Beakerhead

Beakerhead is a year-round education and outreach initiative that combines the arts/culture sectors with the science/technology sectors to encourage collaboration, innovation, and science education through interactive art exhibits, engineered installations, entertainment, and workshops. The year-round program culminates in an annual five-day phenomenon consisting of over 60 citywide events every September in Calgary, Alberta, Canada – drawing international presenters and attendees. 

Through public art installations, science on the streets, and community and school competitions, Beakerhead promotes the progression of education at the intersection of arts, science, and engineering. Since its inception in 2013, Beakerhead has become one of Calgary’s largest collaborations, bringing together students, artists, scientists, engineers, Calgarians, and tourists in indoor and outdoor public spaces and venues throughout Calgary. Presenters have included: former astronaut and musician Chris Hadfield,^[1] ArcAttack, Zimoun, Bee Kingdom Glass, Wu Tang Clan’s GZA, Dr. Chris Emdin, MondoSpider, El Pulpo Mecanico, Amanda Parer, and CompressorHead. 

In 2016, more than 130,000 people attended Beakerhead.^[2]

Partners and Collaborators

Notable Beakerhead partners and collaborators have included Alberta Ballet, Alberta College of Art + Design, Calgary Zoo, Canada Science and Technology Museum, Canadian Space Agency, Glenbow Museum, Mount Royal University, National Music Centre, Royal Tyrrell Museum, SMART Technologies, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, TELUS Spark, Theatre Calgary, and University of Calgary.

Programs

Recurring Annual Programs

• Four-to-Six: Stephen Avenue Walk is transformed into an entertaining daily exhibit full of hands-on encounters with robots, music, street experiments, edible anatomy, science busking, and a variety of artists and performers.
• Engineered Eats: Food and drink meet science at participating restaurants and bars featuring Beakerhead-themed creations. Past themes: Eggs (2015), Milk (2016), Barley (2017).
• Workshops and Tours: Beakerhead hosts workshops, talks, screenings, and readings for guest artists, engineer academics, and the general public.
• Beakernight: A one-night-only event featuring dance parties, performances, and indoor and outdoor installations. Previous Beakernights have included crane riding, massive 3D projections, inflatable artworks, science demonstrations, and human-sized hamster wheel.

Beakerhead Big Bang Program

Beakerhead Big Bang is an interactive public art proposal and residency program that helps support the creation of new artwork, which will debut in Calgary during the five-day long Beakerhead event every September. The program invites artists, architects, scientists, and other creative professionals to propose an interactive public art installation that incorporates science, technology, and collective experience. The selected project will be funded by Beakerhead and built in Calgary over the course of a year, beginning with a weeklong planning residency hosted at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. 

The inaugural Big Bang Residency was awarded to the BASS SHIP by Beama.The BASS Ship, which stands for Beama Applied Sciences Sector Ship, is a 30-foot high interactive audio-visual spaceship that invites participants to explore ideas about non-verbal communication, culture, and civilization.

School Programs

Beakerhead works with the kindergarten to grade 12 education system to provide curriculum-related experiences that allow students to explore the combination of both artistic and scientific skills. In 2015, Beakerhead worked with 24,200 students in 104 participating schools. The current school programs include field trips, school visits, and an annual Ingenuity Challenge.

SciComm Lab

For the past ten years, the co-founders of Beakerhead, Jay Ingram and Mary Anne Moser, have hosted a science and communications program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity where participants could learn to present science with a compelling, audience-focused approach. Previously, the SciComm labs have been intensive two-week summer courses, but, as of 2017, Beakerhead is extending the program and offering courses across Canada. Previous course sessions included “Elevator Pitch,” “Personalizing the Impersonal,” “Audience-Focused Communications,” and “Improv.”

Past Events

2013

The first edition of Beakerhead took place September 11–15, 2013. The main events and attractions included:

• Sustainival: The world’s first green carnival and midway, powered by vegetable oils, wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy.
• Four-to-Six: Stephen Avenue Walk between 1 Street SE and 4 Street SW was transformed into an entertaining exhibit featuring street-based science experiments and robots making art.
• Engineered Eats: Dining became an experimental experience where food and drink met science at Beakerhead’s participating restaurants and bars.
• Shell International Engineering Competition: Engineering students from across Canada, the United States, and Europe competed in a 24-hour challenge of ingenuity.
• Theatre and music performances including the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, DieSpace 3.0, and i-ROBOT Theatre.
• Catharsis Catapults: Teams designed and built catapults to toss love-to-hate items.
• Beakernight: An evening featuring dance parties, performances, and outdoors and indoor installations, including a nine-foot laser cat and musical tesla coils that shot bolts of lightning.

