The LASERs (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) are an international program of evening gatherings that bring artists and scientists together for informal presentations and conversation with an audience. This evening, chaired by cultural historian Piero Scaruffi, will feature two talks:

Harpreet Sareen (New School) on "Post-Human Design / The Great Decentering"

Alexander Sorenson (Binghamton University) on "Hidden Hearts: On Selfhood and the (Un)sayable in Rilke's Poetry"

Harpreet Sareen is an Assistant Professor of Interaction and Media Design at Parsons School of Design, New York and Director of the Synthetic Ecosystems Lab that focusses on biological futures and their implications in interaction design. A graduate of the MIT Media Lab, Sareen is interested in the cybernetics of organisms and materials. His work is situated at the intersection of Material Science, Biology and Electronics. Sareen terms this as 'Convergent Design' to create hybrid substrates and bionic materials that lend themselves for future ecological machinery, sensing systems and interaction design.

Alexander Sorenson is an Assistant Professor of German Studies at Binghamton University. His book "The Waiting Water: Order, Sacrifice and Submergence in German Realism" (2024) examines the relationship between water imagery, law, and sacrifice in 19th-century German literature. He is currently working on a new book project, tentatively titled "Ecologies of Transience", which explores the poetic roots of modern environmental consciousness.

Detailed bios at: www.lasertalks.com

Register here: https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_x5NW0HjoRlik71fweYVj_Q

The Stanford LASERs are co-sponsored by the deans of Humanities and Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and by Chemical Engineering.