imagery and what are those images gonna do? And so the superficial version of the image is wow there's this drawing in space made by humans. And then what's the you know what? What are those wires crazy wires all about? Well, it's actually about a big problem that we have, which is uncontrolled growth, and you know not decent living conditions. And. And they're stealing all that electricity because they need it to run their lives.

Steve Miller

And then you've got the problem that it creates, which is, you know, one aspect of global warming. And then, and then in America, sadly, this disdain for science, and this disdain for logic, and this disdain for fact, and the hits boson when they make a scientific. I mean, Moritz probably knows is better than anybody. But when they make a scientific discovery, it's 99.9%.

Steve Miller

You know it's certainty that's been tested. And you know the idea that we do have facts, and we do have conditions that can be understood through data, and then you know, find solutions. I mean, my thought is.

Can art participate in this discussion? Good. I'm there with you. I totally agree.

Rich, do you have anything that you'd like to add? I think there were like some multiple facets. What came to my mind is that I want to make the point that through imaging techniques of that. We have extra ctmri. I understood so much about the beauty of the human body. And in an artistic way, of course, as a med student, I was always I knew, of course, about anatomy and how this looks like. And but also it was like from.

Moritz Albrecht

Yeah, it was always some anatomy. There was not so much beauty in actually for me at least. Whereas in radiology, the nice thing is it's of course you do no harm. The most. The time we don't even inject something. So it's without any pain or something like that. And you see the living organism in all their aspects.

Moritz Albrecht

So perfectly nowadays with this technology, also with our screens, they are way more expensive and elaborate than the normal premium screens for other PCs. So you see always this and it's very intense for me. And the more I became an artist, the more intense the impressions also were. Which is sometimes funny because as a clinical radiologist, I should not always see the beauty everywhere. Just get the work done and make the accurate diagnosis. And then. Yeah, be fast and efficient. That's like sometimes a bit of pity that we are more about efficiency about than those aspects of it. But for myself, like I see in our beauty, I can literally find beauty in so many aspects. Like there's sometimes a little change. Like I see a tree of vasculature and I think this is amazing. You magnify it.

Moritz Albrecht

Then you can say, OK, I make this in blue. And then so it's the human body is incredibly beautiful. And normally you only see the surface. And that's also how we intuitively see beauty. Like the first step was in medical school when I first were operating and where I put my hand in someone and I was like a bit traumatized. I was really for several weeks. I could not.

Moritz Albrecht

Yeah. My girlfriend was a bit like I was more distance because I couldn't take it like kind of. So now. But then afterwards you process it. And then as a physician, you always know what it gets more familiar. And now with this radiology art aspect. This is endless, like a brain scan in this eye sharpness or like a cardiac, like a pumping heart and cardiac MRI. I think you have seen this also somewhere. Wow. Yeah. So I think always this is like and then, of course, but I have to focus to be more. So it's also like what sometimes it's competing like the scientists in me, the better I was in science, the more successful, the more I decreased in my knowledge in medicine and vice versa. And now also in art is the same game repeats.

Moritz Albrecht

The more I become a great artist or maybe I improve as an artist, the less I have time to study. So that's it. I can just an issue. Also, when we talk about this interference and like correlation of both fields, art and science at a time is a crucial factor which is holding us back from it to do them both thoroughly. You know, it's easily said, of course, everybody would be happy to be scientists and artists. And but I think that is like the reason that still it's like not. Yeah. I think that's the reason that so many people are active on both sides. I mean, it can be very like time consuming both.

When you want to be really like into it.

So, yeah. Okay.

But it's also rewarding. We did like and you know, I appreciate both both of your perspectives and answers. I know for my own. You know, from my own background and where I can relate a lot to, you know, Steve's experiences at CERN, especially with, you know, some of the equations that he had on there is that sense of, you know, physicists talking about beautiful equations. So there that sense of beauty.

Michael Pierre Price

That. That's there. I think. I think is something really, really powerful. And I think science and that understanding and your experiences that way can enhance that sense of wanting to share that beauty as well as an artist with others.

So I just want to try. Yeah, go ahead. And the word beauty. Because. The second essay in the book. Surfing the Cosmos is by a physicist, Arthur I Miller. I don't know if you know who he is or not. He wrote. Einstein Picasso. And he's written a lot of books. Anyway, he wrote an essay about this subject of aesthetics and beauty. And that's the second essay in the book. And I really wanted him to. Write that essay because I wanted to address that concept. And address that in the book. Like what is beauty and what our aesthetics? And he talks about in the essay.

What you just mentioned previously is a beautiful equation. And Steve having your book and I appreciate that I got it and your autograph that essay I think is profound and I really found it to be very inspiring. So I'm glad you had it. And I'm glad you read that as part of that book because I think it really enhances

Everything about the book that's in there. I was hoping that you know more people would jump on that. But you know he's talking about maritza an equation that a scientist came up with and people were disproving. And then the equation was maybe it wasn't a valid equation back to the work table. Other people started testing the equation. And realized that it was valid. And the remark by the sciences was of course it's valid it's a beautiful equation.

Steve Miller

So they see beauty and you know science, you know mathematics. I guess really this is about mathematics. But there's aesthetics are all around us that's not necessarily just the world and fine art right? You have beautiful equations. And you know Maurice you're looking at the heart and you're saying wow I'm in the body and I know I'm tearing somebody apart. But if I can get back step back a little bit I realize how beautiful it is that I like the one thing that you did because I was gonna ask you the question is that where the heart shape came from when you put that heart shape in front of the heart.

Yeah, exactly.