2014

The second edition of Beakerhead took place September 10–14, 2014. The main events and attractions included:

• Little Big Street: A miniature neighbourhood featuring interactive structures such as a human-sized nest and an inflatable giant lotus.
• Laser Cat: A 16-foot engineered art installation from Art Directors Club in the United States and Hungry Castle in Barcelona with an outdoor dance floor and videographic light and art.
• Four-to-Six: Stephen Avenue Walk between 1 Street SE and 4 Street SW was transformed into an entertaining exhibit featuring street-based science experiments and robots making art.
• Engineered Eats: Dining becomes an experimental experience when food and drink meet science at Beakerhead’s participating restaurants and bars.
• Theatre performances including Ghost River Theatre’s adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Tomorrow’s Child.
• The Periodic Table: A sustainable energy ferris-wheel-turned-dining-room where diners can enjoy a meal created by chef Nicole Gomes, a contestant on Top Chef Canada.
• Net Blow-Up: A self-supporting, climbable structure designed by three artists from Vienna, Austria, called Numen/For Use.
• Beakernight: An evening featuring dance parties, performances, and outdoors and indoor installations including a two-storey high, fire-breathing octopus from El Pulpo Mecanico.^[3]

2015

The third edition of Beakerhead took place September 16–20, 2015. The main events and attractions included:

• Sandbox of Human Ingenuity: A giant sandbox featuring The Claw, a larger-than-life sized version of the classic arcade game.
• A performance from science advocate and rapper GZA of Wu-Tang Clan.
• A String (Theory) of Incredible Encounters: An outdoor gallery of engineered art installations, including Intrude, five huge bunnies designed by Australian artist Amanda Parer in Central Memorial Park, and the Fabulist, an interplanetary inflatable designed by Bee Kingdom Glass.
• The Gorgeous Libation: A one-night-only pop-up bar where patrons could explore the history and future of energy.
• The Seven Wonderers: A night of science storytelling led by John Rennie, former editor-in-chief of Scientific American; Rose Eveleth, host and producer of Meanwhile in the Future; Torah Kachur, national science columnist for CBC Radio, Jennifer Gardy, regular guest host of the Nature of Things for CBC TV; Sarah Chow, science comedian and former host of This Week at UBC; Raj Bhardwaj, medical columnist for CBC Radio; and Ivan Semeniuk, science reporter for the Globe and Mail.
• Beakernight: An evening featuring dance parties, performances, and outdoors and indoor installations including a fire-spitting skee ball and large-scale 3D projections.^[4][5]

2016

The third edition of Beakerhead took place September 14–18, 2016. The main events and attractions included:

• Rock ‘n Roll History of Space Exploration: Jay Ingram and his band, the Cosmonauts, led the audience on a visual and musical journey of space exploration.
• Four-to-Six: Stephen Avenue Walk between 1 Street SE and 3 Street SW was transformed into an entertaining exhibit featuring mobile contraptions and a cornstarch walk.
• BASS Ship: A 30-foot interactive audio-visual spaceship installation designed by Beama.
• Tentacles: Giant octopus tentacles designed by UK artists Filthy Luker and Pedro Estrellas emerage from the McGill Block.
• The Seven Wonderers: A night of science storytelling led by Nathaniel Barr, a professor of creativity and creative thinking at Sheridan College; Kori Czuy, a PhD student at the University of Calgary studying sensual mathematics; Gill Deacon, a CBC Radio host, ward-winning broadcaster, and bestselling author; Dr. Christopher Emdin, an associate professor at Columbia University and a leading researcher in hip-hop, science, and education; Randy Frank, executive director of research and development at 3M Canada; Seema Goel, an artist in residence at the Faculty of Science at the University of Manitoba; Kristofer Kelly-Frere, a strategist with the Civic Innovation Project at the City of Calgary.
• Beakernight: An evening featuring dance parties, performances, and outdoors and indoor installations including a can-crushing cow and human-sized hamster wheel.

References