STEAM Imaging – Our Artist-in-Residence Is Yen Tzu Chang

New artist-in-residence programme connects computer-assisted medicine with education and art

Fraunhofer MEVIS is delighted to welcome an artist to a new artist-in-residence program in cooperation with Ars Electronica. The project includes a series of encounters bringing an artist, a group of Fraunhofer MEVIS scientists, pupils from Bremen, Germany, and Linz, Austria together in the spring and summer of 2017.

An important element of the artist-in-residence program is the involvement of pupils, who will gain insight into new technology and participate in discussions. This program reaches pupils in STEM topics (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) who are interested in art. It raises awareness about the role of math, physics, and foremost information science and programming in society. We designed this residency to explore the interplay of science, tech, and art to stimulate critical dialog about, and implementation of new technology within society. The aim is to foster the engagement with, and ownership of future technology. In addition, enhancing the artist-in-residence program by involving pupils contributes to the development of new occupational fields for artists. 

In the first phase of the residency, the selected artist will work for two weeks closely with researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute of Medical Image Computing MEVIS in Germany. The artist will explore selected scientific themes and technologies in medical image processing and relevant ethical and societal issues and will train to use a software platform for medical imaging. With support from scientists, the artist will bestow an artistic perspective on a workshop for pupils conducted alongside the scientific experts as part of the International Fraunhofer Talent School in Bremen. The pupils will use medical image processing technology in an artistic way and discover the underlying computer science, programming, mathematics, and physics. 

For the second phase of the residency the artist stays two to four weeks at Ars Electronica in Austria and develops an artwork linking up scientific aspects with approaches used in digital art and holds the workshop with pupils from Linz and Upper Austria. Ars Electronica’s facilities allows artistic reflection on significant developments, its ongoing inquiry into alternative future scenarios as well as the ways and means to encourage people to get actively involved in configuring our shared future.

The program will take place at the Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing at the technology park in Bremen, Germany and at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria. At Fraunhofer MEVIS, experts from four fields will take part, including experienced STEM workshop leaders from the biophysical modelling and simulation group, experts in technology-oriented science communication, scientists from the MRI physics group and experts for the exploration of new technology within the medical imaging development platform MeVisLab. At Ars Electronica the artist is provided with state-of-the-art technical production possibilities in a transdisciplinary discourse and has access to experts from Ars Elctronica FutureLab. 

An external scientist specialized in the effects of arts-based initiatives will evaluate the program. The creative project and the outcome of the residency will be presented at the 2017 Ars Electronica Festival in Linz in the context of the European Digital Art and Science Network.

The STEAM Imaging project was originally developed during 2016 in collaboration with SPACE (London).

Exhibitions & Material

Exhibited and performed at:

Whose Scalpel 2.0. was exhibited at INTER-ARTISTIC Expressions, 2023, Taipei (TW).

“Science and Art in Dialog” 2018, Berlin (DE). In a subsequent open discussion, Institute Director Horst K. Hahn and Ars Electronica Artistic Director Gerfried Stocker explored complexity as a term and its possible ramifications for our society.

FRAMELESS16, MUG im Einstein 2018, München (DE)

Performance: Yen Tzu Chang’s Whose Scalpel at Music Hackspace, Somerset House studios, interview with artist Yen Tzu Chang

Ars Electronica Festival 2017, Linz (AT)

 

News:

Open-heart art surgery
https://www.mevis.fraunhofer.de/en/press-and-scicom/press-release/2017/open-heart-art-surgery.html

B. Hofmann, S. Haase, D. Black. STEAM Imaging: A Pupils’ Workshop Experiment in Computer Science, Physics, and Sound Art. SCIART MAGAZINE Special Topics August 2017: STEAM, 1. August 2017

Evaluation Results of the Pupils’ Workshop ”STEAM Imaging: Art Meets Medical Research” Published
https://www.mevis.fraunhofer.de/en/press-and-scicom/institute-news/2017/evaluation-results-of-the-pupils-workshop-steam-imaging--art.html

STEAM Imaging – Our Artist-in-Residence Is Yen Tzu Chang
https://www.mevis.fraunhofer.de/en/press-and-scicom/institute-news/STEAM-imaging-under-the-skin.html

STEAM Imaging: taking stock, an interview with Bianka Hofmann

Whose Scalpel – An artist’s exploration of AI in heart surgery, interview with Yen Tzu Chang

Medical technology and art make a wonderful match! Interview with Sabrina Haase

Raw Science: STEAM imaging – Art from the MRI scanner

The Artist-in-Residence Is Yen Tzu Chang, interview with the artist

STEAM Imaging: An Experiment in Art & Science, interview with Bianka Hofmann

Guest-lecture at Stanford Department of Electrical Engineering January 31, 2019 by Bianka Hofmann within the EE376A Information Theory course: From STEM to STEAM – how and why Fraunhofer MEVIS injected STEAM.

