Pasadena has always been a city of art and science, the two intertwined with its identity like those strands of elusive DNA sought by Linus Pauling at Caltech in the 1950s.  There are larger cities in the world, but few if any are better branded by the impact of art and science or able to replicate Pasadena’s extraordinary blend of institutions engaged in those two explorations.  

Perhaps more than any of its other fine qualities, Pasadena’s longtime devotion to the arts and sciences is what makes it a quintessential city for the twenty-first century.   Science seems to be confounding humanity’s perception of itself and the world, and artists are always drawn to such a nexus of change—searching for its poetry, uncovering its new vocabularies of expression, and exposing its social discourse.

To celebrate this quintessentiality, the Pasadena Arts Council and the Williamson Gallery at Art Center College of Design have collaborated to present AxS—resources and events for discovering the territory between art and science—which launched with DEEP SPACES on October 14 and 17, 2008. 

Tuesday, October 14, 2008: OBSERVE – Exhibition at the Williamson Gallery, Art Center College of Design

OBSERVE has commissioned five contemporary artists to create works of art in collaboration with the science, knowledge, and technology resources of the Spitzer Science Center, a Caltech/NASA lab managing the infra-red deep-space Spitzer Orbiting Telescope. The exhibition will open new and innovative doorways to the subject of astronomy and its implications for humanity.  A discussion among the OBSERVE artists and scientists investigated the interplay between the two disciplines, followed by a reception and tour of the exhibition. 

LEARN MORE AT www.artandscience.us

AxS: Art & Science Initiative

Photography by Steven A. Heller

TACIT (Theater Arts at Caltech) presents Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht Directed by Brian Brophy May 15, 17, 22, 23, 24, 2009http://events.caltech.edu/events/event-6444.html

Tackling the conflict between dogmatism and scientific evidence, Bertolt Brecht's play concerns the latter period of the life of Galileo Galilei, the great Italian Baroque natural philosopher, who was persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church for the promulgation of his scientific discoveries.


Life of Galileo is directed by Brian Brophy (Shawshank Redemption, Day Without a Mexican, Star Trek: The Next Generation), the director of Theater Arts at Caltech (TACIT). The cast features Caltech undergraduates, graduate students, staff members and Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) engineers. Visit www.events.caltech.edu for tickets and information.

OBSERVE Catalogue Available

Friday, October 17, 2008: THE SEQUENCE –                 World Premiere Play at the Theatre @ Boston Court

In the fierce competition to sequence the human genome, will the grand prize be the public good or the private profit? And in the midst of the frenzied race to determine what makes a human being, how will three people - each in hot pursuit of scientific discovery and enduring fame - discover their own humanity? This brilliant comic thrill ride seeks primal human answers.  A conversation on how art and science intersect on this stage with The Sequence playwright Paul Mullin and Larry Wilson, public editor of the Pasadena Star-News, followed the production. 

Today, Pasadena finds itself uniquely poised to blend ideas emanating from the art/science border.  The city’s identity resonates around its unique past and its exceptional cultural resources.  The future we all confront will require both sides of the brain to forge effective solutions to both local and global challenges engendered by new knowledge, technologies, and rapid change. Through information resources, conversations and unique collaborations, AxS will radiate the spark of creativity that results when the disciplines of art and science are each encouraged to ignite the other.

Photography by Steven A. Heller