Awards Banquet:
The Awards Banquet will take place at 8:00 PM on Monday,
May 21st. This dinner honors the SID international award winners.
Luncheon:
The Luncheon will take place at 12:00 Noon on Wednesday,
May 23rd.
Speaker: Charles M. Falco
UA Chair of Condensed Matter Physics and Professor of Optical
Sciences
College of Optical Sciences
Title: The Science of Optics; The History of Art
Charles
Falco, professor of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona,
will deliver the Luncheon address during Display Week 2007, which
will be entitled “The Science of Optics, The History of Art.”
Falco is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Optical Society
of America, has published more than 250 scientific manuscripts,
most of which are related to various physical properties of thin
film materials, co-edited two books, has seven U.S. patents, and
has given more than 200 invited talks on his research at
conferences and research institutions in some 20 countries. To
read his complete bio, click here.
Falco will discuss his work with
renowned artist David Hockney, who recently observed that certain
drawings and paintings from as early as the Renaissance seemed
almost "photographic" in detail. Following an extensive
visual investigation of western art of the past 1,000 years,
Hockney made the revolutionary claim that artists even of the
prominence of van Eyck and Bellini must have used optical aids.
However, many art historians insisted there was no supporting
evidence for such a remarkable assertion. In this talk, Falco will
show a wealth of optical evidence supporting Hockney’s claim. To
read more about his address, click here.
Special Event
There will be no special event at SID 2007.
Charles Falco
Biography
Charles Falco is a
Professor of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona where
he holds the UA Chair of Condensed Matter Physics. He is a Fellow
of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, and the Optical Society of America, has
published more than 250 scientific manuscripts, most of which are
related to various physical properties of thin film materials,
co-edited two books, has seven U.S. patents, and has given more
than 200 invited talks on his research at conferences and research
institutions in some 20 countries. However, in addition to his
scientific research, in 1998 he was co-recipient of an award from
the AICA for his work as co-curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim
museum's "The Art of the Motorcycle," for which he also
wrote the exhibition catalog's introductory essay and
bibliography. With over 2 million visitors thus far in New York,
Chicago, Bilbao, and the Guggenheim Las Vegas, it is by far the
most successful exhibition of industrial design ever assembled,
and is the 5th most attended museum exhibition of any kind. More
recently, a collaboration with the artist David Hockney that found
artists of such repute as van Eyck, Bellini and Caravaggio used
optical projections in creating portions of their work has
resulted in widespread coverage in the popular media, including an
hour-long BBC special and a segment on CBS '60 Minutes', and over
60 invited talks and public lectures on this topic in ten
countries.
Charles
Falco Luncheon Address
Charles Falco, professor of Optical
Sciences at the University of Arizona, will deliver the Luncheon
address during Display Week 200, which will be entitled "The
Science of Optics, The History of Art."
Falco will discuss his work with
renowned artist David Hockney, who recently observed that certain
drawings and paintings from as early as the Renaissance seemed
almost "photographic" in detail. Following an extensive
visual investigation of western art of the past 1,000 years,
Hockney made the revolutionary claim that artists even of the
prominence of van Eyck and Bellini must have used optical aids.
However, many art historians insisted there was no supporting
evidence for such a remarkable assertion. In this talk, Falco will
show a wealth of optical evidence supporting Hockney's claim. He
will also discuss the imaging properties of the "mirror
lens" (concave mirror), and some of the implications this
work has for the history of science as well as the history of art
(and the modern fields of machine vision and computerized image
analysis). These discoveries convincingly demonstrate optical
instruments were in use-by artists, not scientists-nearly 200
years earlier than commonly thought possible, and account for the
remarkable transformation in the reality of portraits that
occurred early in the 15th century.
This collaboration and discovery
has garnered wide media attention, including an hour-long BBC
special and a segment on CBS "60 Minutes." Falco has
delivered more than 60 invited talks and public lectures on this
topic in 10 countries. He holds the UA Chair of Condensed Matter
Physics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Optical
Society of America; has published more than 250 scientific
manuscripts, most of which are related to various physical
properties of thin film materials; co-edited two books; has seven
U.S. patents; and has given more than 200 invited talks on his
research at conferences and research institutions in some 20
countries. In addition, in 1998, he was the co-recipient of an
award from the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) for
his work as co-curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum's
"The Art of the Motorcycle," for which he also wrote the
exhibition catalog's introductory essay and bibliography.
