By Vic Cox

An unusual art-science project, called Makrolab, will be installed at Campus Point this month in conjunction with UCSB’s first State of the Arts Conference since becoming the headquarters for the UC Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA).

The design team, under the direction of the lab’s originator, Slovenian artist Marko Peljhan, UCSB associate professor of art, will be upgrading the modular structure, officially called “Makrolab markIIex,” around mid-May. But the experimental, titanium-framed laboratory will also backdrop the closing lecture, a performance, and reception for UCIRA conference attendees on the afternoon of May 20.

Starting on May 19, the UCIRA conference—the registration deadline is May 10—will offer discussions of not only the state of the arts on UC campuses but also a variety of models for teaching and research in the broader community. Its events are free and open to the public. Alma Robinson, executive director of the group California Lawyers for the Arts, will keynote the event with a look at arts advocacy and public policy.

Panel discussions, a premiere performance of “The Monument Project,” and screening an experimental documentary on California migrant workers called “Rancho California” are also part of this free conference. For program details and registration, go to <www.ucira.ucsb.edu/news.html>.

If the State of the Arts conference is more than an update, the Makrolab is a 10-year project, which is nearing completion only now. The portable 45-foot-long by 10-foot-wide laboratory generates power with wind turbine and solar panels, and is configured for satellite and network connections. It will not be equipped for it at UCSB, but up to eight live-in researchers can monitor and study telecommunications, environment, migration, and weather patterns.

For Peljhan, these global systems are sources for understanding how the planet functions on social, technological and natural levels. Earlier prototypes of the lab have been featured in Documenta X in Kassel, Germany, (1997) and the Venice Biennale (2003). The final iteration will be permanently installed in 2007 at locations in the Arctic and the Antarctic.