A fruitful exchange between art and science Conversation about responsible research and innovation. Artist Yen Tzu Chang performed "Whose Scalpel" in the scope of the “Science and Art in Dialog” event series in Berlin on June 5, 2018. In a subsequent open discussion, Institute Director Horst K. Hahn and Ars Electronica Artistic Director Gerfried Stocker explored complexity as a term and its possible ramifications for our society.

Workshop: Science + Art = The Next Generation of Researchers? Sabrina Haase and Bianka Hofmann at the intersection of art, science, technology, media, and entertainment at the Raw Science Film Festival January 7, 2018, CA.

Flesh and Voxel: Making Sense of Medical Images | UCLA, Flesh and Voxel: Making Sense of Medical Images | STEM to STEAM, by Bianka Hofmann, Sabrina Haase and Alexander Köhn, January 8, 2018

Poster at The Workshop AESTHETICS get SYNTHETIC: KLAS Knowledge Link Through Art & Science, November 27, 2017, Potsdam.

Conference Talk and Panel Discussion at Ars Electronica 2017 - Symposium II - European Digital Art and Science Network: by Bianka Hofmann and Sabrina Haase within the panel Art and Science Residencies - Just a "Fly-by" or really a "Rendezvous"? Dialog-oriented Sci-Comm: From "STEAM Imaging" to "Whose Scalpel" - An Artist-in-Residency including pupils. From the perspective of the scientific organization, Linz.

 

 

 

B. Hofmann. Linking Science and Technology with Arts and the Next Generation – The Experimental Artist Residency “STEAM Imaging.” MIT Press Journal Leonardo 2021 doi:10.1162/leon_a_01792

Yen Tzu Chang. Sound Sculpture on Stage. Master Thesis, Universität für künstlerische und industrielle Gestaltung Linz, Institut für Medien, Interface Culture, 2018. Chapter 5.2.: Whose Scalpel, pages 43 - 48

THE PRACTICE OF ART AND SCIENCE
Read more about the aims of the residency STEAM IMAGING to foster engagement with, and ownership of future technology and THE EUROPEAN DIGITAL ART AND SCIENCE NETWORK in this book.

"STEAM Imaging" discussed in ”Creating ArtScience Collaboration – Bringing Value to Organizations”
Delighted that the experimental artist-in-residency project "STEAM Imaging" is discussed in the book ”Creating ArtScience Collaboration – Bringing Value to Organizations,” by Claudia Schnugg.

ART AND SCIENCE BY FRAUNHOFER, FRAUNHOFER-NETZWERK »WISSENSCHAFT, KUNST UND DESIGN«
Whose Scalpel, Yen Tzu Chang: Seite 22,23

YenTzu Chang At MRI Scanner

Artist Yen Tzu Chang acquires medical data for the blood flow visualizations and the 3D model for the “Whose Scalpel” performance installation

Yen Tzu Chang Performing Whose Scalpel

Yen Tzu Chang performs “Whose Scalpel” at the Fraunhofer Society event “The Art of Complexity” in Berlin on June 5th, 2018

Yens Heart MeVisLab

This depicts the MeVisLab medical imaging development platform

An artwork from the pupils, made with their scanned own hand model

Steam Imaging

The logo of the STEAM Imaging residency program and a fusion of anatomical and functional MR imaging show the brain areas which are activated during listening to music. The steam is artificial.

A Girl is preparing her performance

Pupils’ prepare their STEAM Imaging performance

Yen Tzu Chang, Sabrina Haase and pupils prepare their performance

A Fruitful Exchange Between Art and Science

Conversation about responsible research and innovation

Contact

Contact Press / Media

Bianka Hofmann

Contact Science Engagement and Press & Media Work

Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS
Max-von-Laue-Str. 2
28359 Bremen

Phone +49 421 218-59231

Fax +49 421 218-9859231

Contact Press / Media

Sabrina Tölken

Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS
Max-von-Laue-Str. 2
28359 Bremen

Phone +49 421 218-59221