Arts & Sciences: Telluride

In September 1979, I organized a ten day “Arts & Sciences” workshop/retreat in Telluride and Alta Lakes, Colorado. The program was supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities and the Zoline Foundation.

The invited participants and presentations included Ed Bryant (science fiction); Harold Cohen, UCSD (artificial intelligence and the arts; Aaron drawing system); August Coppola, SFSU (thermographic film); Margaret Fisher and Robert Hughes (music/dance performance, “Gli Insetti”); Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (satellite arts projects); John Lifton and Pamela Zoline (computer music and Mountain Village planning); Stephen Gregory, MIT (Aspen interactive video disc); Peter Crown, Hampshire College (physiological psychology and video art); Will Walter, Polaroid Research Labs (large ‘pleine aire’ holography); Elliott Levinthal, Stanford U. (“Mars in 3D”, film produced by the Viking Lander and JPL); Jim Wiseman (video synthesis), William Fetter, Boeing Aerospace (digital human figure rendering and motion studies); Nancie Clark (Art Concepts); Richard Lowenberg (Bio-Arts projects); Grant Johnson (video documentation).

The programs presentations, set amid the colorful Fall splendor of surrounding 13,000’ peaks, group hikes, and hot spring soaks, were a catalyst for wide ranging discussions, some arguments, and a number of resulting arts, sciences and technology collaborations over the following years.

NASA U2 infrared aerial photo of the Telluride region (early 1970s?).