That is the origin of a heart that we use for Valentine's Day. Yeah, I try to do this like the heart that's so intuitively that one understands. Okay, this is really like I mean it's funny because we always send us hearts. It's a social and cultural thing. So we don't think about. Okay, this is an organ or something. But once it's like an order you it's like something more massive from the effect. Yeah, but in the end it's like the same. It's like the heart. So it's a very kind of cheesy romantic thing. But in the end, like what it when it's a real heart, I think it's an instinct from us that we appreciate and respect this way more than as it would be just like the

Normal heart emojis or something other painted. I really like the way you did that. It was just really crystal clear, and I as funny I was gonna ask that question. Then you press the next slide. It was. Oh!

Yeah, here's where this is.

This is what it's about biology. Yeah, as much as love whatever that is. Yeah, that's awesome. Yes, so I think this is maybe gonna be the last question I have, and I don't want it to sound too trivial, because I think it's really profound. But if you were to fill in the equation art plus science equals.

Michael Pierre Price

What? And you do you don't have to give a single you know word answer. You can make it as long or short as you want to. But art plus science equals in your experience where you are today. What? How would you?

How would you fill that in that equation in either of you? All right for me. You know it's it equals new content. And you know it's like it introduces new things. New subject matter and a new lens through which to look at the world.

That's awesome. Yeah, I completely agree with your Steve, and especially your last point like I think both scientists and artists like want to investigate the world. Be curious, find new forms of in the end, understanding the world, and also improving the world. Like I think science in general without with some exceptions, of course, but like in general it's a very positive thing. So every researcher and scientist want to do some something good for the world and improve it. And also like defining the truth, which also artists are sharing this characteristics. I guess. So I think it would be since the these characters are similar. Yeah. And then there is a significant overlap in my opinion. It's a form of enhancement. So in the end, like, when you have insights on both fields, it's you get greater insights on the world.

Moritz Albrecht

How everything functions and it's just not measurable so directly in our modern society, because we don't appreciate predominantly anymore. This kind of multi-disciplinary. Working or activity patterns like many think we always have to specialize, specialize, always specialize. But in the end, I think, like knowledge transfer and this thing outside the box, like transferring an idea or another context. But just you are you are able to do this because you do the other realm.

I think this can be.

This is very underestimated. And. And then I thought also, I think, like with artists. I think we artists, we are more primarily the researchers as a previous form of the high elaborate science. So in the end, we all are doing research with our explorative art. Some just Victorian art and decorative art. But in the end, like the other artists. They want to do. They want to dig some deeper.

Moritz Albrecht

And like science is even myself. Like I always said, first, I was a researcher. Of course, I was scientific. And but in the end, I said, like, I led a research group. I'm a researcher. And this is also with my try and error approach with this experimental working pattern. It's more. I think it's more represented. Maybe we say research and art should merge first. More. And then we can maybe the science.

Is that higher term can follow? Maybe that's what might be my idea. Michael, just one quick insight. I like relevant to this discussion.

You turn that last question into an equation. I did. Well, it and I really and I purposefully did that. And it was a nice segue for talking about beautiful equations. So it seemed like a good time to throw that in. I appreciate everything you all have said. I like the idea. Researchers is good. I also think we're explorers, you know, I think that sense of exploration is at the heart of science, and at the heart of art as well.

Michael Pierre Price

So I would like to give each of you a couple of minutes, maybe any final thoughts, any new projects you might be working on. I do. I'd love to see let you share your screen 1 more time. If you've got another piece you could share with us. So, Steve,

You want to go first and share any I actually I had an image on the screen. I did not realize it was part of my proposal here. So okay, okay. So I may just opt out. Actually, let's see if I stop my share. So I made it more complicated. I think I can just say that you know where I'm going now is thinking about data streams and how data streams inform how we learn about the world.

And we've got them coming at us constantly so that's the next thing I'm looking at.

So do you have a specific project in mind that deals with that? Or is it just? Yeah, I do. I do. I've asked. I've actually, today, you know, when, you know, I'm applying for some, some support for that idea. And if I get, of course, it involves technology, and that's expensive. So, I'm happy to be in my studio, but it's, it's great to actually bring.

The technology to the audience. In a different kind of way. Awesome. Well, I look, I look forward to hearing more about that. Sometimes.

How about for you, Maritza? Yeah, let me just share my screen real quick. Yeah, maybe this is actually it was not intended now, but I printed this out in 2.4 meter length. So it is like really different when you see it this in this size, and I put on like plastic PVC stones. So it's kind of a. Extension of the effect that it actually already had to be more cheerful and to have this positive impact.

Moritz Albrecht

Let's just go back. This would be like my closing. It's interesting because Steve was also talking about stream. So this could also be a stream from upward to downward and what the point I want to make is like I'm interested in. Creating and blending dimensions and layers like for some reason I'm very fascinated about coins I think they will be abandoned soon which I think is a pity because every coin in the end culturally is already like a little artistic document of the time that it was built okay so first the painting then the coins then like the hearts and I like that it gets some more it gets deeper the image impression and yeah I think I will do maybe more of this like mixed media like kind of also the other way around like print out digital art pieces that I created and then paint on them like steve does in this perfect way like I think this is very important for me to be able to do this kind of like a kind of like a kind of like very interesting to also make not always the distinction between digital and painting and so on this is what is really fascinating fascinating for the future for me okay yeah

Well I want to thank the both of you I really appreciate your time and sharing and in being thoughtful with the questions I posed to you and with that in mind I'm going to sign us off and once again thank you to Steve Miller and thank

You to Moritz Albrecht

This is the medical Techspressionism thank you michael so much before you are more than welcome thank you adios

Bye-bye