From October 29th to November 6th, the Bay Area will come alive with over 100 science and technology activities – lectures, debates, exhibitions, concerts, plays, workshops, and more. This ambitious collaborative public education initiative brings together leading academic, scientific, corporate, and non-profit institutions to showcase the region as an international leader in innovation. Science happens all around us and directly impacts our daily lives – are you ready to unleash your inner scientist? Learn more. #basf11

swissnex San Francisco is thrilled to be a core partner in this year’s inaugural festival. We are organizing events all over the city in collaboration. Here’s a rundown of what we’re cooking up:

Think Art – Act Science

Now through November 12, 2011
San Francisco Art Institute, Walter and McBean Galleries
800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco

Find out what happens when artists spend nine months in a science lab. This exhibition features eight works developed during the Swiss artists-in-labs residency, which places artists in scientific settings.

The Art of Robots

November 1, 2011, 6:30 pm
swissnex San Francisco
730 Montgomery Street, San Francisco

Have you ever seen a blind, juggling robot? After the evening’s panel discussion between scientists, artists, and a science fiction specialist, you’ll be able to answer yes. This event is part of an ongoing series on robotics.

Best of LASER

November 2, 2011, 6:00 pm
swissnex San Francisco
730 Montgomery Street, San Francisco

Geometric patterns of logarithmic spirals. The art of recycling. No-camera photography. Visual art and physics teaming up to understand the universe. Don’t miss descriptions of these and other projects as well as the chance to share your own work at the interface of art and science at this Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER).

Will We Ever Understand the Brain?

November 2, 2011, 7:00 pm
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Drive, San Francisco

Henry Markram, Coordinator of the Human Brain Project at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in conversation with David Eagleman, Director of the Laboratory for Perception and Action at the Baylor College of Medicine. Moderated by Christian Simm, Executive Director, swissnex San Francisco.

dorkbot San Francisco

November 2, 2011, 7:30 pm
MADE (Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment)
610 16th Street, Suite 230, Oakland

As always, dorkbot brings “people doing strange things with science.” Swiss Ph.D. student Philipp Reist joins the roster to describe his Blind Juggler robot and other projects.

Exploratorium After Dark: The Senses

November 3, 2011, 6:00 pm
Exploratorium
Palace of Fine Arts, 3601 Lyon Street, San Francisco

Philip Reist, a Ph.D. student in the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich demonstrates his invention, the Blind Juggler, a robotic device that relies on mathematics (rather than sensors) to keep a ball in play during the Exploratorium’s “After Dark” series. “After Dark: The Senses” is an evening designed to help you get in touch with the sensual world—human and otherwise.

Remaking the Universe Using Particle Physics and Art

November 3, 2011, 6:00 pm
San Francisco Art Institute, Lecture Hall
800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco

While physicists attempt to understand the universe in their own way, Christian Gonzenbach draws on his experience as an artist-in-residence in the lab of Martin Pohl at the University of Geneva and at CERN to do so with experiments and sculptures using objects from everyday life.

Sci-Crawl: Solar Bot Symphony

November 4, 2011, 7:00 pm
The Lab
2948 16th Street, San Francisco

This hands-on workshop, based on the SolarSoundModule by Ralf Schreiber, combines simple analogue circuits, piezo speakers, and tiny photovoltaic panels to create unique electronic organisms that come alive with light. Build your own miniature solar animabots and hear them chirp and coo like birds and insects in a collective performance with SF-based Swiss sound artist Jorge Bachmann.